july 2014 Utah and Idaho and Montana

journal july 2014 Utah and Idaho

6/30/14 ABQ

Yesterday, we helped with the music in both church services (our new pastor Dustin Wilhite got "installed"), then hit the road in our well packed RV -- we always take twice as much stuff as we need, but we have lots or room.  Larry was going to drive right to ABQ, but decided to stop at the Scenic truck stop to gas up --  it was VERY lucky he did that, since he then realized that he left his wallet at home on the dresser(!!!).  He used my credit card (the cashier commented how he did not look like a "Nancy"!), and we headed back home to retrieve the wallet.  If we had gotten all the way to ABQ and then got gas, we probably would have had to park the RV and take the car all the way home again!!!!

Anyhow, we got to the RV park near 5 pm.  We had joined the "Coast to Coast" RV club, and they do have a park on the northwest side of ABQ-- we are very close to the Camping World store.  So instead of the $50 a night rate of the KOA (they are VERY proud of their RV park!), we are paying $15 a night.  It is called the Enchanted Trails RV park and Trading Post.   It looks really old and kind of seedy, but the KOA is not exactly beautiful either.  The park brochure said that this was originally the Hill Top Trading Post, constructed in the late 40's to attract travelers on Route 66.  At that time, it had "teepees on the roof line, a burro wandering the parking lot, big arrows sticking out of the ground, and a stuffed bear at the door".   It was converted to a campground in the early 70's.  The adobe styled office building was used in several "mediocre" films.  They have a collection of vintage travel trailers on display near the office -- they are really cute and quaint-- I peeked in the windows -- there are stuffed small easy chairs, little white rounded refrigerators and 2 burner stoves, a lot of wood paneling -- really cozy and old fashioned looking -- no TV's or microwaves for sure!

We had planned to meet up with Leslie and Josh to go hike in the Sandias this morning since Brian had to work, but the national forest is closed due to fire danger-- yesterday was the last day it was open to hikers.  So, we ran around shopping all morning-- Sam's, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, Bed Bath, Wine store, Cottonwood Mall -- supporting the local economy!  We planned to meet up with Leslie and Josh to go to the Tinkertown museum, but her stepsister Alexis went into labor, so they are on a baby-wait.  They are babysitting the big sister Maya while they wait.  So after lunch, we went to the Apple store to ask questions about our phones -- it turned out that we were on the same "cloud", so now the guy fixed it so I have my own "cloud" -- it is still not clear to me what this means for me, but I do have more gigabytes than I had before-- I am not sure what I will do with them(!).  We met up with Brian, Leslie, Josh, and Maya -- then Leslie took Maya to her baseball game -- we opted out since it is VERY hot today in ABQ.  So I and "the boys" went out for pizza.  Larry is busy planning our route to Moab UT tomorrow -- looks like it will be warm in UT as well, even tho we are going in a northerly direction. We will go thru Gallup rather than to Farmington first.  I finally heard from my old neighbor Katie Barnett, who lives in Salt Lake City -- we will find a time to get together with her and 2 of her "kids" -- Annie and Moose while we are there.  

Tuesday 7/1 Moab, 7/2 Salt Lake City

On Monday we drove from ABQ to Moab -- we went thru Gallup -- pretty red rocks -- then to Shiprock -- not really scenic.  We thought about the fact that if we really had joined the Indian Health Service as we planned to in the 70's, we might have been stationed in a place like that!  It got prettier going thru Cortez -- lots of farms and meadows going north of there.  Going into Utah was dry and deserty and desolate, tho as we approached Moab, there were lots of pretty rock formations.  The KOA was south of Moab -- nice view of red rocks and cliffs.  Larry did not feel like unhooking the car, so we just stayed in the RV park.  It was very hot and dusty.  We just vegged out, cooked supper, and sat --  I do not like doing nothing (that's why I did not journal yesterday).  After supper it was a little cooler, and we just walked around the RV park -- it really was pretty full.  There were a lot of very cute little trailers-- looked like there was just a little sink, tiny frig, and bed inside.  There were lots of families -- could not imagine what they would do in the heat-- maybe boat or rafting trips-- it certainly is too hot to hike in the Nat'l Parks this time of year.  We went to the pool around 8 pm, but there were a lot of little kids in it.  I went on in and it felt good to cool off.  Old curmudgeon Larry just sat on the side and watched children splash each other.

This morning (Tuesday), we left Moab to drive to Salt Lake City.  Once you get north of Moab, there is again, a lot of desolation, tho it is hilly desolation -- we got really good mileage (like 9MPG) going down the hill -- not so good going up.  I always wonder how the pioneers made it, when our diesel pusher was straining itself!  We drove thru some nice looking little towns-- Green River, and Price, then thru the line up of towns going toward SLC on I-15 Provo, Sandy, etc.  We got into the KOA around 1:45.  It is really a lovely park with nice size spaces and a lot of grass.  Another nice thing is that there is a free shuttle running back and forth to Temple Square every 30 minutes from around 9:30 AM to 8:30 PM.  So we hopped on the shuttle around 3 pm.  An older couple (older than us!) drove us first to the airport (not very far away from here) -- they run the shuttle out there, advertising it for people who have a layover for a few hours -- everything seems to be a ministry for the LDS church.  I'm not sure why they included the KOA on their route -- maybe the proprieters are also LDS.  On the way to the airport, they showed us some of the sights-- the Salt Lake, the copper mine that is still in operation.  When they dropped us off at Temple Square, the lady with us went inside to get us a pair of guides to give us a tour.  Our guides were 2 young ladies from the Phillippines who were doing their mission here for about 2 yr.  They did not know each other before they came to SLC, but now room together.  I told them that I thought of the Philippines as being mainly Catholic -- one girl (they both had Sister __last name on their name tags) said she was raised Mormon, and the other was a convert.  They took turns witnessing to us, and were very sweet.  They took us thru North Visitors Center, then the Tabernacle, giving us a demo of the acoustics there-- ripping a paper up, dropping pins on the podium -- even our deaf ears could hear!  We went thru another building Assembly Hall (built 1882) where they have meetings and concerts.  We saw the Temple from the outside (built 1853-1893), and they had a little model that showed what was in the rooms.  The girls said they had been allowed to go in, but not even every Mormon is allowed to enter the Temple.  At the end of the tour, I asked to take their picture so I could remember them -- they said they could only have it done if one of us stood in the photo with them, so see below.  They were very sweet and sincere, for sure.

We then walked across the street to the Conference Center, and upon walking in, got assigned a personal guide.  It was a woman, maybe about our age named Marilyn Bushman.  She wore dark glasses-- the kind people wear after cataract surgery.  She apparently has some sort of painful eye disease that has diminished her vision quite a bit.  The Conference Center was built around 2003 to accommodate the large number of visitors that they have -- it seats 23,000, has balconies with no pillars at all (good architect!).  The Tabernacle, conference center, and Assembly Hall all have organs and pianos.  There was someone practicing the organ while we were at the Conference Center.  She took us to the top floor, where 4 acres of gardens are planted and native plants and grasses grow.  A huge waterfall starts at the top of this building, and cascades down to street level.  She was very chatty, answering questions willingly-- I asked her why she did not have "Sister Bushman" on her name tag like our Philippine guides-- she explained that she has worked there part time as a missionary the past 4 years-- the young girls are full time missionaries.  She showed us a lot of art-- one room had paintings of Book of Mormon stories -- about the Lamanites and Nephites-- I asked where the stories took place and she said here in America(!).  I asked where-- like the Northeast or Southwest -- she did not know.  I also asked her what Mormons thought about Methodists-- what would happen to us after we die.  All she did was smile sweetly and said, that all she knew was that God loved us very much.  She shared with us how she and her husband had come to the center the year of the Olympics, and did not think they could get in to the special program that night, but amazingly found a parking spot right across from the center on the street.  Then they mingled with the crowd, and just thought they would ask about tickets, and found that 2 tickets were available.  Then amazingly, even tho they were 30 minutes late getting seated, the speaker (who was the church big leader at the time) had been outside passing the Olympic torch, so he got there 30 minutes late and they got to hear him speak and enjoy a great program.  She was practically in tears, saying she had never told anyone about this before --  I told her that her guardian angel must have been watching out for her that night, and she said "I just have to hug you" and she did!  Then we got to talking about her family -- I just asked if she was from a big family --  she said she could trace her family back to Joseph Smith.  Several ancestors were from Nauvoo IL before moving to Utah.  She is one of 10 children, and her husband is one of 11.  Her grandfather had 2 wives (before polygamy was outlawed), and each wife had 10 children!  Her husband also works as a guide at the Conference Center -- they have 5 children --  3 boys and 2 girls.  Only 2 were married, and they both have divorced.  She has only 2 grandkids that she rarely sees.  (I am not sure how this all works for the family celestial planet?!?) Anyhow, she seemed very devout, and seemed to have surprised herself with how much she shared with us.

We then went to the Family History Library.  We each got assigned a helper who got us started on a site.  I only got to my grandparents, and not much flashed up -- I thought I would just give my name, and the computer would immediately discover that I was of royal blood!  For some reason, Larry's family tree (which he knew nothing about his ancestors) popped up --  a lot of Scandinavian royalty in his family, all the way back to the 200's -- go figure!!!  Anyhow, they gave us the website so we can keep working on this at home if we want to.

We then went to the Church History Museum -- we were on our own for this one --  a lot of artifacts from the pioneers.  It was interesting, but we were starting to wear out.  We caught the shuttle back to the RV park around 7:20, ate, walked the park, and are about ready to turn in.  

The news said that today was the hottest day of the year in Salt Lake City.  We got to be in ABQ Monday for their hottest day of the year!!! Hope it is cooler in Idaho!!!

July 3, 2014 Salt Lake City

journal Thursday July 3, 2014  Salt Lake City

We again took the free shuttle from the KOA to Temple Square.  WE went back to the Church History Museum since we only visited the 1st floor last night.  We went to the 2nd floor where they had an art exhibit of artists from the 90's and '00's-- mostly mother and children works of art that were really quite nice-- each had a little story relating to Morman family ideals.  There was a children's hands on area, along with more pictures of church leaders and more artifacts.  The basement had more artifacts and a large display relating to the Morman's support of Boy Scouts -- I'm not sure how they actually had gotten linked up, but i know the Alamogordo LDS church has an active Boy Scout troop.   

I visited the gift shop -- I was just curious about items relating to Mormon children.  Indeed they had little action figures of ancient warriors in the Book of Mormon.  There were children's story books about the Nephites and Lamanites.  There were pottery beehives-- Utah is called the Beehive state.  The early pioneers used the beehive as a symbol of working cooperatively and industriously.  

We then walked over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building where there is a 500 seat theater, showing a 63 minute film "Joseph Smith: Prophet of Restoration".  It was very well filmed on a huge IMAX type screen.  It gave the story of Joseph's childhood, his visions of God the Father and Jesus, the visitation of the angel Moroni, his quest to find the right church, his calling to form his own church, meeting his wife, he and his church being persecuted and relocating to PA, IN, MO, and Nauvoo IL; building temples in several towns, getting tarred and feathered in MO, being put in jail, and finally with he and his brother Hyrum getting murdered.  (I don't understand why people felt so threatened by the Mormons at that time of history, that they wanted to kill them.)  It ended with Brigham Young leading 80,00 Mormon pioneers to the Rocky Mtns.  It was interesting, but I noticed that the story line left out all the other wives.

We then walked over to the Tabernacle for the noon organ recital.  The organist was a distinguished looking white haired gentleman names Clay Christianson.  He played fugue in D Major, his own arrangement of My Country tis of Thee, Amazing Grace, a Mormon hymn - Come, Come Ye Saints, an unnamed song, and Toccata.  Before he played, he gave another acoustic demo -- ripping paper, dropping pins.  The organ was constructed in the 1860's and has been rebuilt an enlarged.  Huge gold organ pipes are on the front wall of the Tabernacle-- he pointed out that these were not metallic-- they were actually made of wood, plastered over, then painted gold to look like metal pipes!  Altogether, there are 11,623 pipes (Larry had guessed 12,00 yesterday when our guide asks how many pipes we thought there were!!)  There are 5 manuals (keyboards) -- when he had to play on the top keyboard, he had to lean way forward and reach up high.  His shoe clad feet literally danced on the foot pedals -- Larry said a "real" organist never removes his or her shoes to play (guess Larry does not consider himself "real").  A different organist was listed each day of the week -- we wondered whether Frank Ashdown has ever gotten to play at that organ-- Larry thinks he maybe has -- he also thinks some of Frank's compositions have been performed at the Tabernacle.

We walked over to the Beehive House, the 1854 official residence of Brigham Young -- again we had 2 young girl guides to show us around -- much of the furnishings were original.

We went to the Church Office building and took the elevator to the 14th floor observation deck.  An older lady pointed out things of interest that we could see-- the Great Salt Lake, Capital building, some other historic buildings.  

We then went back to the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg (I was getting turned around at this point, but Larry has good sense of direction!).  We took the elevator up to the 10th floor where they had a very nice Garden Restaurant.  The waitress (like most people in Temple Square) was a little excessively cheerful, but we enjoyed our sandwiches with a nice view of downtown.  

We took our free shuttle back to the RV park.  Several of the people were on the shuttle when we left the RV Park this morning -- guess they got wore out the same time we did!  They are from New Zeeland-- said they are missing out on lots of rainy weather there -- they recommend visiting NZ in Feb or Mar -- the fall of the year there, when the weather is most "stable".

After resting up, we took the shuttle back downtown -- we visited the North Visitor Center which had many large paintings of the life of Jesus, plus a large white statue of Jesus (photo below). We walked over to the Assembly Center where they had a fountain with a Seagull monument (photo below).  Oddly, the California sea gull is the state bird of Utah!  The Mormon pioneers had to work very hard to divert water from the mountains to irrigate and farm the land.  One year they had an infestation of locusts that they could not get rid of, even by burning fields.  Miraculously, a flock of sea gulls somehow flew in from CA and ate the locusts, saving the crops.

At 7:30, we went to the Conference Center to hear the Mormon Tabernacle choir rehearsal -- when they let us in right at 7:30, the choir was already rehearsing with a full orchestra (see photo-- only about a 3rd of the choir).  All the women wore skirts (every female volunteer we met wore skirts) and all the men had collared shirts -- no wild T-shirts.  There are 360 non paid volunteers in the choir, so it is quite a big loft.  It must have been warm up there, since most of the ladies were fanning themselves.  They rehearsed "There's a Place for Us" from West Side Story, "Be Still My Soul", and another song I did not know before we left at 8:15 to catch our shuttle back to the KOA.  There were not as many people in the audience as I would have expected -- there was a polite "smattering" of applause after each song.  Historically, the choir started in 1847 at a church conference, just 29 days after the pioneers arrived here.  Their first radio broadcast was in 1929--called "Music and the Spoken Word", and continues as a weekly broadcast -- we plan to attend the service there Sunday instead of a UMC church!  

When we went to catch the shuttle at 8:30, there was a family with 9 children waiting with us -- their ages looked about age 3 to 19.  One other "older" couple with us was waiting also.  The Mom assured us that they could seat the kids on laps, but thank goodness, the shuttle driver said another shuttle was coming in 5 minutes!  

We hope to get up early to hike in the morning.

Journal July 4, 2014 Salt Lake City

We got up at 5:30 so we would get an early start hiking.  We drove to Big Cottonwood Canyon up the mountain.  There were very many bikers going up the road.  We turned off about 9 miles up to the trailhead for Doughnut Falls.  There were only a few other cars at the trailhead.  The hike was 3 miles round trip --  I like destination hikes, so it was nice to hike to a waterfall.  Lots of wildflowers, and much greener than our mountains.  The hike was mostly uphill -- one lady I met at the outhouse before starting the hike, said that all the trails here are pretty easy, but are all uphill.  We huffed and puffed a fair amount-- it wasn't till we got near the falls that we had to clamber down rocks.  At least it was all downhill going back-- we were done in less than an hour.

We then drove up further to the Brighton ski resort where the trailhead was to several lakes.  They were having a big July 4 breakfast there, so there were lots of people.  There were a lot of people hiking, many with small children and babies.  The beginning of the trail was very steep -- we stopped a lot to huff and puff on this one.  Farther up it was shadier, and different wild flowers than we saw lower down.  We took the turnoff to Dog Lake, which was very small -- from what I read about it on the internet, it is a shrinking lake, getting more overgrown with marshy plants -- eventually will just be a meadow.  We then hiked further to Lake Catherine-- very pretty large lake with lots of boulders, and a dam at one end which accounted for its formation.  Larry went into shutdown mode and did not want to go to Lakes Mary and Martha that were within the next mile, so we turned around and went back down.  Our Map My Walk Ap measured this hike at 3.6 miles total -- it was a lot harder since it was a lot steeper.  We had our picnic lunch, and headed back to the RV.  We cleaned up and rested up.  We left around 4 pm to meet up with Katie Barnett and her son Moose (Michael), our old neighbors from Alamogordo (see photo).  Moose grilled us some delicious ribs, Katie cooked corn on the cob, and I brought chips and a strawberry salad.  We enjoyed reminiscing about old times.  They had moved up here in 2008 after her husband Rick died unexpectedly of a heart attack.  Katie actually lived with her parents for several years as a caregiver until they passed away within 6 months of each other.  

Right now we are listening to lots of fireworks in our very full RV park.  We plan to go to Park City tomorrow.

(Sorry that I have no control over which direction my phone photos come into an email.)

July 5,2014 Salt Lake City

We got to Park City around 9 am -- we drove right to the Utah Olympic Park -- it was fun to see the museum of the 2002 Winter Olympics -- they said how this was an Olympics that actually made money, and that has sustained the park as a continuing Olympic training facility.  Skiers from the US and Australia train there all year long.  This park hosts bobsled, skeleton, luge, and Nordic ski jumping.  At the museum, they ad a collection of the colorful outfits skiers wear.  If you wanted to (we did not today), you could take a bobsled ride with one driver and 3 helmeted "guests" going 70 MPH for a 1 minute ride!  We got to see where the bobsleds take off and got to go to the top of the Nordic ski jump -- Larry does not like heights, so did not peek over the edge like I did.  Other rides available to the public are the Alpine slide-- this is not an olympic ride-- we have done these before in CO Springs -- it is fun, tho not scary at all, since you can go as slow as you want.  There were also zipline rides, or you could sign up training for Nordic ski jumping!  At 11 AM they had their Freestyle Show featuring the Flying Ace All Stars  These ski jumps are made of plastic that they spray with water.  The skiers wear wet suits (they train from May-Oct) -- they have to climb stairs to the top of the slides, then whoosh down, do lots of flips in the air, and then go into a pool of water.  The water is not heated, so it is very cold in spring, only about 65 in the summer.  The pool has a bubbler system which breaks up the surface tension -- nice for the athletes if they happen to belly flop on their jump.  They also had a guy to demo the trampoline they use to train on so they can do summersaults, flips, twists, etc in the air.  These young people are really dedicated! They had a few younger kids age 12 who performed.  There were a LOT of people at the show -- several hundred -- it was out in the sun and VERY HOT! (I thought it might be cool up in the mountains, but it was very warm.) I tried to make a video on my phone-- hope it comes thru to you!

We then drove to Main Street Park City where there were a LOT of people.  Surprising, they have free parking garages.  We had some lunch, then went to the Park City Museum.  It was a nice little museum, documenting the history of the town.  In 1868, silver was discovered and it became a boom town-- 10.000 people.  The mine owners got rich, the miners made a living. One of the wealthy Ontario mine owners was George Hearst, the father of Wm Randolph Hearst. During prohibition, there were lots of bootleggers there!  There was also gambling along with a "red light" district-- they called it Sin City -- it was not a Mormon town at all.  In 1949 most of the mines closed and the place almost became a ghost town -- it was listed in a book about ghost towns in 1951!  There was a little skiing going on since the early 1900's, but no resorts.  In 1963, they got a federal loan to start a ski area.  In 1978 the last mine closed.  The museum had videos of interviews of locals, who talked about the changes in the 70's when the "hippies" came to town.  Skiing grew as a major part of the economy, and the town started growing again.  One of the ski resorts actually used one of the mine trains to transport skiers up to the top of the mountain -- we got to sit in a car in the museum.  It was not a fun or luxurious trip, since the mines were dirty, drippy, and very dark.  The Olympic games were awarded to them in 1995, and everything in the Olympic park was built for the 2002 Olympics.  

