I am sitting up on the hill with a cold beer.

Sun is shining...no wind. The land is completely covered in frost.

Kids are home.


I am watching my sheep about 3/4 of a mile off...and listening to my guard dogs bark.

They are really going at it. I can recognize some individual barks.


Pretty content.


You lot have a happy place?


Just that.

Anywhere my girls are.

Spring. Before it gets too hot. Watching my rice sprout.
Fall when the rice is being cut. The smell of the dew and the geese coming down for the winter making noise overhead.

When I’m high up in the mountains, and other wild country. Afoot and alone.

Any time I'm in the woods/wild alone or with my boys

Being Home in NW Michigan in the Summertime for couple wks

Huntin turkeys in the Springtime anywhere they are

I do

I have a few. One's my back porch picking my guitar. One's where I used to take our retriever to chase pheasants, One's a stretch of trout stream and the rest are up in the mtn's a few miles from the road where I've hunted several years. Been thinking about where I'd like my ashes to go, I may write up three places where my boys would have to hike in a ways.

One last kick in the ass, LOL!!

Yessir.

Eagle Cap Wilderness, Matterhorn.

Watching my goats:

Cheers Jim !!

You know mine.

Dining table, with family & dogs !

Morning coffee under the carport with a couple of dogs.........listening to chris plant on the radio.....

Grilling out in the same location with animals while sipping

Bourbon a close second......

On top of the ridge overlooking home.

My porch in Idaho.

"Everybody's got a happy place."

Probably not. I am happy a lot of places most of the time but most/all of them would come with times of terror and times of major aggravation as well. Seasonal happy places maybe?

I live on my happy place. I stumbled across it 6+ years ago and God said, "Here,...this is for you". I bought it for a song.

I view it as the reward for all the bullshit I've been through. Maybe that's right,...maybe it's not.

But something must be going on. I left home at 19 without a clue as to how to get by in the world--and everything that has transpired since then has put me here in this situation that I've done nothing to deserve.

I just got up and went to work every day for a half century and it worked out plenty good enough to satisfy an old country boy from the sticks of western Kentucky.

I know other people who did what I did and never ended up with schitt.

On an Adirondack trout stream, fishing for native brookies.

The black hills. Damn near anywhere in em.

Jim;
Good morning to you sir, I hope you're all well.

Thanks for the thread, as on a bunch of levels it's a subject near and dear to my heart.

My good wife used to laugh and say if I went missing, if the Appy was gone, I'd be home by dark and if she was still in the horse pen, then I was in the workshop.

For me, having a place where I can go and reflect or get centered or meditate on the uncertain vagaries of life - or all three - is neccesary.

All the best to you all Jim.

Dwayne

Anyplace I can sit in silence and solitude with a rifle.

Running a combine.[img]http://[/img]

Mhmm, very nice Donald

When I'm on one of my Harleys....

I can see it in my minds eye.

Can even hear them dogs if I concentrate.

Hangin' with Snoopy.

Fishing on Ogontz Bay in the U.P. for Smallmouth.

A warm puppy.

Fishing.

Supper with Paul, newto 99s

Pretty much anywhere in the the Sandhills and especially if is by the Dismal or Elkhorn or one of the Platte rivers…

Behind the bars is one of my best happy places.



In the woods is another.



On the water.



Any other place in nature.

I'm still waiting on an invite, Brother

Sitting in the tree stand when it's snowing.

Sitting in the tree stand when it's not snowing.

One place it's not, That's in a MRI machine. My wife had one for the spot on her lung.
Carry on.

Rock", party.

Me too, brother

Being on the lake is never bad.

Sky islands in Southern Arizona, up high at sunset, watching the shadows of the mountains walk across the valley floor below...and the colors from gold to red on the grass flats peppered with mesquite trees.

Yeah, that will do.

Someplace in the wilderness. Like where I hunt or fish.

Liver, an' onions.

In the cold, in late January, it's a sunny day, but the sun isn't up. 5-6 dozen duck decoys in front of me, a southern wind, melting ice and a big enough water hole that decoys are swimming. Standing next to a tree in shin deep water.

I'm gonna kill ducks. But that scenario is special.

No pics, even though I have them. You have to imagine the chill, the sunrise, the two stroke fumes, the dog whining, the shotgun actions slamming shut.

Gives me chills thinking about it.

Not really .


