Every Memorial Day (Monday, not the weekend) we go visit whatever Fire lookouts that we can. Usually because this is the weekend that the road to Keller Peak lookout (Children's Forest or ) is first opened.

Let me back up....

The Memorial Day weekend is the weekend that the mountain communities start coming alive for the year. At least the warm part of the year. It stars on Friday with garage sales. Then Saturday continues with more garage sales PLUS the annual book sale at the library. Which I live for. All year long. Saving my nickels, dimes, quarters and occassional dollar bill. :) Sunday the garage sales die down and the BBQ's pick up. Then Monday most people are recreating or leaving.

Now on Monday it's our tradition to visit whatever Fire lookouts are open - like I said above. And this year was no exception. We started the day packing up lunches, dog stuff, camera and gear, and water water water. Off we went.

First stop was to the closest lookout: Strawberry Peak! We had an added bonus this year. Friend's of ours are manning the lookout this year! Bill and Robbie (his wife) were there starting their first day, complete with training. It was so nice that day. Clear, cool, and great company. Here's a picture of the tower:

We left there and headed to the next stop: Keller Peak fire lookout. Again, it was clear, cool and beautiful. The volunteer looked a bit lonely. No one was visiting nor had they :( We saw only one car come up. People! Climb on up if you visit!! The volunteers love to have company! I talked with the volunteer a bit while Sean let the doggies run a bit. The volunteer came right out to see the dogs as he worked with rescue too. He liked them :) Here's a view of this tower.

Where I took that picture was the place where the marker is for the lives due to a military plane crash. We always stop. It seems appropriate to pause there on Memorial Day.

Directly above the plaque is this awesome root system. I don't know how long this tree has been dead. But it's roots are beautiful.

We left finally with the intention of driving from Green Valley Lake to Butler Peak via the Snow Slide Road. Long drive, long story. I will condense.

We entered the road, it was pretty rough. But we drove it a ways. Stopped to hike a small portion of a trail (I don't know what it was called). Then drove some more. Stopped to have lunch on the road side. Drove some more. Passed to men bicycling who didn't know where the road went (hee hee) - they told us to watch out for some springs. Drove some more. Stopped to investigate a side road. Drove some more. Found the springs!

Butt shot!

Drove some more, ended up at a locked gate. Huh?? We finally got back to Fawnskin and headed home. It had been a long day. Tuesday I checked online on the condition of that road and why the gate was locked to GET OUT of the area we were in. Appears the road was closed and somehow managed to find the correct maze path to get on to it ha ha ha.

Butler Peak Fire lookout was closed due to poor road conditions.

All in all it was a great weekend :)