On the way out to town, we stopped briefly at the Outlet Mall -- there were SO many people that we could hardly get a parking spot-- then did not even buy anything.  We came back to the RV hot and tired, but it was a fun day.   I had thought about hiking on the trails in Park City, but it was way too hot!

journal Sunday July 6, 2014 Salt Lake City

We put on our Sunday clothes and took the free van downtown to attend the Music and the Spoken Word program at the Mormon conference center.  It was not a true church service, so I was a little disappointed not to get to experience that, but I am counting it as our church attendance for this Sunday!  This center seats 23,000 -- there were a lot of people there, tho no one in the 2 balconies -- Larry thinks maybe 5000 were there.  

There were lots of volunteers with smiling faces to welcome us (interestingly, for this and the choir rehearsal, there were smiling ladies to check handbags for firearms and bombs too!). 

The service began at 9:30, but the choir and speaker did a complete rehearsal, then took a break.  The "emcee" gave a little pep talk ahead of time reminding us that this service was videotaped and broadcasted both live and on delayed time (or on-line or on U-tube!).  He discussed that the Mormon pioneers had their first choir 1 month after arrival in the mid 1800's, and that the first radio broadcast of Music and the Word was in 1929 -- it has broadcasted weekly since then.  The ladies in the choir were all in long lilac short sleeved jacket dresses, but they vary each performance--  they have 10 colors of dresses total -- last week was fuchsia!  So they stock like 2000 dresses for the ladies to wear.  The men have 5 different colors of suits to wear, as well as tuxedos, so their clothing is also stored.  There are 360 singing at a time, but they have 400 in the choir.  The age range is 20-60.  You must live within 100 miles of SLC to be in the choir, since they practice every Thursday night, perform every Sunday, and have about 75 scheduled concerts a year.  They are all volunteers.  They can stay in the choir for 20 years, and then get bumped for a new singer!  The guy then introduced some visitors-- one family was having a big reunion, there was a movie actor I never heard of, there was a flautist from Austria, and also, but the way, Mitt Romney was there!!!  We were seated on the L side so Larry could watch the organist-- I got a glimpse of Mitt on the R side.  

They started with beautiful movie pictures of Utah, then said the same words used for 80 years-- "From the Crossroads of the West, we welcome you....)  They had a full orchestra + the organist.  Screens at the front zeroed in on the faces of individual choir members and orchestra players.  A large camera moved around on a crane to catch the harpist or violinist in action.  They sang Let There Be Light, There is Sunshine in My Soul Today, How Excellent Thy Name Oh Lord, In Christ there is No eAst or West, Somewhere (from West Side Story), Count your Blessings Instead of Sheep (from Irving Berlin's White Christmas), and On Great Lone Hills (from Finlandia) -- so a mixture of classical, hymns, and pop.  They sounded really good!

I'm not sure who the speaker was as far as his position in the church -- Lloyd Newell.  He gave a nice tai about how happiness and gratitude are linked, and how we say "grace" before meals, but should also say "grace" before concerts, before opening a book, before playing...etc.  No scripture or Book of Mormon was read.  As we filed out, there were more smiling ladies in dresses, men in suits and white shirts and ties.  (One of the guides had told us that there is actually a store downtown that sells "Mormon clothes" for the young missionaries, and I guess the old ones too!

Anyhow, we went back to the RV park for lunch, and went hiking the Bell Falls trail at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon.  It was supposed to be 4 miles round trip, but as usual with Utah trails, it went straight up!  The trailhead was actually in a neighborhood with a path that went between peoples' houses.  It was listed as "moderate", but it was pretty strenuous-- especially in the heat.  If I have to touch rocks, go on the seat of my pants, or pull myself on tree branches, I consider it to be strenuous.  We got to a water fall (see below-- sideways!) and Larry wanted to make that the destination for our destination hike, but we managed to clamber up higher to the "reservoir" which was a lovely little lake -- we only went about .7 miles, but the remaining trail to the Bell Falls continued straight up, so we fizzled out.  There were lots of boulders to sit on at the reservoir--kids were swimming in the cold water, adults were fishing-- the water was very clear and you could see lots of trout.  There were a lot of ducks there who were not at all afraid -- they must get fed a lot-- kids were feeding them little bread pieces -- there were mama ducks and babies-- very cute.  After 15-20 minutes, we turned to go back down again -- the .7 miles seemed a lot shorter going down, but it was still very rocky, gravelly, and treacherous, so we were both very careful -- any other hikers came by-->we would let them pass us old folks!  Most hikers looked in their 20's or 30's -- several families with school age kids.  

Once we got back to the RV, we have just been begging out.  I really wanted to go see the Great Salt Lake, but Larry refused -- everything that we have read or been told about it, makes it sound like it is not a tourist attraction -- often smelly with algae, hot, no boats since the salinity would injure boat engines.  So I did not get to float in it-- maybe just as well!  Larry spent an hour washing bugs off the windshield so he can see where he is going tomorrow as we head north to Idaho!

Monday July 7, 2014 Twin falls ID

We left Salt Lake City around 8:30 -- we were at the north end of the city, so no traffic problems leaving town. Part of the highway was pretty close to the Great Salt Lake, so I got to see it-- looked pretty actually with blue water.  We went up and down hills, thru wilderness (tho greener than our desert in NM), and got to Twin Falls around 1:15.  The KOA is nice -- about 3 miles from town.  We got settled and went to the Visitor's center to get local info.  It was located right next to the Perrine bridge-- it was built in 1979 -- t 1500 ft long , it is the longest suspension bridge in the west.  I.B. Perrine was the man who first settled the Snake River Canon in 1884.  It was amazing to be driving thru a desert and then see the beautiful river in the canyon.  2 golf courses are located in the bottom of the canyon on each side of the river-- the green grass looks so pretty.  The Snake River was actually named after the Snake Indian tribe-- I always thought it got its name from the serpentine weaving of the river bed.  About a mile down from the visitor's center is Evel Kneivel's jump site -- his motor cycle jump fizzled in 1974 when the parachute on his rocket propelled cycle deployed prematurely, and he just floated down to the river bed.  We drove down a road to the bottom where there was Centennial Park -- there were waterfalls from springs along the sides of the canyon, and there were picnic tables and boat ramps at the park.  The park was built by the local Rotary club!  

It was very hot, so we postponed hiking till tomorrow morning.  We drove thru town-- lots of shopping-- Costco, Michaels, Old Navy, Target, Best Buy etc.  We decided to drive about 30 miles north to Shoshone to go to the Idaho Mammoth Cave-- I read about it on Trip Advisor and it sounded interesting.  It is privately owned and turned out to be an adventure.  There is a lot of lava rock in Idaho -- this cave was formed by volcanic flow, but then a section collapsed -- it was apparently used by stone age men, and had been discovered in the early 1900's, then forgot about.  The present owner, Richard Olson was a high school senior in 1954-- he came upon the entrance while hunting bobcats.  He got the title to the cave, and actually raised mushrooms in the cave for several years.  In the 60's, he was asked by the gov't to use the cave as a fallout shelter, in case the US was attacked, so they kept stores of food down there for 20 years.  When we got there, no one else was there except for Richard's son who took our $10 fee and gave us each a lantern to carry and told us to follow the path by ourselves.  So off we went with our lanterns, going around a curved path thru volcanic rocks downward to the cave -- it really would be called a lava tube.  It was 41 degrees inside, which felt very good.  Bats live in the cave, but we did not see any.  They guy told us that the cave goes back about a half mile, but the path for visitors is just 1/4 mile long.  He told me that he was the one that paved the pathway himself!  We then went into the museum and it was unbelievable!  There were fossils, rocks, arrowheads, taxidermed animals, minerals, precious stones, Indian pots, other archeological artifacts from all over the world.  He had papers of authenticity all over.  He also had papers saying that he had purchased or was given all the stuff he had, and nothing was illegally obtained.  There must have been millions of dollars worth of stuff in this building, arranged in 3 concentric circles.  When we finished the museum (you could spend a LOT of time there and not see it all), an older man was sitting on an old couch -- it was Richard Olsen himself.  He was not very chatty, but just repeated the story of finding the cave while hunting bobcats.  I asked him about another cave about 10 miles down the road, the Shoshone Ice Caves --  he thought they were worth going to, so we drove over there.

This cave was smaller -- we had a local high school girl guide us -- we had to walk a path thru lava rock quite a ways, which then spiraled down 90 ft to the cave door.  She said an 8 yr old boy found the cave while looking for a lost goat.  The opening was very small, and in the early 1900's, ice was cut and taken to town to use for refrigeration.  Ice was also taken to bars so people could have ice cold beer in Idaho!  The owners decided to make the opening bigger by dynamiting it, but then they found that about 80% of the ice inside melted, defeating the purpose of having people visit an ice cave.  So they piled up a bunch of rocks and cemented them, with a door that opens and closes, and the ice did re-form.  This lava tube is well lit.  It is just about 30 degrees year round (felt good!) -- the girl said sometimes after the winter snow melt, they have to pump water out, or the tube would fill with ice.  In the cave were large areas of ice of the floor of the cave -- I asked if it was strong enough to skate in, and she said that people had skating parties in the old days.  (I asked how big her high school class was-- she is one of 28 students!)

We decided to eat out tonight at the Canyon Crest restaurant, located at the cliff edge of the Snake River.  We ate outside and enjoyed the lovely view of the Snake River and Perrine Bridge.  I had salmon and Larry had seafood pasta-- both very good.  We both had huge helpings of asparagus as well.  There is a lot of farm land in the area since the soil is rich volcanic and they can irrigate from the Snake River.  As you drive thru the desert, you can see bright green squares where the farms are.

We hope to get up early tomorrow and do our waterfall hike before it gets too hot!

journal Tuesday July 8 2014

We got up fairly early this morning so we could hike before it got too hot.  We got to Shoshone Falls park around 7:15 and it was nice and cool.  Shoshone Falls is lovely, although it has more water in the spring time when the snow melt occurs and before the farmers start irrigating.  Reportedly, pioneers in the 1800's would hike miles out of their way to see the Falls-- named after the Shoshone Indians.  In 1883, a Mr Walgamott got "squatter's rights" to the falls, and built roads, a ferry and a hotel.  In 1932, another owner gave the rights to the city of Twin falls, stipulating that it be maintained as a public park.  The park around it is grassy with picnic tables and lots of viewpoints of the falls -- "the Niagara of the West".  It tumbles 212 feet to the canyon floor-- actually 50 ft further than Niagara.  We took the Rim trail about 2 miles along -- lots of people had donated memorial lookouts (Larry did not climb out on most of them -- I did and it gave me a little butterfly feeling in my stomach!).  The Rim trail ended at private land at the dirt hill "ramp" (see photo below), where Evel Knievel did his failed jump.  

We then drove over to Dierkes Lake -- John Dierkes came here from Germany in 1906 and homesteaded the area behind Shoshone Falls.  All his orchards got flooded by the canal irrigation system built at that time, so he then had a lake and charged admission.  It finally got sold to the city in 1967 -- it has a swimming beach, a boat dock, picnic tables, playground-- very pretty.  There was supposedly a hiking trail around the lake-- Larry "shut down" and sat in the shade at a table.  I started walking and got halfway around, then chickened out when I saw a lot of stairs going up to the high rim of the canyon on the other side-- there were some really fancy houses up there, and I was afraid the stairs belonged to them.  So I back tracked -- about halfway back, I met a lady hiking and she said that the stairs were actually for hikers.  I did not feel like going all the way to that area, so just headed for where Larry was.  Unfortunately, all the sprinkler systems were on, so I got nice and wet trying to run around them-- felt pretty good at that point!

We went back to the Visitor Center at the Perrine bridge, and there were some jumpers there.  Twin Falls attracts BASE (building, antenna, span or bridge, earth) jumpers from all over the world, because it is the only one where it is legal to jump all year round.  The jumpers gather in the grassy area by the bridge, laying out their parachutes and arranging the strings just so -- so they don't get tangled up, I guess.  They are supposed to take sky diving lessons before trying this.  Out of about 30.000 jumps, there have been 2 deaths (did not hear injury statistics!).  While I was waiting for them to get ready, I tried to walk out on the bridge on the pedestrian sidewalk, but the traffic made the bridge sway so much, that I couldn't stand it, so went back.  When the jumpers were ready, they walked out to the middle of the bridge, climbed over the daily that was about 4 ft high, then just jumped and parachuted to the bottom.  The floating looked fun, but the jumping sure must take guts!

After lunch it was hot, so we went to the Herrett Center museum for the Arts and Sciences at the College of Southern Utah.  It had a lot of fossils and Indian artifacts, a complete mammoth skeleton, and an art exhibit.  They had a planetarium show, but it was geared for little kids, so we did not do that.  I asked if there was a history museum, and the lady at the desk told us about the Twin Falls county Historical Society Museum-- it was a little off the beaten path-- doubt they get many visitors, although when we arrived, 2 ladies and 3 cub scouts came at the same time-- I think the curator was in shock to have so many people!  The museum was housed in an old school building that was in use till the 60's.  It gave information about Mr Perrine, the guy who came here and had the vision to irrigate, resulting in the town and all the farrms in the area.  I picked up a brochure about a trout hatchery not too far away, but we searched and searched for it and couldn't find it -- I looked at the date of the brochure and it was 2001, so the hatchery probably was long gone!  

We have enjoyed the pool at the KOA here since it is open till 10 and not packed with little kids.  Tomorrow, we head to McCall which is north of 

Boise.  We decided just to skip Boise on this trip. 

journal Wednesday July 9  McCall ID

We left Twin Falls around 8:20 AM. The road to Boise was thru a high desert landscape, tho a little grassier than NM.  Again there were lots of green swatches where irrigation and farming was going on.  Boise looks like a pretty big city -- there is a river there-- the Boise river -- but we really did not see much.  The road from Boise to McCall was very hilly.  It was overcast, and when we finally got to McCall, it was drizzling.  The RV park is lovely -- Larry had called just yesterday, and we were very lucky to get a spot.  The lady at the desk had to manipulate reservations a little, but was nice enough to do so.  Our spot is close to the clubhouse where they have an indoor pool -- the walls are open for the summer.  There is also a hot tub and steam room, and from 8-10 it is adults only!  The park is tiered -- the top area has a lot of cabins (very nice looking) and some RV's.  We are in the middle section -- nice paved roads, nice green grass.  The lower section actually has riverside spots, so they have a view of the river.  

It kept drizzling and then raining harder, but we drove downtown to see Payette Lake and go to the visitor center.  There is quite a nice sandy beach in that area, but there were no swimmers or boaters in the rain.  McCall is a tourist town, but the shops were not junky.  Population is only 3000.  I suspect that they are busier in the winter with skiing close byWe browsed thru shops, then saw a large building.  Our poor eyes thought it said public sale, but it said public Skate!  It was a huge indoor ice rink!  The lady there says the Idaho Steelheads hockey team pro hockey team trains there sometimes.  There are also hockey clinics and camps -- most of the players come from elsewhere like Boise.  There was just one teen girl skating when we were there-- it was quite a large rink.  We then drove to the local fish hatchery -- this one was not hard to find.  It had information about salmon and also trout.  Lots of cute little fish in the huge tanks.  They raise them to stock the streams in the area for angler.

It finally stopped raining around 5 pm, so we walked around the RV park, then made supper.  It is actually cool here!!!!!! like 67 degrees.  We are looking forward to hiking in the morning-- no rain predicted for tomorrow.  

The attached video (if it comes thru), is of the BASE divers at the Perrine bridge in Twin Falls.  I was quite aways away to photograph it, so look for a blue parachute.

Journal Thursday July 10.2014

Last night we walked over to the indoor pool -- water was very nice.  They also have a steam room-- I had never been in one of those -- it was 117 degrees-- I stayed in there about 45 seconds!  In the hot tub we met a nice couple, Janet and Bob.  They were from WA and both worked at the university there.  I asked them what they had done in McCall, and they were into hiking!-- more like 10 mile hikes.  They recommended one that I read about-- Goose Falls -- this may be the same hike Jim and Glenda took a few weeks ago.

So we headed for Goose Falls to hike this morning.  We stopped at the Forest Ranger office, and got info on several hikes.  I told him I liked destination hikes, so he recommended this one-- he recommended starting at the bottom and hiking up to the falls rather than the other trailhead which involved hiking down to the falls-- and then of course hiking up again.  We drove about 8 miles to the Last Chance Campground -- there was just one other car at the trailhead.  It was in the 60's-- very nice.  The trail was fairly shady thru a forest of fir trees.  Most of it was soft dirt-- not so rocky as in NM -- muddy in a few spots since it had rained yesterday-- we had to balance on a log once to avoid mud (see photo).  Supposedly it was 2.8 miles to the Falls, and 3 miles to the Bridge.  Larry used the Map My Walk which uses a satellite to measure how far you hike -- he got 7.3 miles for the whole thing!  The hike was really fairly easy with a gentle grade -- just the last little cutoff to the falls was steeper -- glad we had our sticks to keep us balanced.  The falls were beautiful and we had our snack there.  Then a guy suddenly appeared with his bike!  That part of the path was really rocky, and he rode his bike up there!!!  He and his wife had dropped their kids off at Kayaking camp, so they were in McCall for several days.  I could not believe he rode his bike up that last bit to the falls!  We then decided to walk the .2 miles to the bridge (that turned out to be .5 mi on the Map My Walk!).  The bridge led to another section of the trail.  It was over part of the waterfall, so very nice to take photos!  

We turned around to hike back then.  We ran into 2 (rather overweight!) mountain bikers, and then a big Mennonite family -- a whole bunch of kids-- the dad was carrying a 2 yr old on his shoulders-- the women and girls were all in caps and long dresses!  We let them know that the trail to the waterfall was longer than on the sign-- the hike really took us about 3 hours total-- they weren't sure they wanted to go that far.  Then we saw a lady off trail who asked if we had seen a little white dog-- we had not, but within a few minutes, we saw the white dog on the path ahead of us, so we called to the lady, and they got reunited.

We decided to have our picnic lunch at Ponderosa State Park -- the "jewel" of the Idaho state park system.  It is a peninsula that sticks out into Payette Lake.  We got a map at the Visitor Center-- there are lots of hiking trails and biking trails, but we were pretty pooped.  We drove to a picnic area and found a shady table with a lake view-- there was a little sandy beach there with families swimming.  We then just took the scenic drive up to the 2 lookout points on top-- the Narrows and Osprey points.  Both had beautiful views of the lake with only a short hike from the car.  At this point, I got a text from Tommie asking for my oreo ice cream dessert recipe.  So I sat on the bench there with my scenic view and typed my recipe to Tommie!!  

We got to the RV to clean up and veg out the rest of the afternoon.  We followed the Harris's footsteps again and went out to dinner at The Steamers restaurant downtown.  Larry had scallops and I had shrimp-- both very good entrees, with nice salads, and split a creme brûlée!  We walked along the beach walk after dinner.  I am amazed what nice clean sandy beaches are on the lake-- I slipped off my sandals to wade a little in the water -- a little chillier than I would want to swim in, but nice clean clear water.  

We hit the hot tub and pool at the park again -- nice having adults only after 8 pm.  We really like McCall a lot! 

Friday journal July 11,2014

We packed a picnic lunch and headed toward Boulder Lake to hike.  My brochure said it was a 4 mi round trip.  We found the Boulder Lake Rd and we were to follow it "for a few miles" to get to the trailhead -- NOT!  It was 5 miles on a mostly dirt/gravel/rutted/potholed road.  We stopped when we saw some cars parked at a camping area.  There was a portapotty with a lock on it!  We walked a ways and did find the reservoir where the trailhead was supposed to be, and walking some more, we did find the trailhead.  It was cool when we started, but warmed up quickly.  This is rated a "moderate" trail, and indeed it was.  Most of it was in the shade, but the forest service does not invest in many signs -- in fact the trailhead was the only sign.  We ran into a boy scout troop (about 15 kids and 4 adults) who had camped overnight at the lake, and were on their way back to their vehicles.  They warned us that the trail was a little tricky at parts -- some mud, some streams to cross on logs or hopping rocks.  We took a few wrong turns, naturally, making the total hike over 5 miles instead of 4.  The lake was absolutely beautiful-- clear cool water, fish were hopping, lots of small waterfalls coming off the lake over big rocks.  Since I did not get to use the porta potty, I took advantage of a big log by the lake. (I never do this, but knew I would not make it back!)  About 6-7 minutes later, a bunch of people backpacking in to spend the night showed up!!!  Good timing.  There were a lot of mosquitos in that area.  Larry had read an article that mosquitoes are attracted to dark colors and people with O+ blood.  So he was wearing a long sleeve black hiking shirt, and he is O+!  I was fine but he had them crawling on his sleeves-- they did not bite thru the shirt fortunately!  Again, we were glad for our Map Your Walk Ap on the phone -- it does not show the path but it did show the lake, so we could tell if we were heading the right direction, and also if we were going in circles (which we did at one point!)  We sat on a big rock by the reservoir to have our lunch.  It was a lovely morning.

