My husband, Derick, and I took a hike last week on Sunday
the 3rd of June. What an amazing trip, we went up to Lower Palisades Lake which is about a 3 mile trek up to the lake.
We stopped to have a snack when we got there then we sat
down to enjoy our surroundings, this was our look-out view:

(The date stamp is wrong this was 6-3-12. Better fix that setting!)

As we were sitting here enjoying the view, watching a hawk with a fish in his talons with the binocs, we hear off to the right some stomping and tromping like some horses are coming up upon us. Well if you know Upper Palisades off to the right, from this lookout, is just a mountain, there are no trails or anything else off in that direction. And immediately to the right of us is a giant rock that was maybe 15 feet tall, so we can not see what is coming. Amazingly enough, out from behind the rock comes bounding a mountain goat! A real live wild Mr Mountain Goat!! This guy acted excited, like he was spooked or being chased. As we sit in SHOCK against the rock that he was next going to jump on, he stops not 9 feet away from us. I am panicking because I have left my camera somewhere! Where the crap is it, I can't move or he is going to be gone! And yes, in an instant he jumps off again bounding toward the main trail. We hop up and follow him giggling at our encounter. We notice that there are a couple of ladies on the trail with dogs on leashes who are just receiving their own face to face brush with Mr. Mountain Goat. They are hooting and laughing and just as astonished about their reality as we just were. A few minutes later the women came up and we talked about what each of us had seen. One of them asked if we had seen him run straight dead on into a tree and how he was only about 5 feet away from them when he hit the trail. We all babbled on about how blown away we all were at seeing Mr. Mountain Goat and what a divine experience we had each had. It was a very satisfying and hopefully Not a once in a lifetime experience.

Well, high off of nature and raring to go we decide to hike out, we are still flabbergasted about what just happened. About 3/4 to 1 mile down the trail we hear stomping again to our left in the creek. Between us and the creek are a bunch of shrubs, so we can't see what is going on. We stop and Derick peaks through the shrub and says "It's a moose!" Holy Crap, can this day get ANY better! YES! Not 10 feet away is a young moose  hiding from us in the creek. So what do I do, (I do not want to miss getting a pic of this one too) I follow Mr. Moose up the trail as he meanders up the creek.

(Actual date 6-3-12)

Astonished, and even more high off nature we keep on trekking. Now this canyon has many many high cliffs and is a place where frequently you can see mountain goats up on the cliffs. Just like we did about another mile down the trail! This one seemed to be drinking from a spring or maybe eating something, and he was far away as you can see in the bottom picture.

Not the greatest of pics, but he was up there!

This is the cliff the above mountain goat was on, you can see a tiny white spek  near the left of the middle. That's him!

So I have decided that this blog is going to be about how I perceive the world. And on this hike we could have (having been to this lake many times) come to a conclusion about what would happen. We go to the lake, have our lunch, hike back with sore feet, no big deal, the end of the road is already chosen. BUT as the saying at the top says, "A traveler has no fixed plans". Derick had mentioned when we got there to maybe hike a bit further, I personally was beat. So thank goodness for a gracious man that says "I have no fixed plans", we decide to sit down and be quiet for a while. And look what Amazing things happened!!

The next line in the saying above is "and is not intent on arriving" which means to me that we had no expectations of what was going to happen up there. Of course you always hope for a sight of some wildlife, but 8 FEET AWAY and that many! Can I say HOLY CRAP again!! This day will go down in my record books as one of the Greatest!!