Mile 1578 to Saddle between haystack and Parkview mtns

Yesterday's grind payed off today with some fantastic views. Unfortunately today also brought back the afternoon thunderstorms. The morning hike was great. I got to the roadside spring Beads had mentioned and it was beautiful, at least compared to all that cow water yesterday. There wasn't going to be any more water issues for a while. Most of the hike I was up on a grassy ridge with clear views in all directions.
It was crystal clear blue skies in the morning but as I was heading for a 5 mile exposed stretch the storm clouds gathered. I debated dropping off the ridge into the valley below where I could follow a road past the ridge or even all the way around the big mountain is have to climb after it. I eventually decided to stick with the trail as the clouds hadn't created any lightning and only a little rain. It totally worked and I had more great views from the ridge. I ended up camping a few miles after the ridge right before a big climb up a mountain as the storm clouds were back. I made the right choice as right after I got my tent set up it started to thunder and rain.
Shortly before that I ran into a new creature I'd never seen before. I'm calling it a tree mongoose. It looked exactly like a mongoose but was running around in the pine trees doing stunts like a squirrel.