After we cleaned up and rested up, we decided to take a chairlift ride at a ski resort about 10 miles away.  Larry is not crazy about heights, but he did well.  The Brundage Resort looked nice, and there were a lot of people riding.  Some rode the chairlift up and biked or walked down a path.  We were too pooped from our morning hike, so we just walked around on top.  There were lots of purple and yellow flowers below the chair lift lines, and at the top, there were lots of little pretty white flowers.  I got Edelweiss in my head, and asked the chairlift worker if that's what they were-- he had no clue.  But one of the other riders said that it was Edelweiss-- soft and white, clean and bright--so pretty! Now I'm humming it again!

We stopped and got groceries on the way home and they had a Paul's card to get cheaper prices, so we applied for a card.  The cashier said that they gave out points with every transaction, and she gave us a card that she had used for people who did not have or did not want to register for a card all day, and said we could just use all the points in the clothing section of the store (it was a dept store too.  So we had like $45 worth of points to spend -- got some beach towels, a nice hat for Larry, and some sewing scissors.  The lady at that cash register said that the grocery cashier should not have done that, with that card, but let us use our points anyhow-- such a deal!!

We grilled some pork chops for supper, then walked around the RV park for awhile.  All of a sudden we saw a fox in the road--first I thought it was a dog! --  it was the skinniest, most pathetic fox imaginable.  Then somebody's cat meowed at it, and it ran away!  

Tomorrow, we head to White Bird.

ournal Saturday July 12,2014 White Bird ID

Last night at the pool, we ran into the couple we met the first day-- Bob and Janet.  They talked about some more hikes they did, and another guy in the hot tub talked about the Hot Springs he had visited-- we probably could have stayed in McCall longer and seen more stuff.  They were also leaving today to get back to work on Monday (we are SO happy to be retired!!).  

We left the RV park around 8:15 to head north to White Bird.  We passed Riggins and saw the Ranger Station where we planned to back track to after we got to White Bird.  A lot of ups and downs -- more downs since this is a much lower altitude than McCall-- like only 1200 feet.  We tried to follow the directions to the RV park in the Trailer Life Guide -- this is such a small town, we figured we would have no trouble.  Unfortunately we missed the sign to the RV park and went right instead of left.  We drove about 8 miles and knew we were not on the right road, but there was no place to turn around.  Larry wanted to call the RV park, but we had no phone service(!!).  No one else was on this road, so we stopped and unhooked the car-- Larry saw a farm house and went down that driveway (a good dip unfortunately), to back out again with some difficulty.  I went ahead back to town and stopped at a store to get directions, and indeed it was the opposite direction.  This is not a fancy park, but is convenient to the jet boat ride we are taking tomorrow (we are following in the Harris's footsteps still!!).  The park only has about 10 spots-- we actually chose one not under a tree so our satellite would work.  It is hot here too!

We found out that after Riggins, we were in the Pacific time zone, so we gained an hour!  After we settled in, I packed a picnic lunch and we headed back to Riggins-- we lost an hour then!  We talked to the ranger at the Hell's Canyon Visitor Center-- I told him we wanted a place to go to picnic, to see some beautiful views, and to hike a little.  He sent us up toward Heaven's Gate-- it was 5 miles of paved road, then 13 miles of gravel or dirt-- not too rutty, but one lane with a sheer drop off on one side.  There were lots of pretty wild flowers and nice views along the way up.  We stopped at a picnic table and ate, then went to an area where there were several cars to hike a little of the Seven Devils trail -- it was a lot of downhill, plus it was an area where there had been a forest fire, so we decided to go on to Heaven's Gate.  We hiked a little around there, even thru one snowy area (it was probably in the high 70's temperature).  We were about to leave, when I saw a sign at the other end of the parking area -- a .2 mi trek to the lookout higher up.  Larry "shut down", so sat in the car while I walked up.  The trail was pretty steep and the .2 miles took me almost 45 minutes!  Lots of pretty flowers and fantastic views tho.  I met some people who were on their way down-- they asked me where I was from, and said they were from Michigan -- I mentioned that I went to college in Grand Rapids-- they were familiar with Calvin College, and their grown son who was with them, attended Hope College in Holland MI!  At the top, was a house where a fire watcher stayed.  He and his wife have been doing this for 4 years since he retired from being a firefighter in CA.  He is there 6 out of 7 days -- there is a bed, stove, radio, frig up there-- kind of nice.  They have an RV that they park lower down and he hikes up from there each day.  Their home base is Twin Falls.  I asked about the burnt areas  just below the station -- he said the fire was around 2005 -- then pointed out where other fires had burned in the last 10 years.  It was a 360 degree view up there.  There were hundreds of butterflies up there -- the guy said there will be even more in the next month when even more flowers will be blooming.  You could see the 7 devils (black mountain peaks-- see photo), the fire watcher guy pointed out Oregon and Montana, but said it was too smoky to the NW since there were fires burning in WA right now.  It only took me about 12 minutes to go down the trail.  I met man at the top, and I complained that it had seemed like more than .2 mi going up that hill -- he said it is 20 miles going up, and only .2 mi going down-- that is exactly how it felt!!

On the way back down, we stopped back where we had picnicked and located the little 7 Devil's Lake that we had not seen when we were eating-- we just had to drive a little further thru the campground, and it was like a 2 minute walk to the lake-- very pretty (see photo).  There were a few kayakers.  As a whole, we ran into very few people in this Nat'l Recreation area.  

We stopped at a little market on the way back to the RV park and got some corn on the cob for supper and some fruit. 

journal Sunday July 13, 2014 White Bird ID

We had planned to leave the RV park at 9 so that we would be at the Pittsburg landing of Hells Canyon for our 10 am “launch”.  Larry had gone to the Park office to use the courtesy phone and make our RV reservation in CoeurdaLane, and the lady at the desk told him she was just about to let us know that the boat would be an hour late.  So then we left just before 10 AM, driving 17 miles down a mostly gravel road to the marina.  A few other people were there already who had not gotten the message (no cell service around here), so they were there an hour already.  Then we got word that there were more delays— the jet boat had to pick up some rafters, so we did not take off till 10.  We boated over to the

Kirkwood museum/homestead — the house there was built in the 30’s — people during the depression came and settled there.  There was a little museum and some other buildings and old farm equipment.  The lady caretaker at the house was working there just this week — she lived in WA and was a teacher.  She and her husband got to stay in the old house — they just boated all their supplies in.  She showed us just the kitchen (still in use) and the bathroom that had the first bathtub of Hells Canyon (only about half the length of a normal bathtub, black, and no longer in use!).  They had box lunches for us and lots of shady picnic tables.

It was very hot in the canyon which is elevation only about 1200 ft, but once the boat started, we had lots of breeze.  The Snake River starts in Yellowstone park, then winds down, forming the boundary of Oregon and Idaho.  It varies from 2-3 ft deep to ~100 ft deep.  We saw some deer, wild sheep, and bald eagles along the canyon.  We had to put on life jackets (rather mildewy!) when we approached some rapids.  There were lots of rafters, small jet boaters, kayakers, and fisher men along the way.  We made another stop just before the Devil’s dam — there was a visitor center that people could drive to, and there was a short film there we watched.  We cruised close to the dam, then headed back.  We needed to put life jackets on again, and the pilot took us thru some fun rapids— many of us got half soaked or full soaked!  We met several nice people along the way.  Two ladies were from Arkansas — maybe close to our age — they had driven all the way to WA to pick up a 42+foot RV that one lady had purchased.  They left husbands at home, and were meandering back to Arkansas by themselves— pretty plucky ladies!  Another couple was from GA — she is a teacher and he owns a poultry farm— he was leaving his son in charge for the first time, since he is heir to the business!  Another couple had their 2 daughters with them, ages 11 and 15.  They were from Grand Rapids MI (where I went to college), and were RVing for a month —  I thought they must be teachers, but he owned his own machine shop and had trained 2 guys to cover for him.  Everyone was pretty friendly, since we were all getting soaked off and on during the trip back — it was fun, windy, and bumpy.  Our pilot pointed out some interesting areas— there were paths that people actually rode horses on— one path had a catastrophic event many years ago— a group of men were traveling to work there for many months, and the mule carrying the load of whiskey bottles lost it’s load— so they called it Temperance Rock!  

Just before returning to the marina, they stopped the boat at the “biggest beach” on the river.  The sandy beaches along the way are small, but a nice fine sand.  Several people wore bathing suits and hopped in the water — it was chilly but felt good— I just waded in to my knees.  

The boat ride lasted about 5 hours total, and we were all pretty hot.  They had lots of ice water along fortunately.  The pilot announced that all of us were getting free “Kilgore I survived Hell’s Canyon” shirts, so that was nice.

Tomorrow, we head to Coeur da’Lene.

journal Monday July 14, 2014 Coeur D’alene ID

We left White Bird a little after 8 AM.  I talked some to the lady at the desk of the park, Tammy.  She is a local girl who grew up in Granger, just north of White Bird.  After high school she went to Utah for awhile, then came back and married a man 5 yr older than her with 2 daughters.  She is 45 now, and they also have a son who just graduated from HS — he will work a year, then go to college in Lewiston ID.  She was a friend of one of the Killgore’s daughters, and that’s how she got the job.  She knew our pilot, Kurt Killgore very well — said there are only 2 pilots who really knew that Snake River, and Kurt is one of them.  The next 3-4 days are “quiet” days on the river, so they don’t have any excursions those days — that’s why we ended up spending a Sunday doing our trip.  

It had sprinkled during the night and was slightly less hot.  It sprinkled off and on all the way to Coeur D’alene — 200 miles north.  We passed the Nez Perce reservation — my Idaho book gave some of the sad history.  This tribe inhabited Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.  In 1855, there were many white settlers, and they negotiated an agreement to make a 5000 sq mile reservation for the Indians.  But 5 yr later, gold was discovered,, and in 1893 a new treaty reduced the size of the reservation to just 500 sq miles.  In 1877, the Indians went to war against the white men, eventually losing and relocating to Kansas, Oklahoma, with a few remaining here on only 88,000 acres.  Really quite a sad story.

We then drove thru Moscow, home of the University of Idaho.  The town is surrounded by “the Palouse” — treeless rolling hills with lots of farms growing wheat, barley, chickpeas and lentils.

We got into the Blackwell Island RV park — it is just 1 1/miles from downtown.  We walked around the park, but it was very hot.  There is a little beach on the lake here, tho the sand is kind of gravelly compared to the nice smooth sand on the Snake River yesterday.  Lots of families with kids were playing in the water, which is nice and clear, tho a bit chilly.  We drove downtown, which did not take long at all.  We went to the visitor center to get brochures, then parked and walked around.  There is the Coeur D’alene resort on the lakefront— lots of people swimming, walking, and biking. We walked out on the boardwalk in front of the resort— it is the longest floating wooden boardwalk in the country — 3300 feet.  I felt like I needed to have sea legs to walk on this.  There were lots of  private boats in blue covered little docks.  There were people water skiing, and we even watched a sea plane take off.  There is a hiking trail at Tubbs Hill on the other side of the resort —  135 acres of publicly owned land, with several miles of hiking trails going around the peninsula, or up to the top — we plan to get up early and do that before it gets hot out tomorrow.  

After browsing in a few shops, we went back to the RV to rest up (retirement is good!), then went for an early dinner at the Floating Cedars restaurant located about 1/4 mi from our RV park.  I felt like I was on a cruise ship, since you could see the horizon — and the light fixtures! — gently rocking.  We had some free cocktail coupons from the RV park, then enjoyed a nice salad bar (I had huckleberry vinaigrette dressing on mine), prime rib (Larry), grilled steelhead (me — it is a kind of a salmon from the Columbia river), and we had a huckleberry ice cream sundae for desert — very nice, with a view of the Lake.

We were going to walk around the RV park again for exercise, but it had started sprinkling harder and we are now cool for a change!!  The RV park is completely full— we were very lucky to get a spot— in fact tomorrow, we have to move to a different spot for the next 2 nights to make room for more!  There is a No Vacancy sign at the office.  

It is supposed to be sunny and in the 90’s for our next 2 days here — still can’t believe it is this warm so far north.

journal Tuesday July 15, 2014 Coeur D’alene ID

We got up fairly early to hike Tubbs Hill which is right down town.   It was nice to drive only 2 miles to the trailhead.  We got there a little after 7 AM and decided to take the upper path first that goes to the top of the hill.  It was a lot of uphill hiking —  we had our hiking shoes and our sticks, and all the young people were running up and down the paths!  It was nice because it was mostly shaded and had lovely views of the lake.  We found huckleberry bushes along the way — I found a few that were real dark and very sweet.  Others were bluish (see photo), but still fairly sweet.  The real unripe ones were light green.  The huckleberries really look like blueberries, but when you chew them, there are little seeds inside that you have to spit out.  We also found some wild raspberries to sample.  After we did the top loop, we hiked back down to the bottom loop, which actually had better views since there were a lot of hidden coves and small beaches.  Larry used his Map Your Walk Ap, and we covered about 5.3 miles.  

We got back to the RV park and needed to move to another spot — we were in a “premium spot” last night that was closer to the lake.  Now we are with the ordinary people. (we were lucky to get a spot at all in this park actually).  

After we cleaned up and ate, we went downtown again (nice being so close) to go to the History Museum of Northern Idaho.  It had a 30 minute film about the history of Coeur D’alene, starting with the Indians and the French fur traders, going into the discovery of gold and silver, the coming of the railroad, logging, the use of steamboats which turned it into more of a resort community, even in the late 1800’s.  The museum had a lot of old photos and maps and artifacts.

We went down to the main drag to browse shops and galleries.  At least I did- - Larry parked himself on a bench in the shade while I meandered.  It actually worked better than having him follow me, find a bench in front of each store, or breathe down my neck! 

We then drove to the north end of town where they have a lot of chain restaurants, a mall, a Costco, Target, Walmart, JoAnn Fabrics, Michaels, about 5 grocery stores — lots of shopping here for sure. 

Tonight, we went to the duplicate bridge game at 6:30 pm.  It was held in the dining room of an independent adult living center.   It was a very nice facility.  They had 5 tables, and it was fun to meet different people— a few were natives, some were “snowbirds” from FL, one had moved here after living in Fairbanks for 59 years, one lived in EP from 1949-1962 (before our time), a young looking woman (40ish) was from Canada, one lady was from Germany and had moved here then from Canada.  We played pretty lousy with only a 46% game(!), but came in 1st in the C flight, so since it was a charity game, we got .66 points!!!

Tomorrow, we plan to hike early, do laundry, get some more groceries, then head north on Thursday to the Abbotts.

Wednesday July 16, 2014 Coeur D’alene ID

We drove about 5 miles to the Beauty Bay area this morning to hike the Mineral Springs trail.  It was about 4 miles total —  a lot of uphill at the beginning (went up over 600 ft from the trailhead), then on a ridge with some nice lookouts of the lake.  Some boy scouts had taken on the project of putting numbers on trees, putting in benches to rest on, and making a nice guide book.  In the late 1800’s, there was a lot of mining going on in the area — zinc and lead were found in this area.  There was a spur on the trail that led to an area that had been mined, and there was an adit (good scrabble word), or opening carved into the hill side— it did not go real far in.  We hiked mostly in the shade of Ponderosa Pine and Douglas fir trees.  Our little booklet identified some of the plants — snowberry bushes, some huckleberry bushes, and lots of ocean spray plants with a spray of little white flowers.  We met only a few people on this trail — not like Tubbs Hill yesterday.  A group of 4 ladies asked us to take a photo of them, then they reciprocated.

It was still early when we finished, so we drove to Post Falls (where Jim and Glenda had stayed).  They said there was not much to see there, and it was true!   We went to Treaty Rock park (right in the middle of town) and took the short hike to the big rock that had Frederick Post’s name carved on the rock where he and the local Indian chief Seltice had negotiated a land use deal for his sawmill.  Underneath his name are some Indian pictographs.  That area of rock was covered by a huge sheet of plexi-glass— when I tried to photograph it, I just got reflections of the trees behind it, so I couldn’t do it.  We then drove another mile or 2 to Falls Park to see the falls (made by a dam there— not real exciting to see) and the Spokane River gorge which was quite pretty.  It was a nice little park with picnic tables, a place for kids to fish, and the walk around it to the Falls.  

We saw a sign for Cabela’s at mile marker 1— we could have gone on to WA — Spokane was like 15 mi down the road, but we just went to the store.  We had never been in such a store— looks like a hunter’s paradise.  There were racks and racks of camouflage patterned clothing.  Lots of guns and ammo.  We did not feel like we belonged in this store— not in our genetics I guess.  We stopped and got a few groceries on the way home. 

After cleaning up and resting up, we went downtown to the Farmer’s Market.  People were lined up and at 4 pm, a man rang a triangle and they dashed forward.  We just got some fresh raspberries, a loaf of bread, and green beans.  I had hoped for tomatoes, but the few there got grabbed by those in the starting line.  We grilled some steak and corn on the cob for supper.  While we were cooking, the electricity started to wane — lights and air conditioning stayed on, but TV went off.  The man next door came over to check— he had lost all his electric.  It came back on and off again, but then stayed on.  The man across from us was from Canada.  He and his wife drove his big truck that he pulls his trailer with, to Spokane to shop, and got into a pile up accident.  No one was hurt, but his truck had a lot of damage.  So they had to get the truck towed, and had to rent a car.  He plans to put the trailer into storage till the truck gets fixed, and will come back down to get it.  He and his sons did the Alaska trip last summer — said it rained a lot, but they very much enjoyed themselves.

Larry talked to Jan Abbot —  they will meet us at the road to their cabin tomorrow morning to guide us along.  The weather is supposed to cool off this weekend- Yay!  

We are downtown in Sandpoint this morning (Saturday) and brought our computer and jet back so we could "borrow" WiFi in the downtown streets.  We got to the Farmer's Market -- nice veggies, fruit, crafts, bread.  We are about to hit the shops.  Sadly, it is still smoky here from those WA fires -- hoping this will not be the case when we get to Glacier Nat'l Park tomorrow.

Thursday July 17, 2014 Lake Pond Orielle

We left Coeur D’alene a little after 8 am to drive the 40 some miles to the Abbotts cabin.  We got to Sagle, and called Jim.  He and his grandson Simon were going to dump trash and said they would meet us on the road, but we never saw them.  Larry had gotten directions from Jan, so we went down a lot of narrow roads to the gravel road Camp Bay Road.  Unfortunately, we made a wrong turn and ended up at the Lake-- but not by the Abbotts.  Larry disconnected the car so he could turn the RV around, and we backtracked to Elliot Road — I went on ahead, hoping I would see Jim or Jan, but after going on that road to the point of a dirt road, I turned around and drove back.  Just as I saw Larry coming in the RV down the road, I saw Jan running in front of him.  Larry found one spot on the road where he had a phone signal and called Jan, asking her “Where am I?”!!  She came running out on the road, having just seen me go by when I had chosen another wrong fork to take.  She got us directed to a meadow area just down from their cabin on a little bay where there was a 110 electrical outlet and a faucet.  Unfortunately, the faucet was not functioning (Jim called his neighbor who owned that faucet, and they had turned it off and were out of town) but at least we have electricity.  The Abbott’s cabin is small but nice.  They had bought the land for $2000 and it is now worth much much more-- like $500,000!!  The cabin had been on the lot next to theirs.  When the people on that lot wanted to build a fancy house, the Abbotts paid to move the cabin to their own lot.  They have been coming to stay in it the last 9-10 years.  It is built back a little from the lake and they chose to leave the big lovely pine trees in front of it.  They have their own dock, a speed boat, kayaks, canoe, jet ski (it is in the shop right now).  

