Boring, Oregon that is. I wonder who came up with that name. I suppose it was probably someone with the surname of Boring. Hopefully it wasn’t intended as a descriptive name. But perhaps someone just thought that the simple life is the way to go.

I’m sure that much of the younger generation of electronic multi-taskers would have been horrendously bored with what I did today. What did I do? Well I walked in the rain. You heard me right; it finally rained. The forecast was for showers starting in the late morning. I was trying to figure out if I was going to take my backpack, but since it was already sprinkling on my way to the trail it turned out to be quite an easy decision.

I took a few pictures near the beginning of the Lower Salmon River trail. Most of the rest of that section I spent just walking and observing. Although I didn’t see anything that caught my eye in terms of photography, I still enjoyed my solitary hike. I was the only one out there on this rainy morning. Instead of hiking out and back the entire distance, I walked back to my car and then drove to the Central Salmon River trail head.

There was one car here. I figured that it belonged to the hardy souls who had a tent set up in the campground. Speaking of camping, I saw signs reading that the forest service was considering closing camping outside of developed fee campgrounds in this area. The portable toilet and trash cans were intended for hikers and were not intended to serve as fee free campground facilities. Of course instead of closing the area to free camping they just removed the toilet and trash cans. I do have to say that I don’t blame the campers for using the toilet. I would have done the same in their position. However, they could have certainly packed out their garbage.

It was raining pretty well while I hiked the Central Salmon River trail. I could have skipped it. I even thought about turning around. My thought was that I didn’t want to get my camera gear soaked. I set a time when I would turn around if the rain didn’t let up. When that time came I decided to continue, because I was enjoying myself. After all, what better way is there to spend a rainy day than walking on a trail? I reasoned that my gear has survived getting wet before. I just had to make sure that it didn’t get too wet.

I ended up seeing maybe ten people on this trail section, which surprised me. I figured that maybe the locals had gotten spoiled by all of the recent sunny weather. I, perhaps, may have been spoiled by the rain. The remainder of my time in Portland is expected to be sunny. How boring.