The Trailing of the Sheep

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Along with the entire town of Ketchum, we were waiting on Main Street for a parade which was thirty minutes late. Just as I was starting to feel the first pangs of boredom: they were there. Thousands of sheep running, sprinting down the street, bleating and panicked and jumping over each other, trying to escape through the crowd, getting reined in by barking dogs, cheered on by screaming kids, and blessed with holy water by a courageous preacher standing his ground in the middle of the street. And then it was over.

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Colgate Licks

For the 70 miles between Lowell and Powell, Highway 12 cuts through the Clearwater National Forest: a beautiful stretch of driving, but one without any towns, services or other people. The only time we got out of the car was to visit Colgate Licks: an open glade in the forest whose sodium-rich rocks attract wildlife of the licking sort.

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