They told us about the Bird Aviation and Invention museum a few miles away.  Dr. Forrest Bird was a pilot in WWII and was also an inventor— in fact he invented the Bird respirator — we were familiar with the Baby Bird respirator used for newborns.  A lot of the museum was dedicated to airplanes — he had quite a collection of planes, helicopters, plus some old cars— all in pristine condition.  The 2nd floor had cases of respirators, endotracheal tubes, an old iron lung, a negative pressure respirator for infants (like we used in Cleveland in training).  When we first came in, we saw an older man sitting in a chair — when we were on the other side of the museum, I heard someone call him Dr Bird!  But by the time we left, he was gone.  A volunteer took us in a golf cart down to the air strip (he himself came in a small plane to work today from Sandpoint).  He opened another building to show us more planes — there was a display about the Kodiak company that made bush planes — said that a lot of missionaries in 3rd world countries needed that sort of transportation, so this company provided a plane at a discounted price to missionaries out of every 10 planes they manufactured.  

We had hoped to go boating on the lake, but the wind kicked up.  There was also a lot of smoke obliterating the view from the fires in WA — it did not smell smoky but lots of haze.  Jim barbecued some ribs and chicken for supper.  We had bought bread and green beans at the Farmer’s market in Coeur d’Alene yesterday, so we pooled our resources.  Jan made a huckleberry pie for dessert— just delicious.  (I found out that the berries I was eating on our hike in Coeur D’alene were not huckleberries after all — hope they were not poisonous!!! ) After we ate, the lake calmed down, so we boat a little-- caught photo of an interesting sunset thru the smoky air.

Tomorrow we hope to hike — hope the smoke is dissipated.  It is not quite as hot as it has been, thank goodness.  It is very quiet now in our RV — can’t get satellite TV — too many trees.  

Friday July 18, 2018 Lake Pond Orielle

We met the Abbotts at their cabin at 8 am for huckleberry pancakes made by their grandson Simon — very delicious!  Somehow a text made it to Larry’s phone from our next door neighbor DeeAnn — there had been a terrible storm in Alamogordo last night — they lost a tree— we lost some metal covering on our patio ceiling plus an uprooted plant in the front yard — sounds like they woke up to a big mess.  Jan and Jim called their neighbor back home Kathy OQuinn to check on their solar panels, but the wind was not as bad at their house— all was ok.  DeeAnn said that a tornado had even been sighted south of town, and that the winds were 75-100 MPH!!

After we ate, Jim, the grandkids Bonnie and Simon, and we, left around 9 AM so he could take us hiking to Moose Lake.  Jan stayed behind to clean her refrigerator— she has had 2 sets of company in the past 2 weeks— the Harrises, then her sister with 2 grandchildren, so had all kinds of food in there.  We did not realize how far Jim was taking us— it was like 50 miles away, and half of it was on a gravel road.  We bounced up and down hills for about 2 to 2/12 hours each way.  The hike itself was a 4 mile hike thru a beautiful fir forest— it was buggy, but we had all sprayed before we hiked, so no one got bit.  The hike was a gradual ascent, and was pretty easy.  We had to cross one broken bridge (see photo) — Jim thought someone rode their horse over it and broke it.  Moose lake was very pretty, but there still is smoke in the air from the WA fires, so the hills were hazy.  A lot of times they have seen moose there, but not today.  Jim thinks the moose population is diminishing because of wolf packs in the area — he did not see any moose tracks or scat on the trail as he has in the past.  Jim knows the names of most of the trees and plants, so that was nice.  It was mostly in the shade, but it was probably in the 80’s up there.  The hike took less than 2 hours, so the travel time was a lot longer than the hike.  We stopped at a little Amish store about halfway back and picked up sandwiches around 2 pm— they were huge — Larry and I should have split one— must took 2 halves back to the RV.  We got back around 4 pm — it was tiring just to ride in the car on such a bumpy twisting road — I and the kids were drowsing off and on in the back seat.

At 5:15, we all got in Jim’s boat to cross the lake to the “floating restaurant” — this is the 2nd floating restaurant we have been to in the past week!  The water was calm and lovely, and we “parked” in a guest parking spot and got on the pier to the restaurant.  We dined outside —  they had huge movable umbrellas over the tables, so kept everyone well shaded.  The mountains around the lake were still hazy from smoke, but the water was like glass with no wind.  We enjoyed our dinners, then boated around the shores to see some of the fancy homes and resorts in the area.  There is an island for sale that has some old cabins on it— Jim remembers staying there when he was a kid.  It is for sale for about $12million!  -- no buyers yet.  When we got back, Simon put some pine needles in the fire pit as tinder and we sat by a fire on the beach, eating (of course!) huckleberry cake— very good.  We were sad that the huckleberries on our mountain trail were still very green — Jim and Jan will head back there in Aug-Sept to pick when they are nice and ripe.  

The weather seems a little cooler thank goodness.  We will go and check out Sandpoint tomorrow.

journal Saturday July 19 Lake Pond O'reille, ID

We spent Saturday in Sandpoint ID, about 40 minutes from the Abbotts.  We went to the Farmer's Market and got some blueberries, asparagus, goat cheese, and bread, then browsed thru I got some items (on sale for 70-80%off) at the Coldwater Creek store that is going out of business after operating there since the early 80's.  Jan recommended the Litehouse Factory that makes cheeses and salad dressings -- it is the type of dressing that has to stay refrigerated-- is not out on grocery shelves.  They had a special on huckleberry vinaigrette-- very good dressing!  Huckleberries are quite the big item up here.  There were a lot of people downtown and a lot of traffic, but the shops were cute boutiques (Larry thought they were quite "proud" of their wares). We ate at Mick Duff's and sat at a sidewalk table, people watching.  The weather was not quite as hot, so it was very pleasant.  

We drove back to the Abbotts around 2 pm -- Jim, his grandson Simon, and a friend of his were all working digging a basement -- by hand.  His friend is going to show him how to brace everything so the house doesn't fall in when they get the basement finished!  Larry snoozed, I taught Jan how to make my knitted pot scrubbers I make out of nylon netting.  She only crochets, but managed to make one with some netting I brought, and it turned out very nice.  The weather got cooler and breezier, plus still a lot of smoke from the WA fires, so we didn't get to go boating at all.  We pooled resources and had a nice salmon dinner -- with huckleberry ice cream for dessert!  I love huckleberries-- Jan gave me a bag of them to take home.  

Sunday July 20 Columbia Falls MT

We took off around 8 AM-- did not plan this well, since we were missing church again.  Jan said we could stop at the UMC in Sandpoint on our way, but I think we would have taken up the entire parking lost.  It looked less smoky today, but you could really smell the smoke in the air.  I stowed things inside the RV while Larry worked outside.  I drove ahead of him to watch for other vehicles on the narrow road till we could find a flat place to connect the car.  Larry did something he had not done before-- he started driving away without unplugging the electric cord!  I guess he could see it dragging when he started to turn. Luckily it just pulled out of the outlet and did not damage the outlet.  You would think we would have the mental checklist down better by now, but ...NOT!  The scenery was gorgeous coming out of ID into MT, but it started drizzling, and persisted -- just enough to make the RV and car mud streaked -- not enough to wash them at all.  We used the Mapquest to find the campground in Columbia River, and it took us to a street that was blocked.  There was another person with a trailer who pulled into the next street and went thru a parking lot, so Larry decided to follow them. They stopped ahead at the street and got out, looking puzzled.  Larry decided not to follow them, even tho the GPS said we were at the RV park.  So we pulled thru the parking lot back toward to the exit to the main street we were on, and Larry called the RV park-- they were actually located about 4 blocks further down the street.  The lady at the desk, Carla, said this has happened to many RVers coming to their park.  One big RV ended up going down a street that turned out to be a dead end and had to (very unhappily) back up for a whole block.  We decided that GPS works pretty good in big cities, but not in the boondocks -- this happened to us a few times on our last trip -- the GPS says "you have arrived at your destination" but nothing is there.  

Anyhow, it was raining a little harder-- we got parked, unhooked the car, had lunch (we are back in Mtn time zone, so lost an hour).  I got some info about Glacier Nat'l Park from Carla at the desk, but decided we would drive to the park visitor center just to pick up info to plan for tomorrow-- it is supposed to be a nice day.  Carla said they had been getting the smoke from the WA fire till it cleared yesterday, then it rained today.  We drove thru some little towns in the 14 miles to the park entrance -- Hungry Horse, Martin City, Coram, and West Glacier.  Lot of little cabin type motels, RV parks (more "rustic" than ours), rafting, helicopter rides, etc.  We found the visitor center and stopped, but it turned out to be a Canada visitor center, with brochures about Alberta, Edmonton, etc.  We drove another mile or 2 and found the actual park entrance.  Even tho it was pouring there were 3 lanes of cars lined up about 7 deep to get in!  I really thought this would not be a real "popular" park to visit, since it is so off the beaten path, but I guess July is high season.  I stood in line at the visitor center to get info on hiking, since they did not give that out with the park map and Park News like they usually do.  The ranger gave me info about the hikes -- this time of year, he said it was good to utilize the free shuttle to get to the trailheads, and we decided to do that, since parking is limited.  We picked up some more cherries on the way back to the RV-- they look good, but are not at all as good as our local cherries in NM.  But we have been buying them and eating them anyhow.

Right now, the rain has stopped and the sun is trying to shine, so hoping for a beautiful day of hiking tomorrow.

Journal Monday July 21, 2014 Glacier

We set the alarm for 5:30 so we could get to Glacier Nat'l Park on time for the 7 AM express shuttle to the trailhead.  It was a bit overcast.  The shuttle held only 14 people and it took over 90 minutes to get where we wanted to be on the 50 mile "Road to the Sun".  We went up pretty high and were in the clouds as patches of blue appeared in the sky.  AND there was no smoke from the WA fire, thank goodness!  AND it was cool -- in the 50's.  We went past the Weeping Wall, where there are multiple springs and waterfalls right next to the road.  It was actually very convenient to be on the shuttle, and not have to worry about parking.  At one point the driver stopped and we watched a black bear cross the road!!  The hiking recommendations included sunblock, insect repellant, plenty of water, and bear pepper spray!  The bear spray was on sale at the store for $45 a can.  They also recommended making noise to alert the bears to our presence so they would avoid us.  We got off at Sunrift Gorge --the trailhead was close to the drop off spot.  We hiked down 250 ft and only .3 miles to Baring Falls, a very pretty waterfall.  We saw little gray birds on a log called "dippers" -- they periodically poke their heads in the water to catch bugs.  As we hiked, we clicked our sticks on rocks on the trail to alert the bears(!).  We hiked past St. Mary's Lake which was absolutely beautiful.  The water was a lovely blue green color (the color is caused by the action of the glaciers, crumbling the rocks into a fine dust that colors the water) and as clear as could be-- you could see every rock.  St Mary's Falls was the next waterfall, and it was gorgeous-- you could see a rainbow where the sun shone thru the mist.  We hiked a little farther to Virginia's Falls-- also very pretty, cascading down the rocks.  We had a tangerine, then hiked back, running into a lot of hikers coming toward the falls -- the park was starting to fill up.  That hike was about 5 miles total.  We kept thinking how much the hiking group at home would LOVE this hike!

We hopped on the shuttle to go to the St Mary Visitor Center on the east side of the park.  They had more displays than the west side visitor center, and also had a 20 minute film about the forming of Glacier park -- started with the ancient glaciers, the Blackfeet Indian tribe, the coming of fur traders, the institution as a national park in 1910, and the formation of the Glacier-Waterton Int'l Peace Park in 1930. In 1995 it was named a World Heritage Site.  We wanted to have a picnic lunch around there, but there were not tables, so we just sat in some tall grass to eat our sandwiches.

We then hopped back on the shuttle to ride to Logan Pass on the Continental divide at 6646 feet.  I had spoken to a lady on the first shuttle who is a campground host here during the summer.  She is a single lady from Cincinnati who spends summers here and winters in Tuscon.  She was familiar with most of the hikes, so recommended the Hidden Lake hike -- just 1.5 mi each way.  This trailhead was right behind the large building at the Pass, and you could see lines of people ascending.  The first part of it was a built boardwalk -- quite steep with lots of steps.  Larry wanted to turn back, but there were people with little kids, babies in backpacks, older people than us, so we went on.  The problem with this trail, was as we got higher, there were large areas of slushy slippery snow to climb thru.  We had our doubts, but again, everyone else was trudging up the hill, so we bit the bullet and went on.  I was very glad we had our hiking sticks, since we did a lot of slipping and sliding.  Most others had no stick, some were in flip-flops or sandals-- or barefoot!!  I kept asking people coming down if it was worth it-- they all said yes, but said it was scarier higher up.  We finally got to the scary party which was steeper and snow covered, and then it got dry, but we had to go around this corner that had just rocks and gravel and was straight down if you fell!.  I was so scared, but we plodded on and made it around this horrible corner.  There was less snow above there and there were mountain goats!!  That made it all worth while.  They were not fearful of people and just roamed around, posing for photos!  The view from that high point was gorgeous -- I think Montana outshines Idaho in the beauty dept!  We continued hiking to the lookout where Hidden Lake could be seen at the bottom of the canyon.  It was just lovely.  We walked around awhile to take photos, then turned around to head down.  I really dreaded it especially that scary corner (I think I needed a Xanax about that point).  I was praying so hard that we would not get hurt!!! We saw some more goats along the way, the slipped and slid our way down.  The scary corner was not as bad since I could manipulate my stick better on the right hand side.  Even tho we were mostly walking in snow, it was in the 60's by then, and we felt quite warm.  We were VERY glad when we made it to the bottom.

We had to wait quite awhile for the shuttle because the park was so busy.  We finally made it back to the RV around 6:15 and we were POOPED!!

(I threw in one extra gorgeous picture of our grand daughter Marlowe!!)

My daily devotions are by email, and the 2 that I read before we left the RV this morning, really fit our day.  One just started with this prayer:

"Lord, I commit my works unto you, and ask you to establish my thoughts and direct my steps. Let my heart beat with your desires. Deliver me from all wrongdoing and fleshly desires. Keep me under your faithful, loving, and warm wings of love. I praise you, Father, Savior, Deliverer. In Jesus' name."

The other devotion is from the Upper Room-- I was SO glad I had my hiking stick with me today!!!!!

"God will give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well." 2 Thessalonians 1:7 (NIV)

A hiking stick is a hiker’s best friend. On hikes in the mountains over steep trails covered with rocks and roots, my hiking stick relieves knee pressure while I am going uphill, slows me down while descending, and keeps me from falling when my feet slip on roots and rocks. Once, when my hiking stick slid down a mountain, I didn’t hesitate to slide down after it to retrieve it.

Some believe God is a crutch to lean on when we can’t handle life’s pressures, but I readily admit I can’t handle life’s pressures alone. I can do all things with Christ (see Phil. 4:13), but I make a mess on my own.

I have learned to lean on God for rest, guidance, strength, and wisdom to take the next step and to know how to respond. It also reminds me that this world is not my home. One day I’ll live in an eternal heaven where God will relieve the pressures I face now, but until then I must lean. When pressures come, we can stretch upward and lean forward toward God.

Journal Tue July 22,2014 Columbus Falls MT

We got to the Park around 7:15 and just drove to the trailhead of Avalanche Lake.  We did the first part of the Trail of the Cedars which is a boardwalk/paved trail that is handicapped accessible.  The trailhead to Avalanche Lake was about .4 mi into that trail.  It was mostly uphill but only went up 500 ft total.  We walked thru a forest of cedar, hemlock, black cottonwood.  There were areas where trees had been cut -- I guess by the national park service -- and just left where they fell.  We only met 4-5 people on the trail.  The lake was lovely, and there were actually 4 waterfalls that we could see on the rugged cliffs behind it.  It was a little overcast today, so cooler.  We hiked back and just drove around the MacDonald Lodge area-- most of the lodges have a Swiss chalet theme.  We did not stop at any of the gift shops.  We went on to the Sprague campground since they had picnic tables there.  In the campground was a great big 40 ft Phaeton RV (like the Harris's have) with a sign - Campground Host.  While we were eating, a Natl park man came by just to chat-- he actually knew Alamogordo since he has a son in ABQ and another relative in NM.  We went to talk to the lady after we ate to ask her how they ever got that big RV between the trees!!!  She said that her husband just backed in with her guidance, all the way from the entrance to the campground, and got it in the first time!!!  She said they have been volunteering the past 4-5 years-- they share the summer with another couple, so they just got here this weekend, and will stay till the campground closes in september.  They have to be available 5 days a week, then someone fills in for 2 days.  She says they just relax, kayak, and hike.  I think it would be a fun volunteer job, but Larry doesn't think he could survive without TV or internet.  

After we ate, we tried to find the trailhead to another shorter hike, but never found it.  We stopped at the Visitor Center to get more accurate info, and we will go back tomorrow morning to do that. We stopped at Smiths for a few groceries and I told the clerk I used to have a Smiths shopping card from when we had a Smiths in Alamogordo a long time ago.  She looked surprised, and said her grandparents lived in Alamogordo in the 40's and 50's-- she had never been there tho.

Larry found a bridge club in Kalispell -- about 14 miles away, so we will hike tomorrow morning, and then shuffle/deal!  This afternoon, we just vegged out-- we were still pooped from our 12 hour day yesterday of serious hiking.  We stopped at the Chamber of Commerce to get tourist info, but decided that, even tho there is a lot of stuff to do in the area, we would just stick with hiking Glacier rather than shopping or restauranting. 

Journal Wednesday July 23, 2014 Columbia Falls ID

There was quite a storm last night-- we could hear thunder and rain during the night.  It was really chilly in the RV when we woke up.  I almost wanted to just stay in bed, but it is our last day, so we donned our hiking clothes and headed to Glacier around 8 AM.  We drove to the trailhead of Johns Lake -- there is only room for 4-5 cars, so not a real popular hike, I guess.  It was 3 miles total and only went up about 300 ft.  We had the beautiful forest to ourselves and the lake was only about .5 mi from the trailhead.  I had to go off path to find a pace to photograph the lake-- it is the only one that had lots of lily pads, tho no blossoms.  It was pretty muddy near the lake edge.  We kept on the trail, had to cross the road, then go over a foot bridge where we could see the Dancing Cascades, then MacDonald Falls from the other side from where we saw them yesterday.  It actually was a very pleasant scenic trail along the river and we really enjoyed it.  On the way back out of the park, we stopped at a lot of scenic pullouts on Lake MacDonald.  You could see the huge area on Howe's Ridge on the other side of the lake that burned in the fire of 2003-- there were several fires in the area at the same time.  Again, the water is amazingly clear.  The glacier water does not promote the growth of algae, so you can see all the multicolored rocks in the water.  One of the signs at the pull off discussed that between 1920 and 1970, a lot of non-native fish were introduced to the lake that really messed up the ecosystems.  This has been banned since 1970, but the number of native fish continues to dwindle each year.  We left the park just about 10 am which was Larry's goal, so we could clean up and go to Kalispell to play bridge this afternoon.

The bridge club there met in a church basement --  they were renting it for the summer, since their other building they used was not air conditioned.  They are actually going to build their own club building.  A rich guy who likes to play bridge, gave them a good deal on a lot, and they are raising money to pay for the building.  They were able to apply for non-profit status by allowing  the university to teach bridge classes there.  So for anyone who donates money, it is tax deductible.  They had 13 tables today, but often have more than that in the summer-- up to 20! (We have only 4-5 tables if we are lucky in Alamogordo)  Everyone was very nice and friendly.  Some pairs were locals, other were snowbirds, some were Canadians.  We had a 53% game which was pretty good --  we came in 1st in C flight, 2nd in B, and 4th overall, earning 1.06 points!!   Everyone invited us to come back next time when we are in the area(!).  The last pair we played with was a couple from Canada.  The man was at the table, and the lady had gone to the restroom.  It looked like an oxygen concentrator on the table, so I expected an old sick lady, but she was an attractive spritely woman, maybe our age.  But the gizmo on the table was actually a bright light.  She had some type of eye disease, and her husband would say the cards aloud, or we did, as we played.  She must have an awesome memory.  I was amazed that she could play so well. 

It was a fun day.  The weather report on TV is from Spokane -- sounds dismal there between fires and now terrible wind and thunderstorms.  We are heading tomorrow to Butte.