Just am.
Not happy, sad, or excited.

In the backcountry and wilderness of Idaho.

I can't leave the coast because the happiest place is on the water. If I can bring dinner home, all the better.

Beautiful! How do you like the Scotty? Thought it was more of a Canadian thing?

S.E. Alaska followed by the interior of Alaska….no place on earth is comparable on a beautiful day. No place on earth is as inhospitable either but that’s what makes it so extraordinary. If I can’t sleep I just think about a float plane ride through the mountains and I’m drifting off…

Might as well be happy with what we got!

Since you asked:

Indoors Idaho ain't bad either.

Truth ED !

Especially with your Son & his dog !!

Great stuff everyone.

Just over the porch roofline, up on the ridge.

It would be somewhere like this, my happy place requires a connection to the land.

#2
With a yak underneath me my fishing pole & cooler.

Watching the sunrise in the Badlands of ND, soft breeze beginning, bow in my lap, coyotes start trying to locate each other after a night of hunting, knowing at any moment, the big Muley from the previous evening might come by...

Trying to comfort Gilbert when he was ill.

A hi bench in the Wolf mountains, clear day with the dark blue Bighorns in one direction, the Pryors in another direction.

A clear calm summer morning running calm water up near or in the territories, smiling clients in the front of the boat heading for their fish of a lifetime.

My ashes will be divided between the two.

As the saying goes, I’m a lost citizen of nowhere.

Osky

Your happy “place” is a stuffed animal?

PLACE?

SMH

Wherever you go, there you are.

Wherever you go, there you are.

So nice I said it twice...

I like it out here on the prairie.

Anytime spring through fall.

About anywhere with this little guy

Thanks Broken, those photos are day brighteners right there.

Sending up prayers.

Wishing you and your wife all the best.

You're welcome, Grandkids give a tired life new meaning. That kid is only 5yrs old and already a fishing fool, crappie are his favorite. Grandma sent this picture in and they put him on the CH9 news.

Down @ the coast in NC. I'm partial to the Gulf Stream off NC or hunting dang near anything. Somewhere around 10-12 weeks for a stream run and then catch a good forecast. Been tough to do the last few years.

Either balls deep or up on a mountain with no one around for miles.

Each scenario has it's time and place.

I'm kinda scratchin' my head about this one. Apparently thread titles aren't his strong suit.

^^^^^^ Dude, you got a cool ice cream machine ! ^^^^^^

Day drinking, it's a thing.

I thought it was fer sodie pops

Tide Change posted one of my favorites, the Wallowa Eagle Cap wilderness. Spent lots of time there, growing up in the valley below. It's right up there with the Umpqua drainage, and the coast.

Steelhead fishing.





Or trout angling.

Since we established that a PLACE can be a teddy bear, a door mat, a grandfather clock, a peach cobbler

Hell why not a pressure chiggun fryer??

You forgot a bowl of popcorn mixed with jelly beans.
W


T


F

The cabin

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.....

Youve got a good start for a good song there

Heym06 - that's a collage of pictures I took in 2018, after I recovered from 4 major abdominal surgeries. I was gutted like a deer from stem to stern, 4 times in an 18 month period. While I was convalescing and going through therapy to regain my core strength, I kept dreaming about summiting the Matterhorn and Sacajawea one more time in my life. My hope was to see some Rocky Mountain Goats, so I took along a spotting scope. (I left my backpacking fly rod and spinning gear at home to save weight.)

Little did I know I'd be within 35 yards of some goats, and didn't need the scope after all. Meanwhile, trout were rising everywhere you could see, all across Ice Lake where I had set up my base camp. Go figure!

My doctors and surgeons all told me I wouldn't be able to do it, but I'm a fairly stubborn sort and I was going to prove them all wrong.

Joseph is my retirement home now, and I hope to be able to make that trek annually until I eventually croak.

Not a bad place at all to check out of the planet - and one of the best kept secrets of Oregon.

you're gonna ruin that secret if you keep posting here!

We must like this place, we spend enough time here

Nice cat feesh👍

Anywhere in the mountains.... my favorite is the hi country, like this

That's a carp... dummy.... and the fish is a rainbow trout.... jeesh....

Northern Pike, under the slot size

Nah, nobuddy pays attention to my pontifications. 🤓

Is that a leopard skin thong you're using for a hatband Wabi?

LOL