Thursday July 24, 2014 Butte MT

Yesterday, after we played bridge in Columbia Falls, they were having an “RV show” at our campground.  So we got to tour about 10 RV’s.  The biggest one was only about 36 ft and was ok — but cost like $400,000!!!!  The salesman said it was a very safe RV compared to most.  The majority of the RV’s were the real small ones that I think look so cute.  They have cute little stoves and cute little refrigerators, and cute little bathrooms — most were so small, that you would have to sit on the “pot” to take your shower!  I tried to get into one and I could do it, tho it was claustrophobic.  Larry could not even fit into the bathroom!!!

Another one had 2 reclining chairs in the front, but there was no bed.  Larry sat on one recliner to see if it turned into a bed, but it didn’t.  Then I looked up and it was a Murphy bed!!!  I had never seen that in an RV— not a bad idea actually.

When we got back to the RV, our neighbor was washing his RV— again.  Every day that we were there, he was out with soap and water and his wife would spray to rinse it— our RV park had plenty of water so they allowed that.  I told him last night, that all this washing was going to make it rain— and it indeed did rain a lot during the night.  When we got up this morning it was cool and gloomy — it made it easier for us to leave Glacier since it would not have been a good day to be outdoors.  We got on the road around 8:15 and drove thru the rain, thru very pretty country.  Larry picked a red line on the map that looked the straightest — it was a pretty good road— quite a few curves, but not so many ups and downs.  The weather cleared as we drove south, and it was sunny and windy in Butte.  Since it was early, I looked up some stuff on Trip Advisor and my Montana book on what to do in Butte.  It really is a pretty town in the summer with hills, mountains in the horizon, lots of old historic buildings and relics of the old mining days throughout town.

We drove downtown to the Historic Dumas Brothel museum(!).  It was the longest running brothel in the US —1890 to 1982.  We opted to take the guided tour with Colleen, the mother of the young man who bought the building a few years ago and has been restoring it.  She said it was built by  2 Frenchmen in the red light district in the mining days.  It had 3 floors with about 8 “cribs” on each floor — the little sitting room/ bedrooms where the ladies of the night would sit on a windowsill of the room, beckoning.  The basement was literally, the “bargain” basement— not as fancy, and cheaper.  The main floor was pricier, and the top floor was really done up fancy and cost the most.  The place has had paranormal investigators there— one of the Madams Elinore Knott still allegedly roams the halls.  A ghost of a little boy who died there also is pictured.  There was an old phone in the hall with names on it still— Cecelia, et al, plus one number was for “Security”.  There was a lot of payoffs to the crooked policemen of those days.  Colleen said there were even tunnels connecting the brothel with places of business downtown, but they have crumbled.  The last Madam Ruby Garrett sold the building to a guy named Rudy, stipulating that he would restore it to its glory days.  He tried to, renting out some of the rooms in the building as an antique mall, but it was not a financial success.  In 2012, Colleen’s son Michael and his friend Travis bought it with all its “stuff”, and have dug thru all the junk in the basement to restore several of the ‘cribs” on each floor, a nice bathroom and shower on the top floor, and furnishing the rooms with stuff they found.  Most of the original woodwork is still there, and they peeled down to some of the original wall paper.  

After that, we drove to The World of Mining Museum at the Montana Tech campus.  We did not get there on time to take a mine tour, so just walked the grounds.  Mining was the big industry in Butte, and they had a lot of equipment, mining buildings, a gunpowder shack a mining adit (entrance to an old mine that went in about 30 ft), mine cars, old photos etc.  They had a whole village (Hell Roarin’ Gulch) of old buildings that were brought to the grounds filled with artifacts— doctor’s office, dentist’s office, pharmacy, bank, post office, school, church, etc.  We peeked thru windows or could enter a few to look around — it was more interesting than I thought it was going to be.  We could climb 70 ft to the top of a “headframe” of the Orphan Girl Mine— you could see where they would hoist cages full of miners or ore.  Some other unexpected stuff we saw were a collection of dollhouses, a mineral collection, and a room that had a music machine that was a piano, but also had drums and other instruments built into it— it sounded like a calliope at a carnival.

The last Butte attraction we saw was the Berkely Pit — it was very hard to get to since most of the streets on the edge of downtown were blocked— apparently, there is an Evel Knievel festival going on — there was a bike race, and a guy riding a motorcycle on a tight rope between 2 cranes!!  We finally got to the Pit, and it was kind of the pits— we paid $2 each to go the viewing area.  The pit was an open pit copper mine dug in 1955.  It shut down in 1982.  The pumps that kept the well dry were shut down, and it started filling with water.  The water is very acidic and 2 million gallons flow in each day.  It is now like >1 mi in diameter and 5000 ft deep!  The acidity of the water and the sludge make it kind of an odd color.  Engineers are now trying to detoxify the water and pump some of it out.  It is rather an odd attraction.  You enter thru the gift shop, then walk thru a tunnel thru a hill to the viewing area — there were not many people there.

Larry found us a bridge game for tonight, so we will be playing from 7 pm to ???  Then hitting the road again in the morning.

Friday 7/25/14

Last night we played bridge in Butte.  We found a number to call on line.  They rent a room in an elementary school that is closed, so they get to leave all their stuff out when they're done-- don't have to store bidding boxes or put chairs/tables away.  They had 5 tables.  Most of them were older than us, as usual, but were pretty sharp.  There was a lady we played with the day before in Kalispell that was 97 years old!!!  She was the one who started their bridge club, and still plays very well! ( I have a new role model!).  Anyhow, this game did not start till after 7 pm, so we did not finish till about 10:15 -- I was zombified by that time!  One man that we played with was SO slow -- it was very distracting.  One of the other players says that he figures out what cards everyone else has, and plays accordingly -- it was pretty annoying to us!  We only had a 49% game, but instead of flighting the results, they assigned "handicaps" based on your ACBL points -- so Larry has a lot of course, but I don't so, we got 6 points added to our score and came in 1st in the handicapped group, winning .99 points!!  Larry tried to explain it to me, but I still don't really get how they do that.

We woke to a cool sunny day today.  We drove to Pocatello -- Larry has decided driving about 230-240 miles per day -- we're retired and don't have to put in those 12 hour travel days like we used to.  When we got to the KOA around 1:45, I picked up some brochures in the office to see what we could do while we're here.  I gave Larry choices between the history museum, the zoo, or the "Museum of Clean".  The latter sounded unique, so we decided on that one.  When we arrived, the lady at the desk said that the owner of the museum had just started a guided tour, and would we like to take that.  There was another family with a 6 yr old boy and a 3 yr old girl on the tour.  I said "sure".  Don Aslett is an almost 80 year old Mormon gentleman, who is the CEO of a large company called Varsity Contractors, a multi million dollar corporation with offices in 11 states.  So I guess he can afford his passion which is collecting cleaning items!  He has a huge collection of old vacuums -- some were operated by bellows in the old days.  He demonstrated several-- one was a rocking chair that filled a bellows when it rocked, and had a hose connected to it so another person could vacuum.  (My grandchildren -- especially Michael !-- would love this place.)  He let the children try out several of the vacuum contraptions and old carpet sweepers.  We then went into the area where he had a collection of toilets-- outhouse, prison toilets that had a sink connected to them, potty chairs, chamber pots, etc etc.  There was a collection of old washing machines, wringer washers, floor polishers, rug beaters-- it sounds kind of weird, but it really was interesting -- and he did enjoy talking.  He paid a lot of money for some of his artifacts.  He put on a puppet show for the kids which was really cute.  In the front lobby there was a huge Noah's ark with tables and chairs for projects, and a staircase going to the top where there were pairs of stuffed animals.  He also had a world shaped cage for kids to climb around in.  There was a chimney sweep area (played a video of Mary Poppins singing Chim chim cheree!), and the 2 little kids got to go into the chimney to "sweep".  He showed a video of when he was interviewed on the news when he opened his museum in 2011 -- I'm going to try to see if I can see it again on U-tube).  The building was big and airy and painted nicely -- he said it was a total mess when he bought it, and he did a lot of the fixing up by himself.  He gave me one of his books-- "Is there Life after Housework" and autographed it to me!  One board talked about his life-- how he cleaned houses while in college, then did his mission (in Hawaii!), then married and had 6 children.  There was also an art gallery with cleaning related topics -- paintings, figurines, knights made out of cleaning utensils.  I think we were there about 2 hours -- it was really fun! And it was certainly different!!!  I would highly recommend it to anyone who happens to be passing thru Pocatello.  We were very lucky that the owner Don just happened to be guiding a tour when we came in.

On the way home, I put the KOA on the Mapquest and was just playing games on my phone.  All of a sudden, it said to go 256 miles in I-15!!!

Here I had put the KOA in Butte on it instead of Pocatello, so Larry was faithfully following the directions, resulting in an extra 20 mile trip to the campground!!!  

Tomorrow, we head to UT..

journal Saturday July 27 Green River UT

This was not a good day.  We had planned to get an early start to start our drive to Green River UT, then Gunnison CO tomorrow.  As we were getting everything stowed and disconnected, Larry noticed a puddle of red liquid at the back of the RV.  It was hydraulic liquid that is needed in the RV to operate the jacks and the slides.  On a Saturday morning, we got a lot of answering machines at any RV service places in Pocatello.  Larry called Good Sam, and they gave him the name of Bish's RV center and he got a human there.  They said to come over, so I followed Larry in the car.  The people were so nice-- the service man said that he had 3 cases of this problem just this week-- a broken O-ring gasket -- as soon as the jacks are turned on, the pump just pumps the hydraulic fluid right out to the ground!  He said it would have to be ordered since they had none for our RV type, but that it was safe to drive.  He said when we stopped, we could just collect the hydraulic fluid in a bowl and "recycle" back in.  He topped off the hydraulic fluid in the container, and sent us off without even charging us!!  So very nice!  

We took the long way since Larry thought he could avoid mountain roads, but the long way was just as mountainous as the short way, but it took an extra hour!  It actually was quite pretty along the road (see photos from the RV on the road).  We arrived around 5:15.  Larry put my big white bowl under the hydraulic fluid container.  As soon as he turned the jacks on, the entire container spurted out!!! (see photo).  We recycled a fair amount and put it back in plus Larry had bought 4 bottles at a store in Pocatello before we left, and dumped those in too.  We can't use the jacks, but the slides work.  Larry got back on the phone -- there is a place in Grand Junction that might have been able to service us, but no one answered the phone on a Saturday night.  Even if we wait around till Monday, it is likely that they would have to order the part which would take a few days.

So...... Larry decided we would skip Gunnison (we would surely need our jacks there + it is out in the middle of the Rocky Mtns, far away from a big city) and just drive to ABQ tomorrow.  I am feeling very sad.  The RV park here is pretty ugly (see photo), tho apparently this is the watermelon capital of the USA (see photo).  The only thing that makes me less sad, is that my Weather Channel predicts rain in Gunnison most of the week.  But we were really looking forward to going.

Anyhow, we will drive the 400 some miles to ABQ tomorrow, staying at the Enchanted Trails again on the west side which is very close to the RV store where we bought our RV which has a service dept and is near Freightliner-- it is due for a big checkup.  We may have to "camp" at Brian's part of the time.  So we will just hang around ABQ till the big SuperHero birthday party for Josh (and Brian) on Saturday, and head home by Saturday night.

So thus ends my journal on this trip.  Over and out....

 

journal july 2014 Utah and Idaho

6/30/14 ABQ

Yesterday, we helped with the music in both church services (our new pastor Dustin Wilhite got "installed"), then hit the road in our well packed RV -- we always take twice as much stuff as we need, but we have lots or room.  Larry was going to drive right to ABQ, but decided to stop at the Scenic truck stop to gas up --  it was VERY lucky he did that, since he then realized that he left his wallet at home on the dresser(!!!).  He used my credit card (the cashier commented how he did not look like a "Nancy"!), and we headed back home to retrieve the wallet.  If we had gotten all the way to ABQ and then got gas, we probably would have had to park the RV and take the car all the way home again!!!!

Anyhow, we got to the RV park near 5 pm.  We had joined the "Coast to Coast" RV club, and they do have a park on the northwest side of ABQ-- we are very close to the Camping World store.  So instead of the $50 a night rate of the KOA (they are VERY proud of their RV park!), we are paying $15 a night.  It is called the Enchanted Trails RV park and Trading Post.   It looks really old and kind of seedy, but the KOA is not exactly beautiful either.  The park brochure said that this was originally the Hill Top Trading Post, constructed in the late 40's to attract travelers on Route 66.  At that time, it had "teepees on the roof line, a burro wandering the parking lot, big arrows sticking out of the ground, and a stuffed bear at the door".   It was converted to a campground in the early 70's.  The adobe styled office building was used in several "mediocre" films.  They have a collection of vintage travel trailers on display near the office -- they are really cute and quaint-- I peeked in the windows -- there are stuffed small easy chairs, little white rounded refrigerators and 2 burner stoves, a lot of wood paneling -- really cozy and old fashioned looking -- no TV's or microwaves for sure!

We had planned to meet up with Leslie and Josh to go hike in the Sandias this morning since Brian had to work, but the national forest is closed due to fire danger-- yesterday was the last day it was open to hikers.  So, we ran around shopping all morning-- Sam's, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, Bed Bath, Wine store, Cottonwood Mall -- supporting the local economy!  We planned to meet up with Leslie and Josh to go to the Tinkertown museum, but her stepsister Alexis went into labor, so they are on a baby-wait.  They are babysitting the big sister Maya while they wait.  So after lunch, we went to the Apple store to ask questions about our phones -- it turned out that we were on the same "cloud", so now the guy fixed it so I have my own "cloud" -- it is still not clear to me what this means for me, but I do have more gigabytes than I had before-- I am not sure what I will do with them(!).  We met up with Brian, Leslie, Josh, and Maya -- then Leslie took Maya to her baseball game -- we opted out since it is VERY hot today in ABQ.  So I and "the boys" went out for pizza.  Larry is busy planning our route to Moab UT tomorrow -- looks like it will be warm in UT as well, even tho we are going in a northerly direction. We will go thru Gallup rather than to Farmington first.  I finally heard from my old neighbor Katie Barnett, who lives in Salt Lake City -- we will find a time to get together with her and 2 of her "kids" -- Annie and Moose while we are there.  

Tuesday 7/1 Moab, 7/2 Salt Lake City

On Monday we drove from ABQ to Moab -- we went thru Gallup -- pretty red rocks -- then to Shiprock -- not really scenic.  We thought about the fact that if we really had joined the Indian Health Service as we planned to in the 70's, we might have been stationed in a place like that!  It got prettier going thru Cortez -- lots of farms and meadows going north of there.  Going into Utah was dry and deserty and desolate, tho as we approached Moab, there were lots of pretty rock formations.  The KOA was south of Moab -- nice view of red rocks and cliffs.  Larry did not feel like unhooking the car, so we just stayed in the RV park.  It was very hot and dusty.  We just vegged out, cooked supper, and sat --  I do not like doing nothing (that's why I did not journal yesterday).  After supper it was a little cooler, and we just walked around the RV park -- it really was pretty full.  There were a lot of very cute little trailers-- looked like there was just a little sink, tiny frig, and bed inside.  There were lots of families -- could not imagine what they would do in the heat-- maybe boat or rafting trips-- it certainly is too hot to hike in the Nat'l Parks this time of year.  We went to the pool around 8 pm, but there were a lot of little kids in it.  I went on in and it felt good to cool off.  Old curmudgeon Larry just sat on the side and watched children splash each other.

This morning (Tuesday), we left Moab to drive to Salt Lake City.  Once you get north of Moab, there is again, a lot of desolation, tho it is hilly desolation -- we got really good mileage (like 9MPG) going down the hill -- not so good going up.  I always wonder how the pioneers made it, when our diesel pusher was straining itself!  We drove thru some nice looking little towns-- Green River, and Price, then thru the line up of towns going toward SLC on I-15 Provo, Sandy, etc.  We got into the KOA around 1:45.  It is really a lovely park with nice size spaces and a lot of grass.  Another nice thing is that there is a free shuttle running back and forth to Temple Square every 30 minutes from around 9:30 AM to 8:30 PM.  So we hopped on the shuttle around 3 pm.  An older couple (older than us!) drove us first to the airport (not very far away from here) -- they run the shuttle out there, advertising it for people who have a layover for a few hours -- everything seems to be a ministry for the LDS church.  I'm not sure why they included the KOA on their route -- maybe the proprieters are also LDS.  On the way to the airport, they showed us some of the sights-- the Salt Lake, the copper mine that is still in operation.  When they dropped us off at Temple Square, the lady with us went inside to get us a pair of guides to give us a tour.  Our guides were 2 young ladies from the Phillippines who were doing their mission here for about 2 yr.  They did not know each other before they came to SLC, but now room together.  I told them that I thought of the Philippines as being mainly Catholic -- one girl (they both had Sister __last name on their name tags) said she was raised Mormon, and the other was a convert.  They took turns witnessing to us, and were very sweet.  They took us thru North Visitors Center, then the Tabernacle, giving us a demo of the acoustics there-- ripping a paper up, dropping pins on the podium -- even our deaf ears could hear!  We went thru another building Assembly Hall (built 1882) where they have meetings and concerts.  We saw the Temple from the outside (built 1853-1893), and they had a little model that showed what was in the rooms.  The girls said they had been allowed to go in, but not even every Mormon is allowed to enter the Temple.  At the end of the tour, I asked to take their picture so I could remember them -- they said they could only have it done if one of us stood in the photo with them, so see below.  They were very sweet and sincere, for sure.

We then walked across the street to the Conference Center, and upon walking in, got assigned a personal guide.  It was a woman, maybe about our age named Marilyn Bushman.  She wore dark glasses-- the kind people wear after cataract surgery.  She apparently has some sort of painful eye disease that has diminished her vision quite a bit.  The Conference Center was built around 2003 to accommodate the large number of visitors that they have -- it seats 23,000, has balconies with no pillars at all (good architect!).  The Tabernacle, conference center, and Assembly Hall all have organs and pianos.  There was someone practicing the organ while we were at the Conference Center.  She took us to the top floor, where 4 acres of gardens are planted and native plants and grasses grow.  A huge waterfall starts at the top of this building, and cascades down to street level.  She was very chatty, answering questions willingly-- I asked her why she did not have "Sister Bushman" on her name tag like our Philippine guides-- she explained that she has worked there part time as a missionary the past 4 years-- the young girls are full time missionaries.  She showed us a lot of art-- one room had paintings of Book of Mormon stories -- about the Lamanites and Nephites-- I asked where the stories took place and she said here in America(!).  I asked where-- like the Northeast or Southwest -- she did not know.  I also asked her what Mormons thought about Methodists-- what would happen to us after we die.  All she did was smile sweetly and said, that all she knew was that God loved us very much.  She shared with us how she and her husband had come to the center the year of the Olympics, and did not think they could get in to the special program that night, but amazingly found a parking spot right across from the center on the street.  Then they mingled with the crowd, and just thought they would ask about tickets, and found that 2 tickets were available.  Then amazingly, even tho they were 30 minutes late getting seated, the speaker (who was the church big leader at the time) had been outside passing the Olympic torch, so he got there 30 minutes late and they got to hear him speak and enjoy a great program.  She was practically in tears, saying she had never told anyone about this before --  I told her that her guardian angel must have been watching out for her that night, and she said "I just have to hug you" and she did!  Then we got to talking about her family -- I just asked if she was from a big family --  she said she could trace her family back to Joseph Smith.  Several ancestors were from Nauvoo IL before moving to Utah.  She is one of 10 children, and her husband is one of 11.  Her grandfather had 2 wives (before polygamy was outlawed), and each wife had 10 children!  Her husband also works as a guide at the Conference Center -- they have 5 children --  3 boys and 2 girls.  Only 2 were married, and they both have divorced.  She has only 2 grandkids that she rarely sees.  (I am not sure how this all works for the family celestial planet?!?) Anyhow, she seemed very devout, and seemed to have surprised herself with how much she shared with us.

We then went to the Family History Library.  We each got assigned a helper who got us started on a site.  I only got to my grandparents, and not much flashed up -- I thought I would just give my name, and the computer would immediately discover that I was of royal blood!  For some reason, Larry's family tree (which he knew nothing about his ancestors) popped up --  a lot of Scandinavian royalty in his family, all the way back to the 200's -- go figure!!!  Anyhow, they gave us the website so we can keep working on this at home if we want to.

We then went to the Church History Museum -- we were on our own for this one --  a lot of artifacts from the pioneers.  It was interesting, but we were starting to wear out.  We caught the shuttle back to the RV park around 7:20, ate, walked the park, and are about ready to turn in.  

The news said that today was the hottest day of the year in Salt Lake City.  We got to be in ABQ Monday for their hottest day of the year!!! Hope it is cooler in Idaho!!!

July 3, 2014 Salt Lake City

journal Thursday July 3, 2014  Salt Lake City

We again took the free shuttle from the KOA to Temple Square.  WE went back to the Church History Museum since we only visited the 1st floor last night.  We went to the 2nd floor where they had an art exhibit of artists from the 90's and '00's-- mostly mother and children works of art that were really quite nice-- each had a little story relating to Morman family ideals.  There was a children's hands on area, along with more pictures of church leaders and more artifacts.  The basement had more artifacts and a large display relating to the Morman's support of Boy Scouts -- I'm not sure how they actually had gotten linked up, but i know the Alamogordo LDS church has an active Boy Scout troop.   

I visited the gift shop -- I was just curious about items relating to Mormon children.  Indeed they had little action figures of ancient warriors in the Book of Mormon.  There were children's story books about the Nephites and Lamanites.  There were pottery beehives-- Utah is called the Beehive state.  The early pioneers used the beehive as a symbol of working cooperatively and industriously.  

We then walked over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building where there is a 500 seat theater, showing a 63 minute film "Joseph Smith: Prophet of Restoration".  It was very well filmed on a huge IMAX type screen.  It gave the story of Joseph's childhood, his visions of God the Father and Jesus, the visitation of the angel Moroni, his quest to find the right church, his calling to form his own church, meeting his wife, he and his church being persecuted and relocating to PA, IN, MO, and Nauvoo IL; building temples in several towns, getting tarred and feathered in MO, being put in jail, and finally with he and his brother Hyrum getting murdered.  (I don't understand why people felt so threatened by the Mormons at that time of history, that they wanted to kill them.)  It ended with Brigham Young leading 80,00 Mormon pioneers to the Rocky Mtns.  It was interesting, but I noticed that the story line left out all the other wives.

We then walked over to the Tabernacle for the noon organ recital.  The organist was a distinguished looking white haired gentleman names Clay Christianson.  He played fugue in D Major, his own arrangement of My Country tis of Thee, Amazing Grace, a Mormon hymn - Come, Come Ye Saints, an unnamed song, and Toccata.  Before he played, he gave another acoustic demo -- ripping paper, dropping pins.  The organ was constructed in the 1860's and has been rebuilt an enlarged.  Huge gold organ pipes are on the front wall of the Tabernacle-- he pointed out that these were not metallic-- they were actually made of wood, plastered over, then painted gold to look like metal pipes!  Altogether, there are 11,623 pipes (Larry had guessed 12,00 yesterday when our guide asks how many pipes we thought there were!!)  There are 5 manuals (keyboards) -- when he had to play on the top keyboard, he had to lean way forward and reach up high.  His shoe clad feet literally danced on the foot pedals -- Larry said a "real" organist never removes his or her shoes to play (guess Larry does not consider himself "real").  A different organist was listed each day of the week -- we wondered whether Frank Ashdown has ever gotten to play at that organ-- Larry thinks he maybe has -- he also thinks some of Frank's compositions have been performed at the Tabernacle.

We walked over to the Beehive House, the 1854 official residence of Brigham Young -- again we had 2 young girl guides to show us around -- much of the furnishings were original.

We went to the Church Office building and took the elevator to the 14th floor observation deck.  An older lady pointed out things of interest that we could see-- the Great Salt Lake, Capital building, some other historic buildings.  

We then went back to the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg (I was getting turned around at this point, but Larry has good sense of direction!).  We took the elevator up to the 10th floor where they had a very nice Garden Restaurant.  The waitress (like most people in Temple Square) was a little excessively cheerful, but we enjoyed our sandwiches with a nice view of downtown.  

We took our free shuttle back to the RV park.  Several of the people were on the shuttle when we left the RV Park this morning -- guess they got wore out the same time we did!  They are from New Zeeland-- said they are missing out on lots of rainy weather there -- they recommend visiting NZ in Feb or Mar -- the fall of the year there, when the weather is most "stable".

After resting up, we took the shuttle back downtown -- we visited the North Visitor Center which had many large paintings of the life of Jesus, plus a large white statue of Jesus (photo below). We walked over to the Assembly Center where they had a fountain with a Seagull monument (photo below).  Oddly, the California sea gull is the state bird of Utah!  The Mormon pioneers had to work very hard to divert water from the mountains to irrigate and farm the land.  One year they had an infestation of locusts that they could not get rid of, even by burning fields.  Miraculously, a flock of sea gulls somehow flew in from CA and ate the locusts, saving the crops.

At 7:30, we went to the Conference Center to hear the Mormon Tabernacle choir rehearsal -- when they let us in right at 7:30, the choir was already rehearsing with a full orchestra (see photo-- only about a 3rd of the choir).  All the women wore skirts (every female volunteer we met wore skirts) and all the men had collared shirts -- no wild T-shirts.  There are 360 non paid volunteers in the choir, so it is quite a big loft.  It must have been warm up there, since most of the ladies were fanning themselves.  They rehearsed "There's a Place for Us" from West Side Story, "Be Still My Soul", and another song I did not know before we left at 8:15 to catch our shuttle back to the KOA.  There were not as many people in the audience as I would have expected -- there was a polite "smattering" of applause after each song.  Historically, the choir started in 1847 at a church conference, just 29 days after the pioneers arrived here.  Their first radio broadcast was in 1929--called "Music and the Spoken Word", and continues as a weekly broadcast -- we plan to attend the service there Sunday instead of a UMC church!  

When we went to catch the shuttle at 8:30, there was a family with 9 children waiting with us -- their ages looked about age 3 to 19.  One other "older" couple with us was waiting also.  The Mom assured us that they could seat the kids on laps, but thank goodness, the shuttle driver said another shuttle was coming in 5 minutes!  

We hope to get up early to hike in the morning.

Journal July 4, 2014 Salt Lake City

We got up at 5:30 so we would get an early start hiking.  We drove to Big Cottonwood Canyon up the mountain.  There were very many bikers going up the road.  We turned off about 9 miles up to the trailhead for Doughnut Falls.  There were only a few other cars at the trailhead.  The hike was 3 miles round trip --  I like destination hikes, so it was nice to hike to a waterfall.  Lots of wildflowers, and much greener than our mountains.  The hike was mostly uphill -- one lady I met at the outhouse before starting the hike, said that all the trails here are pretty easy, but are all uphill.  We huffed and puffed a fair amount-- it wasn't till we got near the falls that we had to clamber down rocks.  At least it was all downhill going back-- we were done in less than an hour.

We then drove up further to the Brighton ski resort where the trailhead was to several lakes.  They were having a big July 4 breakfast there, so there were lots of people.  There were a lot of people hiking, many with small children and babies.  The beginning of the trail was very steep -- we stopped a lot to huff and puff on this one.  Farther up it was shadier, and different wild flowers than we saw lower down.  We took the turnoff to Dog Lake, which was very small -- from what I read about it on the internet, it is a shrinking lake, getting more overgrown with marshy plants -- eventually will just be a meadow.  We then hiked further to Lake Catherine-- very pretty large lake with lots of boulders, and a dam at one end which accounted for its formation.  Larry went into shutdown mode and did not want to go to Lakes Mary and Martha that were within the next mile, so we turned around and went back down.  Our Map My Walk Ap measured this hike at 3.6 miles total -- it was a lot harder since it was a lot steeper.  We had our picnic lunch, and headed back to the RV.  We cleaned up and rested up.  We left around 4 pm to meet up with Katie Barnett and her son Moose (Michael), our old neighbors from Alamogordo (see photo).  Moose grilled us some delicious ribs, Katie cooked corn on the cob, and I brought chips and a strawberry salad.  We enjoyed reminiscing about old times.  They had moved up here in 2008 after her husband Rick died unexpectedly of a heart attack.  Katie actually lived with her parents for several years as a caregiver until they passed away within 6 months of each other.  

Right now we are listening to lots of fireworks in our very full RV park.  We plan to go to Park City tomorrow.

(Sorry that I have no control over which direction my phone photos come into an email.)

July 5,2014 Salt Lake City

We got to Park City around 9 am -- we drove right to the Utah Olympic Park -- it was fun to see the museum of the 2002 Winter Olympics -- they said how this was an Olympics that actually made money, and that has sustained the park as a continuing Olympic training facility.  Skiers from the US and Australia train there all year long.  This park hosts bobsled, skeleton, luge, and Nordic ski jumping.  At the museum, they ad a collection of the colorful outfits skiers wear.  If you wanted to (we did not today), you could take a bobsled ride with one driver and 3 helmeted "guests" going 70 MPH for a 1 minute ride!  We got to see where the bobsleds take off and got to go to the top of the Nordic ski jump -- Larry does not like heights, so did not peek over the edge like I did.  Other rides available to the public are the Alpine slide-- this is not an olympic ride-- we have done these before in CO Springs -- it is fun, tho not scary at all, since you can go as slow as you want.  There were also zipline rides, or you could sign up training for Nordic ski jumping!  At 11 AM they had their Freestyle Show featuring the Flying Ace All Stars  These ski jumps are made of plastic that they spray with water.  The skiers wear wet suits (they train from May-Oct) -- they have to climb stairs to the top of the slides, then whoosh down, do lots of flips in the air, and then go into a pool of water.  The water is not heated, so it is very cold in spring, only about 65 in the summer.  The pool has a bubbler system which breaks up the surface tension -- nice for the athletes if they happen to belly flop on their jump.  They also had a guy to demo the trampoline they use to train on so they can do summersaults, flips, twists, etc in the air.  These young people are really dedicated! They had a few younger kids age 12 who performed.  There were a LOT of people at the show -- several hundred -- it was out in the sun and VERY HOT! (I thought it might be cool up in the mountains, but it was very warm.) I tried to make a video on my phone-- hope it comes thru to you!

We then drove to Main Street Park City where there were a LOT of people.  Surprising, they have free parking garages.  We had some lunch, then went to the Park City Museum.  It was a nice little museum, documenting the history of the town.  In 1868, silver was discovered and it became a boom town-- 10.000 people.  The mine owners got rich, the miners made a living. One of the wealthy Ontario mine owners was George Hearst, the father of Wm Randolph Hearst. During prohibition, there were lots of bootleggers there!  There was also gambling along with a "red light" district-- they called it Sin City -- it was not a Mormon town at all.  In 1949 most of the mines closed and the place almost became a ghost town -- it was listed in a book about ghost towns in 1951!  There was a little skiing going on since the early 1900's, but no resorts.  In 1963, they got a federal loan to start a ski area.  In 1978 the last mine closed.  The museum had videos of interviews of locals, who talked about the changes in the 70's when the "hippies" came to town.  Skiing grew as a major part of the economy, and the town started growing again.  One of the ski resorts actually used one of the mine trains to transport skiers up to the top of the mountain -- we got to sit in a car in the museum.  It was not a fun or luxurious trip, since the mines were dirty, drippy, and very dark.  The Olympic games were awarded to them in 1995, and everything in the Olympic park was built for the 2002 Olympics.  

On the way out to town, we stopped briefly at the Outlet Mall -- there were SO many people that we could hardly get a parking spot-- then did not even buy anything.  We came back to the RV hot and tired, but it was a fun day.   I had thought about hiking on the trails in Park City, but it was way too hot!

journal Sunday July 6, 2014 Salt Lake City

We put on our Sunday clothes and took the free van downtown to attend the Music and the Spoken Word program at the Mormon conference center.  It was not a true church service, so I was a little disappointed not to get to experience that, but I am counting it as our church attendance for this Sunday!  This center seats 23,000 -- there were a lot of people there, tho no one in the 2 balconies -- Larry thinks maybe 5000 were there.  

There were lots of volunteers with smiling faces to welcome us (interestingly, for this and the choir rehearsal, there were smiling ladies to check handbags for firearms and bombs too!). 

The service began at 9:30, but the choir and speaker did a complete rehearsal, then took a break.  The "emcee" gave a little pep talk ahead of time reminding us that this service was videotaped and broadcasted both live and on delayed time (or on-line or on U-tube!).  He discussed that the Mormon pioneers had their first choir 1 month after arrival in the mid 1800's, and that the first radio broadcast of Music and the Word was in 1929 -- it has broadcasted weekly since then.  The ladies in the choir were all in long lilac short sleeved jacket dresses, but they vary each performance--  they have 10 colors of dresses total -- last week was fuchsia!  So they stock like 2000 dresses for the ladies to wear.  The men have 5 different colors of suits to wear, as well as tuxedos, so their clothing is also stored.  There are 360 singing at a time, but they have 400 in the choir.  The age range is 20-60.  You must live within 100 miles of SLC to be in the choir, since they practice every Thursday night, perform every Sunday, and have about 75 scheduled concerts a year.  They are all volunteers.  They can stay in the choir for 20 years, and then get bumped for a new singer!  The guy then introduced some visitors-- one family was having a big reunion, there was a movie actor I never heard of, there was a flautist from Austria, and also, but the way, Mitt Romney was there!!!  We were seated on the L side so Larry could watch the organist-- I got a glimpse of Mitt on the R side.  

They started with beautiful movie pictures of Utah, then said the same words used for 80 years-- "From the Crossroads of the West, we welcome you....)  They had a full orchestra + the organist.  Screens at the front zeroed in on the faces of individual choir members and orchestra players.  A large camera moved around on a crane to catch the harpist or violinist in action.  They sang Let There Be Light, There is Sunshine in My Soul Today, How Excellent Thy Name Oh Lord, In Christ there is No eAst or West, Somewhere (from West Side Story), Count your Blessings Instead of Sheep (from Irving Berlin's White Christmas), and On Great Lone Hills (from Finlandia) -- so a mixture of classical, hymns, and pop.  They sounded really good!

I'm not sure who the speaker was as far as his position in the church -- Lloyd Newell.  He gave a nice tai about how happiness and gratitude are linked, and how we say "grace" before meals, but should also say "grace" before concerts, before opening a book, before playing...etc.  No scripture or Book of Mormon was read.  As we filed out, there were more smiling ladies in dresses, men in suits and white shirts and ties.  (One of the guides had told us that there is actually a store downtown that sells "Mormon clothes" for the young missionaries, and I guess the old ones too!

Anyhow, we went back to the RV park for lunch, and went hiking the Bell Falls trail at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon.  It was supposed to be 4 miles round trip, but as usual with Utah trails, it went straight up!  The trailhead was actually in a neighborhood with a path that went between peoples' houses.  It was listed as "moderate", but it was pretty strenuous-- especially in the heat.  If I have to touch rocks, go on the seat of my pants, or pull myself on tree branches, I consider it to be strenuous.  We got to a water fall (see below-- sideways!) and Larry wanted to make that the destination for our destination hike, but we managed to clamber up higher to the "reservoir" which was a lovely little lake -- we only went about .7 miles, but the remaining trail to the Bell Falls continued straight up, so we fizzled out.  There were lots of boulders to sit on at the reservoir--kids were swimming in the cold water, adults were fishing-- the water was very clear and you could see lots of trout.  There were a lot of ducks there who were not at all afraid -- they must get fed a lot-- kids were feeding them little bread pieces -- there were mama ducks and babies-- very cute.  After 15-20 minutes, we turned to go back down again -- the .7 miles seemed a lot shorter going down, but it was still very rocky, gravelly, and treacherous, so we were both very careful -- any other hikers came by-->we would let them pass us old folks!  Most hikers looked in their 20's or 30's -- several families with school age kids.  

Once we got back to the RV, we have just been begging out.  I really wanted to go see the Great Salt Lake, but Larry refused -- everything that we have read or been told about it, makes it sound like it is not a tourist attraction -- often smelly with algae, hot, no boats since the salinity would injure boat engines.  So I did not get to float in it-- maybe just as well!  Larry spent an hour washing bugs off the windshield so he can see where he is going tomorrow as we head north to Idaho!

Monday July 7, 2014 Twin falls ID

We left Salt Lake City around 8:30 -- we were at the north end of the city, so no traffic problems leaving town. Part of the highway was pretty close to the Great Salt Lake, so I got to see it-- looked pretty actually with blue water.  We went up and down hills, thru wilderness (tho greener than our desert in NM), and got to Twin Falls around 1:15.  The KOA is nice -- about 3 miles from town.  We got settled and went to the Visitor's center to get local info.  It was located right next to the Perrine bridge-- it was built in 1979 -- t 1500 ft long , it is the longest suspension bridge in the west.  I.B. Perrine was the man who first settled the Snake River Canon in 1884.  It was amazing to be driving thru a desert and then see the beautiful river in the canyon.  2 golf courses are located in the bottom of the canyon on each side of the river-- the green grass looks so pretty.  The Snake River was actually named after the Snake Indian tribe-- I always thought it got its name from the serpentine weaving of the river bed.  About a mile down from the visitor's center is Evel Kneivel's jump site -- his motor cycle jump fizzled in 1974 when the parachute on his rocket propelled cycle deployed prematurely, and he just floated down to the river bed.  We drove down a road to the bottom where there was Centennial Park -- there were waterfalls from springs along the sides of the canyon, and there were picnic tables and boat ramps at the park.  The park was built by the local Rotary club!  

It was very hot, so we postponed hiking till tomorrow morning.  We drove thru town-- lots of shopping-- Costco, Michaels, Old Navy, Target, Best Buy etc.  We decided to drive about 30 miles north to Shoshone to go to the Idaho Mammoth Cave-- I read about it on Trip Advisor and it sounded interesting.  It is privately owned and turned out to be an adventure.  There is a lot of lava rock in Idaho -- this cave was formed by volcanic flow, but then a section collapsed -- it was apparently used by stone age men, and had been discovered in the early 1900's, then forgot about.  The present owner, Richard Olson was a high school senior in 1954-- he came upon the entrance while hunting bobcats.  He got the title to the cave, and actually raised mushrooms in the cave for several years.  In the 60's, he was asked by the gov't to use the cave as a fallout shelter, in case the US was attacked, so they kept stores of food down there for 20 years.  When we got there, no one else was there except for Richard's son who took our $10 fee and gave us each a lantern to carry and told us to follow the path by ourselves.  So off we went with our lanterns, going around a curved path thru volcanic rocks downward to the cave -- it really would be called a lava tube.  It was 41 degrees inside, which felt very good.  Bats live in the cave, but we did not see any.  They guy told us that the cave goes back about a half mile, but the path for visitors is just 1/4 mile long.  He told me that he was the one that paved the pathway himself!  We then went into the museum and it was unbelievable!  There were fossils, rocks, arrowheads, taxidermed animals, minerals, precious stones, Indian pots, other archeological artifacts from all over the world.  He had papers of authenticity all over.  He also had papers saying that he had purchased or was given all the stuff he had, and nothing was illegally obtained.  There must have been millions of dollars worth of stuff in this building, arranged in 3 concentric circles.  When we finished the museum (you could spend a LOT of time there and not see it all), an older man was sitting on an old couch -- it was Richard Olsen himself.  He was not very chatty, but just repeated the story of finding the cave while hunting bobcats.  I asked him about another cave about 10 miles down the road, the Shoshone Ice Caves --  he thought they were worth going to, so we drove over there.

This cave was smaller -- we had a local high school girl guide us -- we had to walk a path thru lava rock quite a ways, which then spiraled down 90 ft to the cave door.  She said an 8 yr old boy found the cave while looking for a lost goat.  The opening was very small, and in the early 1900's, ice was cut and taken to town to use for refrigeration.  Ice was also taken to bars so people could have ice cold beer in Idaho!  The owners decided to make the opening bigger by dynamiting it, but then they found that about 80% of the ice inside melted, defeating the purpose of having people visit an ice cave.  So they piled up a bunch of rocks and cemented them, with a door that opens and closes, and the ice did re-form.  This lava tube is well lit.  It is just about 30 degrees year round (felt good!) -- the girl said sometimes after the winter snow melt, they have to pump water out, or the tube would fill with ice.  In the cave were large areas of ice of the floor of the cave -- I asked if it was strong enough to skate in, and she said that people had skating parties in the old days.  (I asked how big her high school class was-- she is one of 28 students!)

We decided to eat out tonight at the Canyon Crest restaurant, located at the cliff edge of the Snake River.  We ate outside and enjoyed the lovely view of the Snake River and Perrine Bridge.  I had salmon and Larry had seafood pasta-- both very good.  We both had huge helpings of asparagus as well.  There is a lot of farm land in the area since the soil is rich volcanic and they can irrigate from the Snake River.  As you drive thru the desert, you can see bright green squares where the farms are.

We hope to get up early tomorrow and do our waterfall hike before it gets too hot!

journal Tuesday July 8 2014

We got up fairly early this morning so we could hike before it got too hot.  We got to Shoshone Falls park around 7:15 and it was nice and cool.  Shoshone Falls is lovely, although it has more water in the spring time when the snow melt occurs and before the farmers start irrigating.  Reportedly, pioneers in the 1800's would hike miles out of their way to see the Falls-- named after the Shoshone Indians.  In 1883, a Mr Walgamott got "squatter's rights" to the falls, and built roads, a ferry and a hotel.  In 1932, another owner gave the rights to the city of Twin falls, stipulating that it be maintained as a public park.  The park around it is grassy with picnic tables and lots of viewpoints of the falls -- "the Niagara of the West".  It tumbles 212 feet to the canyon floor-- actually 50 ft further than Niagara.  We took the Rim trail about 2 miles along -- lots of people had donated memorial lookouts (Larry did not climb out on most of them -- I did and it gave me a little butterfly feeling in my stomach!).  The Rim trail ended at private land at the dirt hill "ramp" (see photo below), where Evel Knievel did his failed jump.  

We then drove over to Dierkes Lake -- John Dierkes came here from Germany in 1906 and homesteaded the area behind Shoshone Falls.  All his orchards got flooded by the canal irrigation system built at that time, so he then had a lake and charged admission.  It finally got sold to the city in 1967 -- it has a swimming beach, a boat dock, picnic tables, playground-- very pretty.  There was supposedly a hiking trail around the lake-- Larry "shut down" and sat in the shade at a table.  I started walking and got halfway around, then chickened out when I saw a lot of stairs going up to the high rim of the canyon on the other side-- there were some really fancy houses up there, and I was afraid the stairs belonged to them.  So I back tracked -- about halfway back, I met a lady hiking and she said that the stairs were actually for hikers.  I did not feel like going all the way to that area, so just headed for where Larry was.  Unfortunately, all the sprinkler systems were on, so I got nice and wet trying to run around them-- felt pretty good at that point!

We went back to the Visitor Center at the Perrine bridge, and there were some jumpers there.  Twin Falls attracts BASE (building, antenna, span or bridge, earth) jumpers from all over the world, because it is the only one where it is legal to jump all year round.  The jumpers gather in the grassy area by the bridge, laying out their parachutes and arranging the strings just so -- so they don't get tangled up, I guess.  They are supposed to take sky diving lessons before trying this.  Out of about 30.000 jumps, there have been 2 deaths (did not hear injury statistics!).  While I was waiting for them to get ready, I tried to walk out on the bridge on the pedestrian sidewalk, but the traffic made the bridge sway so much, that I couldn't stand it, so went back.  When the jumpers were ready, they walked out to the middle of the bridge, climbed over the daily that was about 4 ft high, then just jumped and parachuted to the bottom.  The floating looked fun, but the jumping sure must take guts!

After lunch it was hot, so we went to the Herrett Center museum for the Arts and Sciences at the College of Southern Utah.  It had a lot of fossils and Indian artifacts, a complete mammoth skeleton, and an art exhibit.  They had a planetarium show, but it was geared for little kids, so we did not do that.  I asked if there was a history museum, and the lady at the desk told us about the Twin Falls county Historical Society Museum-- it was a little off the beaten path-- doubt they get many visitors, although when we arrived, 2 ladies and 3 cub scouts came at the same time-- I think the curator was in shock to have so many people!  The museum was housed in an old school building that was in use till the 60's.  It gave information about Mr Perrine, the guy who came here and had the vision to irrigate, resulting in the town and all the farrms in the area.  I picked up a brochure about a trout hatchery not too far away, but we searched and searched for it and couldn't find it -- I looked at the date of the brochure and it was 2001, so the hatchery probably was long gone!  

We have enjoyed the pool at the KOA here since it is open till 10 and not packed with little kids.  Tomorrow, we head to McCall which is north of 

Boise.  We decided just to skip Boise on this trip. 

journal Wednesday July 9  McCall ID

We left Twin Falls around 8:20 AM. The road to Boise was thru a high desert landscape, tho a little grassier than NM.  Again there were lots of green swatches where irrigation and farming was going on.  Boise looks like a pretty big city -- there is a river there-- the Boise river -- but we really did not see much.  The road from Boise to McCall was very hilly.  It was overcast, and when we finally got to McCall, it was drizzling.  The RV park is lovely -- Larry had called just yesterday, and we were very lucky to get a spot.  The lady at the desk had to manipulate reservations a little, but was nice enough to do so.  Our spot is close to the clubhouse where they have an indoor pool -- the walls are open for the summer.  There is also a hot tub and steam room, and from 8-10 it is adults only!  The park is tiered -- the top area has a lot of cabins (very nice looking) and some RV's.  We are in the middle section -- nice paved roads, nice green grass.  The lower section actually has riverside spots, so they have a view of the river.  

It kept drizzling and then raining harder, but we drove downtown to see Payette Lake and go to the visitor center.  There is quite a nice sandy beach in that area, but there were no swimmers or boaters in the rain.  McCall is a tourist town, but the shops were not junky.  Population is only 3000.  I suspect that they are busier in the winter with skiing close byWe browsed thru shops, then saw a large building.  Our poor eyes thought it said public sale, but it said public Skate!  It was a huge indoor ice rink!  The lady there says the Idaho Steelheads hockey team pro hockey team trains there sometimes.  There are also hockey clinics and camps -- most of the players come from elsewhere like Boise.  There was just one teen girl skating when we were there-- it was quite a large rink.  We then drove to the local fish hatchery -- this one was not hard to find.  It had information about salmon and also trout.  Lots of cute little fish in the huge tanks.  They raise them to stock the streams in the area for angler.

It finally stopped raining around 5 pm, so we walked around the RV park, then made supper.  It is actually cool here!!!!!! like 67 degrees.  We are looking forward to hiking in the morning-- no rain predicted for tomorrow.  

The attached video (if it comes thru), is of the BASE divers at the Perrine bridge in Twin Falls.  I was quite aways away to photograph it, so look for a blue parachute.

Journal Thursday July 10.2014

Last night we walked over to the indoor pool -- water was very nice.  They also have a steam room-- I had never been in one of those -- it was 117 degrees-- I stayed in there about 45 seconds!  In the hot tub we met a nice couple, Janet and Bob.  They were from WA and both worked at the university there.  I asked them what they had done in McCall, and they were into hiking!-- more like 10 mile hikes.  They recommended one that I read about-- Goose Falls -- this may be the same hike Jim and Glenda took a few weeks ago.

So we headed for Goose Falls to hike this morning.  We stopped at the Forest Ranger office, and got info on several hikes.  I told him I liked destination hikes, so he recommended this one-- he recommended starting at the bottom and hiking up to the falls rather than the other trailhead which involved hiking down to the falls-- and then of course hiking up again.  We drove about 8 miles to the Last Chance Campground -- there was just one other car at the trailhead.  It was in the 60's-- very nice.  The trail was fairly shady thru a forest of fir trees.  Most of it was soft dirt-- not so rocky as in NM -- muddy in a few spots since it had rained yesterday-- we had to balance on a log once to avoid mud (see photo).  Supposedly it was 2.8 miles to the Falls, and 3 miles to the Bridge.  Larry used the Map My Walk which uses a satellite to measure how far you hike -- he got 7.3 miles for the whole thing!  The hike was really fairly easy with a gentle grade -- just the last little cutoff to the falls was steeper -- glad we had our sticks to keep us balanced.  The falls were beautiful and we had our snack there.  Then a guy suddenly appeared with his bike!  That part of the path was really rocky, and he rode his bike up there!!!  He and his wife had dropped their kids off at Kayaking camp, so they were in McCall for several days.  I could not believe he rode his bike up that last bit to the falls!  We then decided to walk the .2 miles to the bridge (that turned out to be .5 mi on the Map My Walk!).  The bridge led to another section of the trail.  It was over part of the waterfall, so very nice to take photos!  

We turned around to hike back then.  We ran into 2 (rather overweight!) mountain bikers, and then a big Mennonite family -- a whole bunch of kids-- the dad was carrying a 2 yr old on his shoulders-- the women and girls were all in caps and long dresses!  We let them know that the trail to the waterfall was longer than on the sign-- the hike really took us about 3 hours total-- they weren't sure they wanted to go that far.  Then we saw a lady off trail who asked if we had seen a little white dog-- we had not, but within a few minutes, we saw the white dog on the path ahead of us, so we called to the lady, and they got reunited.

We decided to have our picnic lunch at Ponderosa State Park -- the "jewel" of the Idaho state park system.  It is a peninsula that sticks out into Payette Lake.  We got a map at the Visitor Center-- there are lots of hiking trails and biking trails, but we were pretty pooped.  We drove to a picnic area and found a shady table with a lake view-- there was a little sandy beach there with families swimming.  We then just took the scenic drive up to the 2 lookout points on top-- the Narrows and Osprey points.  Both had beautiful views of the lake with only a short hike from the car.  At this point, I got a text from Tommie asking for my oreo ice cream dessert recipe.  So I sat on the bench there with my scenic view and typed my recipe to Tommie!!  

We got to the RV to clean up and veg out the rest of the afternoon.  We followed the Harris's footsteps again and went out to dinner at The Steamers restaurant downtown.  Larry had scallops and I had shrimp-- both very good entrees, with nice salads, and split a creme brûlée!  We walked along the beach walk after dinner.  I am amazed what nice clean sandy beaches are on the lake-- I slipped off my sandals to wade a little in the water -- a little chillier than I would want to swim in, but nice clean clear water.  

We hit the hot tub and pool at the park again -- nice having adults only after 8 pm.  We really like McCall a lot! 

Friday journal July 11,2014

We packed a picnic lunch and headed toward Boulder Lake to hike.  My brochure said it was a 4 mi round trip.  We found the Boulder Lake Rd and we were to follow it "for a few miles" to get to the trailhead -- NOT!  It was 5 miles on a mostly dirt/gravel/rutted/potholed road.  We stopped when we saw some cars parked at a camping area.  There was a portapotty with a lock on it!  We walked a ways and did find the reservoir where the trailhead was supposed to be, and walking some more, we did find the trailhead.  It was cool when we started, but warmed up quickly.  This is rated a "moderate" trail, and indeed it was.  Most of it was in the shade, but the forest service does not invest in many signs -- in fact the trailhead was the only sign.  We ran into a boy scout troop (about 15 kids and 4 adults) who had camped overnight at the lake, and were on their way back to their vehicles.  They warned us that the trail was a little tricky at parts -- some mud, some streams to cross on logs or hopping rocks.  We took a few wrong turns, naturally, making the total hike over 5 miles instead of 4.  The lake was absolutely beautiful-- clear cool water, fish were hopping, lots of small waterfalls coming off the lake over big rocks.  Since I did not get to use the porta potty, I took advantage of a big log by the lake. (I never do this, but knew I would not make it back!)  About 6-7 minutes later, a bunch of people backpacking in to spend the night showed up!!!  Good timing.  There were a lot of mosquitos in that area.  Larry had read an article that mosquitoes are attracted to dark colors and people with O+ blood.  So he was wearing a long sleeve black hiking shirt, and he is O+!  I was fine but he had them crawling on his sleeves-- they did not bite thru the shirt fortunately!  Again, we were glad for our Map Your Walk Ap on the phone -- it does not show the path but it did show the lake, so we could tell if we were heading the right direction, and also if we were going in circles (which we did at one point!)  We sat on a big rock by the reservoir to have our lunch.  It was a lovely morning.

After we cleaned up and rested up, we decided to take a chairlift ride at a ski resort about 10 miles away.  Larry is not crazy about heights, but he did well.  The Brundage Resort looked nice, and there were a lot of people riding.  Some rode the chairlift up and biked or walked down a path.  We were too pooped from our morning hike, so we just walked around on top.  There were lots of purple and yellow flowers below the chair lift lines, and at the top, there were lots of little pretty white flowers.  I got Edelweiss in my head, and asked the chairlift worker if that's what they were-- he had no clue.  But one of the other riders said that it was Edelweiss-- soft and white, clean and bright--so pretty! Now I'm humming it again!

We stopped and got groceries on the way home and they had a Paul's card to get cheaper prices, so we applied for a card.  The cashier said that they gave out points with every transaction, and she gave us a card that she had used for people who did not have or did not want to register for a card all day, and said we could just use all the points in the clothing section of the store (it was a dept store too.  So we had like $45 worth of points to spend -- got some beach towels, a nice hat for Larry, and some sewing scissors.  The lady at that cash register said that the grocery cashier should not have done that, with that card, but let us use our points anyhow-- such a deal!!

We grilled some pork chops for supper, then walked around the RV park for awhile.  All of a sudden we saw a fox in the road--first I thought it was a dog! --  it was the skinniest, most pathetic fox imaginable.  Then somebody's cat meowed at it, and it ran away!  

Tomorrow, we head to White Bird.

ournal Saturday July 12,2014 White Bird ID

Last night at the pool, we ran into the couple we met the first day-- Bob and Janet.  They talked about some more hikes they did, and another guy in the hot tub talked about the Hot Springs he had visited-- we probably could have stayed in McCall longer and seen more stuff.  They were also leaving today to get back to work on Monday (we are SO happy to be retired!!).  

We left the RV park around 8:15 to head north to White Bird.  We passed Riggins and saw the Ranger Station where we planned to back track to after we got to White Bird.  A lot of ups and downs -- more downs since this is a much lower altitude than McCall-- like only 1200 feet.  We tried to follow the directions to the RV park in the Trailer Life Guide -- this is such a small town, we figured we would have no trouble.  Unfortunately we missed the sign to the RV park and went right instead of left.  We drove about 8 miles and knew we were not on the right road, but there was no place to turn around.  Larry wanted to call the RV park, but we had no phone service(!!).  No one else was on this road, so we stopped and unhooked the car-- Larry saw a farm house and went down that driveway (a good dip unfortunately), to back out again with some difficulty.  I went ahead back to town and stopped at a store to get directions, and indeed it was the opposite direction.  This is not a fancy park, but is convenient to the jet boat ride we are taking tomorrow (we are following in the Harris's footsteps still!!).  The park only has about 10 spots-- we actually chose one not under a tree so our satellite would work.  It is hot here too!

We found out that after Riggins, we were in the Pacific time zone, so we gained an hour!  After we settled in, I packed a picnic lunch and we headed back to Riggins-- we lost an hour then!  We talked to the ranger at the Hell's Canyon Visitor Center-- I told him we wanted a place to go to picnic, to see some beautiful views, and to hike a little.  He sent us up toward Heaven's Gate-- it was 5 miles of paved road, then 13 miles of gravel or dirt-- not too rutty, but one lane with a sheer drop off on one side.  There were lots of pretty wild flowers and nice views along the way up.  We stopped at a picnic table and ate, then went to an area where there were several cars to hike a little of the Seven Devils trail -- it was a lot of downhill, plus it was an area where there had been a forest fire, so we decided to go on to Heaven's Gate.  We hiked a little around there, even thru one snowy area (it was probably in the high 70's temperature).  We were about to leave, when I saw a sign at the other end of the parking area -- a .2 mi trek to the lookout higher up.  Larry "shut down", so sat in the car while I walked up.  The trail was pretty steep and the .2 miles took me almost 45 minutes!  Lots of pretty flowers and fantastic views tho.  I met some people who were on their way down-- they asked me where I was from, and said they were from Michigan -- I mentioned that I went to college in Grand Rapids-- they were familiar with Calvin College, and their grown son who was with them, attended Hope College in Holland MI!  At the top, was a house where a fire watcher stayed.  He and his wife have been doing this for 4 years since he retired from being a firefighter in CA.  He is there 6 out of 7 days -- there is a bed, stove, radio, frig up there-- kind of nice.  They have an RV that they park lower down and he hikes up from there each day.  Their home base is Twin Falls.  I asked about the burnt areas  just below the station -- he said the fire was around 2005 -- then pointed out where other fires had burned in the last 10 years.  It was a 360 degree view up there.  There were hundreds of butterflies up there -- the guy said there will be even more in the next month when even more flowers will be blooming.  You could see the 7 devils (black mountain peaks-- see photo), the fire watcher guy pointed out Oregon and Montana, but said it was too smoky to the NW since there were fires burning in WA right now.  It only took me about 12 minutes to go down the trail.  I met man at the top, and I complained that it had seemed like more than .2 mi going up that hill -- he said it is 20 miles going up, and only .2 mi going down-- that is exactly how it felt!!

On the way back down, we stopped back where we had picnicked and located the little 7 Devil's Lake that we had not seen when we were eating-- we just had to drive a little further thru the campground, and it was like a 2 minute walk to the lake-- very pretty (see photo).  There were a few kayakers.  As a whole, we ran into very few people in this Nat'l Recreation area.  

We stopped at a little market on the way back to the RV park and got some corn on the cob for supper and some fruit. 

journal Sunday July 13, 2014 White Bird ID

We had planned to leave the RV park at 9 so that we would be at the Pittsburg landing of Hells Canyon for our 10 am “launch”.  Larry had gone to the Park office to use the courtesy phone and make our RV reservation in CoeurdaLane, and the lady at the desk told him she was just about to let us know that the boat would be an hour late.  So then we left just before 10 AM, driving 17 miles down a mostly gravel road to the marina.  A few other people were there already who had not gotten the message (no cell service around here), so they were there an hour already.  Then we got word that there were more delays— the jet boat had to pick up some rafters, so we did not take off till 10.  We boated over to the

Kirkwood museum/homestead — the house there was built in the 30’s — people during the depression came and settled there.  There was a little museum and some other buildings and old farm equipment.  The lady caretaker at the house was working there just this week — she lived in WA and was a teacher.  She and her husband got to stay in the old house — they just boated all their supplies in.  She showed us just the kitchen (still in use) and the bathroom that had the first bathtub of Hells Canyon (only about half the length of a normal bathtub, black, and no longer in use!).  They had box lunches for us and lots of shady picnic tables.

It was very hot in the canyon which is elevation only about 1200 ft, but once the boat started, we had lots of breeze.  The Snake River starts in Yellowstone park, then winds down, forming the boundary of Oregon and Idaho.  It varies from 2-3 ft deep to ~100 ft deep.  We saw some deer, wild sheep, and bald eagles along the canyon.  We had to put on life jackets (rather mildewy!) when we approached some rapids.  There were lots of rafters, small jet boaters, kayakers, and fisher men along the way.  We made another stop just before the Devil’s dam — there was a visitor center that people could drive to, and there was a short film there we watched.  We cruised close to the dam, then headed back.  We needed to put life jackets on again, and the pilot took us thru some fun rapids— many of us got half soaked or full soaked!  We met several nice people along the way.  Two ladies were from Arkansas — maybe close to our age — they had driven all the way to WA to pick up a 42+foot RV that one lady had purchased.  They left husbands at home, and were meandering back to Arkansas by themselves— pretty plucky ladies!  Another couple was from GA — she is a teacher and he owns a poultry farm— he was leaving his son in charge for the first time, since he is heir to the business!  Another couple had their 2 daughters with them, ages 11 and 15.  They were from Grand Rapids MI (where I went to college), and were RVing for a month —  I thought they must be teachers, but he owned his own machine shop and had trained 2 guys to cover for him.  Everyone was pretty friendly, since we were all getting soaked off and on during the trip back — it was fun, windy, and bumpy.  Our pilot pointed out some interesting areas— there were paths that people actually rode horses on— one path had a catastrophic event many years ago— a group of men were traveling to work there for many months, and the mule carrying the load of whiskey bottles lost it’s load— so they called it Temperance Rock!  

Just before returning to the marina, they stopped the boat at the “biggest beach” on the river.  The sandy beaches along the way are small, but a nice fine sand.  Several people wore bathing suits and hopped in the water — it was chilly but felt good— I just waded in to my knees.  

The boat ride lasted about 5 hours total, and we were all pretty hot.  They had lots of ice water along fortunately.  The pilot announced that all of us were getting free “Kilgore I survived Hell’s Canyon” shirts, so that was nice.

Tomorrow, we head to Coeur da’Lene.

journal Monday July 14, 2014 Coeur D’alene ID

We left White Bird a little after 8 AM.  I talked some to the lady at the desk of the park, Tammy.  She is a local girl who grew up in Granger, just north of White Bird.  After high school she went to Utah for awhile, then came back and married a man 5 yr older than her with 2 daughters.  She is 45 now, and they also have a son who just graduated from HS — he will work a year, then go to college in Lewiston ID.  She was a friend of one of the Killgore’s daughters, and that’s how she got the job.  She knew our pilot, Kurt Killgore very well — said there are only 2 pilots who really knew that Snake River, and Kurt is one of them.  The next 3-4 days are “quiet” days on the river, so they don’t have any excursions those days — that’s why we ended up spending a Sunday doing our trip.  

It had sprinkled during the night and was slightly less hot.  It sprinkled off and on all the way to Coeur D’alene — 200 miles north.  We passed the Nez Perce reservation — my Idaho book gave some of the sad history.  This tribe inhabited Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.  In 1855, there were many white settlers, and they negotiated an agreement to make a 5000 sq mile reservation for the Indians.  But 5 yr later, gold was discovered,, and in 1893 a new treaty reduced the size of the reservation to just 500 sq miles.  In 1877, the Indians went to war against the white men, eventually losing and relocating to Kansas, Oklahoma, with a few remaining here on only 88,000 acres.  Really quite a sad story.

We then drove thru Moscow, home of the University of Idaho.  The town is surrounded by “the Palouse” — treeless rolling hills with lots of farms growing wheat, barley, chickpeas and lentils.

We got into the Blackwell Island RV park — it is just 1 1/miles from downtown.  We walked around the park, but it was very hot.  There is a little beach on the lake here, tho the sand is kind of gravelly compared to the nice smooth sand on the Snake River yesterday.  Lots of families with kids were playing in the water, which is nice and clear, tho a bit chilly.  We drove downtown, which did not take long at all.  We went to the visitor center to get brochures, then parked and walked around.  There is the Coeur D’alene resort on the lakefront— lots of people swimming, walking, and biking. We walked out on the boardwalk in front of the resort— it is the longest floating wooden boardwalk in the country — 3300 feet.  I felt like I needed to have sea legs to walk on this.  There were lots of  private boats in blue covered little docks.  There were people water skiing, and we even watched a sea plane take off.  There is a hiking trail at Tubbs Hill on the other side of the resort —  135 acres of publicly owned land, with several miles of hiking trails going around the peninsula, or up to the top — we plan to get up early and do that before it gets hot out tomorrow.  

After browsing in a few shops, we went back to the RV to rest up (retirement is good!), then went for an early dinner at the Floating Cedars restaurant located about 1/4 mi from our RV park.  I felt like I was on a cruise ship, since you could see the horizon — and the light fixtures! — gently rocking.  We had some free cocktail coupons from the RV park, then enjoyed a nice salad bar (I had huckleberry vinaigrette dressing on mine), prime rib (Larry), grilled steelhead (me — it is a kind of a salmon from the Columbia river), and we had a huckleberry ice cream sundae for desert — very nice, with a view of the Lake.

We were going to walk around the RV park again for exercise, but it had started sprinkling harder and we are now cool for a change!!  The RV park is completely full— we were very lucky to get a spot— in fact tomorrow, we have to move to a different spot for the next 2 nights to make room for more!  There is a No Vacancy sign at the office.  

It is supposed to be sunny and in the 90’s for our next 2 days here — still can’t believe it is this warm so far north.

journal Tuesday July 15, 2014 Coeur D’alene ID

We got up fairly early to hike Tubbs Hill which is right down town.   It was nice to drive only 2 miles to the trailhead.  We got there a little after 7 AM and decided to take the upper path first that goes to the top of the hill.  It was a lot of uphill hiking —  we had our hiking shoes and our sticks, and all the young people were running up and down the paths!  It was nice because it was mostly shaded and had lovely views of the lake.  We found huckleberry bushes along the way — I found a few that were real dark and very sweet.  Others were bluish (see photo), but still fairly sweet.  The real unripe ones were light green.  The huckleberries really look like blueberries, but when you chew them, there are little seeds inside that you have to spit out.  We also found some wild raspberries to sample.  After we did the top loop, we hiked back down to the bottom loop, which actually had better views since there were a lot of hidden coves and small beaches.  Larry used his Map Your Walk Ap, and we covered about 5.3 miles.  

We got back to the RV park and needed to move to another spot — we were in a “premium spot” last night that was closer to the lake.  Now we are with the ordinary people. (we were lucky to get a spot at all in this park actually).  

After we cleaned up and ate, we went downtown again (nice being so close) to go to the History Museum of Northern Idaho.  It had a 30 minute film about the history of Coeur D’alene, starting with the Indians and the French fur traders, going into the discovery of gold and silver, the coming of the railroad, logging, the use of steamboats which turned it into more of a resort community, even in the late 1800’s.  The museum had a lot of old photos and maps and artifacts.

We went down to the main drag to browse shops and galleries.  At least I did- - Larry parked himself on a bench in the shade while I meandered.  It actually worked better than having him follow me, find a bench in front of each store, or breathe down my neck! 

We then drove to the north end of town where they have a lot of chain restaurants, a mall, a Costco, Target, Walmart, JoAnn Fabrics, Michaels, about 5 grocery stores — lots of shopping here for sure. 

Tonight, we went to the duplicate bridge game at 6:30 pm.  It was held in the dining room of an independent adult living center.   It was a very nice facility.  They had 5 tables, and it was fun to meet different people— a few were natives, some were “snowbirds” from FL, one had moved here after living in Fairbanks for 59 years, one lived in EP from 1949-1962 (before our time), a young looking woman (40ish) was from Canada, one lady was from Germany and had moved here then from Canada.  We played pretty lousy with only a 46% game(!), but came in 1st in the C flight, so since it was a charity game, we got .66 points!!!

Tomorrow, we plan to hike early, do laundry, get some more groceries, then head north on Thursday to the Abbotts.

Wednesday July 16, 2014 Coeur D’alene ID

We drove about 5 miles to the Beauty Bay area this morning to hike the Mineral Springs trail.  It was about 4 miles total —  a lot of uphill at the beginning (went up over 600 ft from the trailhead), then on a ridge with some nice lookouts of the lake.  Some boy scouts had taken on the project of putting numbers on trees, putting in benches to rest on, and making a nice guide book.  In the late 1800’s, there was a lot of mining going on in the area — zinc and lead were found in this area.  There was a spur on the trail that led to an area that had been mined, and there was an adit (good scrabble word), or opening carved into the hill side— it did not go real far in.  We hiked mostly in the shade of Ponderosa Pine and Douglas fir trees.  Our little booklet identified some of the plants — snowberry bushes, some huckleberry bushes, and lots of ocean spray plants with a spray of little white flowers.  We met only a few people on this trail — not like Tubbs Hill yesterday.  A group of 4 ladies asked us to take a photo of them, then they reciprocated.

It was still early when we finished, so we drove to Post Falls (where Jim and Glenda had stayed).  They said there was not much to see there, and it was true!   We went to Treaty Rock park (right in the middle of town) and took the short hike to the big rock that had Frederick Post’s name carved on the rock where he and the local Indian chief Seltice had negotiated a land use deal for his sawmill.  Underneath his name are some Indian pictographs.  That area of rock was covered by a huge sheet of plexi-glass— when I tried to photograph it, I just got reflections of the trees behind it, so I couldn’t do it.  We then drove another mile or 2 to Falls Park to see the falls (made by a dam there— not real exciting to see) and the Spokane River gorge which was quite pretty.  It was a nice little park with picnic tables, a place for kids to fish, and the walk around it to the Falls.  

We saw a sign for Cabela’s at mile marker 1— we could have gone on to WA — Spokane was like 15 mi down the road, but we just went to the store.  We had never been in such a store— looks like a hunter’s paradise.  There were racks and racks of camouflage patterned clothing.  Lots of guns and ammo.  We did not feel like we belonged in this store— not in our genetics I guess.  We stopped and got a few groceries on the way home. 

After cleaning up and resting up, we went downtown to the Farmer’s Market.  People were lined up and at 4 pm, a man rang a triangle and they dashed forward.  We just got some fresh raspberries, a loaf of bread, and green beans.  I had hoped for tomatoes, but the few there got grabbed by those in the starting line.  We grilled some steak and corn on the cob for supper.  While we were cooking, the electricity started to wane — lights and air conditioning stayed on, but TV went off.  The man next door came over to check— he had lost all his electric.  It came back on and off again, but then stayed on.  The man across from us was from Canada.  He and his wife drove his big truck that he pulls his trailer with, to Spokane to shop, and got into a pile up accident.  No one was hurt, but his truck had a lot of damage.  So they had to get the truck towed, and had to rent a car.  He plans to put the trailer into storage till the truck gets fixed, and will come back down to get it.  He and his sons did the Alaska trip last summer — said it rained a lot, but they very much enjoyed themselves.

Larry talked to Jan Abbot —  they will meet us at the road to their cabin tomorrow morning to guide us along.  The weather is supposed to cool off this weekend- Yay!  

We are downtown in Sandpoint this morning (Saturday) and brought our computer and jet back so we could "borrow" WiFi in the downtown streets.  We got to the Farmer's Market -- nice veggies, fruit, crafts, bread.  We are about to hit the shops.  Sadly, it is still smoky here from those WA fires -- hoping this will not be the case when we get to Glacier Nat'l Park tomorrow.

Thursday July 17, 2014 Lake Pond Orielle

We left Coeur D’alene a little after 8 am to drive the 40 some miles to the Abbotts cabin.  We got to Sagle, and called Jim.  He and his grandson Simon were going to dump trash and said they would meet us on the road, but we never saw them.  Larry had gotten directions from Jan, so we went down a lot of narrow roads to the gravel road Camp Bay Road.  Unfortunately, we made a wrong turn and ended up at the Lake-- but not by the Abbotts.  Larry disconnected the car so he could turn the RV around, and we backtracked to Elliot Road — I went on ahead, hoping I would see Jim or Jan, but after going on that road to the point of a dirt road, I turned around and drove back.  Just as I saw Larry coming in the RV down the road, I saw Jan running in front of him.  Larry found one spot on the road where he had a phone signal and called Jan, asking her “Where am I?”!!  She came running out on the road, having just seen me go by when I had chosen another wrong fork to take.  She got us directed to a meadow area just down from their cabin on a little bay where there was a 110 electrical outlet and a faucet.  Unfortunately, the faucet was not functioning (Jim called his neighbor who owned that faucet, and they had turned it off and were out of town) but at least we have electricity.  The Abbott’s cabin is small but nice.  They had bought the land for $2000 and it is now worth much much more-- like $500,000!!  The cabin had been on the lot next to theirs.  When the people on that lot wanted to build a fancy house, the Abbotts paid to move the cabin to their own lot.  They have been coming to stay in it the last 9-10 years.  It is built back a little from the lake and they chose to leave the big lovely pine trees in front of it.  They have their own dock, a speed boat, kayaks, canoe, jet ski (it is in the shop right now).  

They told us about the Bird Aviation and Invention museum a few miles away.  Dr. Forrest Bird was a pilot in WWII and was also an inventor— in fact he invented the Bird respirator — we were familiar with the Baby Bird respirator used for newborns.  A lot of the museum was dedicated to airplanes — he had quite a collection of planes, helicopters, plus some old cars— all in pristine condition.  The 2nd floor had cases of respirators, endotracheal tubes, an old iron lung, a negative pressure respirator for infants (like we used in Cleveland in training).  When we first came in, we saw an older man sitting in a chair — when we were on the other side of the museum, I heard someone call him Dr Bird!  But by the time we left, he was gone.  A volunteer took us in a golf cart down to the air strip (he himself came in a small plane to work today from Sandpoint).  He opened another building to show us more planes — there was a display about the Kodiak company that made bush planes — said that a lot of missionaries in 3rd world countries needed that sort of transportation, so this company provided a plane at a discounted price to missionaries out of every 10 planes they manufactured.  

We had hoped to go boating on the lake, but the wind kicked up.  There was also a lot of smoke obliterating the view from the fires in WA — it did not smell smoky but lots of haze.  Jim barbecued some ribs and chicken for supper.  We had bought bread and green beans at the Farmer’s market in Coeur d’Alene yesterday, so we pooled our resources.  Jan made a huckleberry pie for dessert— just delicious.  (I found out that the berries I was eating on our hike in Coeur D’alene were not huckleberries after all — hope they were not poisonous!!! ) After we ate, the lake calmed down, so we boat a little-- caught photo of an interesting sunset thru the smoky air.

Tomorrow we hope to hike — hope the smoke is dissipated.  It is not quite as hot as it has been, thank goodness.  It is very quiet now in our RV — can’t get satellite TV — too many trees.  

Friday July 18, 2018 Lake Pond Orielle

We met the Abbotts at their cabin at 8 am for huckleberry pancakes made by their grandson Simon — very delicious!  Somehow a text made it to Larry’s phone from our next door neighbor DeeAnn — there had been a terrible storm in Alamogordo last night — they lost a tree— we lost some metal covering on our patio ceiling plus an uprooted plant in the front yard — sounds like they woke up to a big mess.  Jan and Jim called their neighbor back home Kathy OQuinn to check on their solar panels, but the wind was not as bad at their house— all was ok.  DeeAnn said that a tornado had even been sighted south of town, and that the winds were 75-100 MPH!!

After we ate, Jim, the grandkids Bonnie and Simon, and we, left around 9 AM so he could take us hiking to Moose Lake.  Jan stayed behind to clean her refrigerator— she has had 2 sets of company in the past 2 weeks— the Harrises, then her sister with 2 grandchildren, so had all kinds of food in there.  We did not realize how far Jim was taking us— it was like 50 miles away, and half of it was on a gravel road.  We bounced up and down hills for about 2 to 2/12 hours each way.  The hike itself was a 4 mile hike thru a beautiful fir forest— it was buggy, but we had all sprayed before we hiked, so no one got bit.  The hike was a gradual ascent, and was pretty easy.  We had to cross one broken bridge (see photo) — Jim thought someone rode their horse over it and broke it.  Moose lake was very pretty, but there still is smoke in the air from the WA fires, so the hills were hazy.  A lot of times they have seen moose there, but not today.  Jim thinks the moose population is diminishing because of wolf packs in the area — he did not see any moose tracks or scat on the trail as he has in the past.  Jim knows the names of most of the trees and plants, so that was nice.  It was mostly in the shade, but it was probably in the 80’s up there.  The hike took less than 2 hours, so the travel time was a lot longer than the hike.  We stopped at a little Amish store about halfway back and picked up sandwiches around 2 pm— they were huge — Larry and I should have split one— must took 2 halves back to the RV.  We got back around 4 pm — it was tiring just to ride in the car on such a bumpy twisting road — I and the kids were drowsing off and on in the back seat.

At 5:15, we all got in Jim’s boat to cross the lake to the “floating restaurant” — this is the 2nd floating restaurant we have been to in the past week!  The water was calm and lovely, and we “parked” in a guest parking spot and got on the pier to the restaurant.  We dined outside —  they had huge movable umbrellas over the tables, so kept everyone well shaded.  The mountains around the lake were still hazy from smoke, but the water was like glass with no wind.  We enjoyed our dinners, then boated around the shores to see some of the fancy homes and resorts in the area.  There is an island for sale that has some old cabins on it— Jim remembers staying there when he was a kid.  It is for sale for about $12million!  -- no buyers yet.  When we got back, Simon put some pine needles in the fire pit as tinder and we sat by a fire on the beach, eating (of course!) huckleberry cake— very good.  We were sad that the huckleberries on our mountain trail were still very green — Jim and Jan will head back there in Aug-Sept to pick when they are nice and ripe.  

The weather seems a little cooler thank goodness.  We will go and check out Sandpoint tomorrow.

journal Saturday July 19 Lake Pond O'reille, ID

We spent Saturday in Sandpoint ID, about 40 minutes from the Abbotts.  We went to the Farmer's Market and got some blueberries, asparagus, goat cheese, and bread, then browsed thru I got some items (on sale for 70-80%off) at the Coldwater Creek store that is going out of business after operating there since the early 80's.  Jan recommended the Litehouse Factory that makes cheeses and salad dressings -- it is the type of dressing that has to stay refrigerated-- is not out on grocery shelves.  They had a special on huckleberry vinaigrette-- very good dressing!  Huckleberries are quite the big item up here.  There were a lot of people downtown and a lot of traffic, but the shops were cute boutiques (Larry thought they were quite "proud" of their wares). We ate at Mick Duff's and sat at a sidewalk table, people watching.  The weather was not quite as hot, so it was very pleasant.  

We drove back to the Abbotts around 2 pm -- Jim, his grandson Simon, and a friend of his were all working digging a basement -- by hand.  His friend is going to show him how to brace everything so the house doesn't fall in when they get the basement finished!  Larry snoozed, I taught Jan how to make my knitted pot scrubbers I make out of nylon netting.  She only crochets, but managed to make one with some netting I brought, and it turned out very nice.  The weather got cooler and breezier, plus still a lot of smoke from the WA fires, so we didn't get to go boating at all.  We pooled resources and had a nice salmon dinner -- with huckleberry ice cream for dessert!  I love huckleberries-- Jan gave me a bag of them to take home.  

Sunday July 20 Columbia Falls MT

We took off around 8 AM-- did not plan this well, since we were missing church again.  Jan said we could stop at the UMC in Sandpoint on our way, but I think we would have taken up the entire parking lost.  It looked less smoky today, but you could really smell the smoke in the air.  I stowed things inside the RV while Larry worked outside.  I drove ahead of him to watch for other vehicles on the narrow road till we could find a flat place to connect the car.  Larry did something he had not done before-- he started driving away without unplugging the electric cord!  I guess he could see it dragging when he started to turn. Luckily it just pulled out of the outlet and did not damage the outlet.  You would think we would have the mental checklist down better by now, but ...NOT!  The scenery was gorgeous coming out of ID into MT, but it started drizzling, and persisted -- just enough to make the RV and car mud streaked -- not enough to wash them at all.  We used the Mapquest to find the campground in Columbia River, and it took us to a street that was blocked.  There was another person with a trailer who pulled into the next street and went thru a parking lot, so Larry decided to follow them. They stopped ahead at the street and got out, looking puzzled.  Larry decided not to follow them, even tho the GPS said we were at the RV park.  So we pulled thru the parking lot back toward to the exit to the main street we were on, and Larry called the RV park-- they were actually located about 4 blocks further down the street.  The lady at the desk, Carla, said this has happened to many RVers coming to their park.  One big RV ended up going down a street that turned out to be a dead end and had to (very unhappily) back up for a whole block.  We decided that GPS works pretty good in big cities, but not in the boondocks -- this happened to us a few times on our last trip -- the GPS says "you have arrived at your destination" but nothing is there.  

Anyhow, it was raining a little harder-- we got parked, unhooked the car, had lunch (we are back in Mtn time zone, so lost an hour).  I got some info about Glacier Nat'l Park from Carla at the desk, but decided we would drive to the park visitor center just to pick up info to plan for tomorrow-- it is supposed to be a nice day.  Carla said they had been getting the smoke from the WA fire till it cleared yesterday, then it rained today.  We drove thru some little towns in the 14 miles to the park entrance -- Hungry Horse, Martin City, Coram, and West Glacier.  Lot of little cabin type motels, RV parks (more "rustic" than ours), rafting, helicopter rides, etc.  We found the visitor center and stopped, but it turned out to be a Canada visitor center, with brochures about Alberta, Edmonton, etc.  We drove another mile or 2 and found the actual park entrance.  Even tho it was pouring there were 3 lanes of cars lined up about 7 deep to get in!  I really thought this would not be a real "popular" park to visit, since it is so off the beaten path, but I guess July is high season.  I stood in line at the visitor center to get info on hiking, since they did not give that out with the park map and Park News like they usually do.  The ranger gave me info about the hikes -- this time of year, he said it was good to utilize the free shuttle to get to the trailheads, and we decided to do that, since parking is limited.  We picked up some more cherries on the way back to the RV-- they look good, but are not at all as good as our local cherries in NM.  But we have been buying them and eating them anyhow.

Right now, the rain has stopped and the sun is trying to shine, so hoping for a beautiful day of hiking tomorrow.

Journal Monday July 21, 2014 Glacier

We set the alarm for 5:30 so we could get to Glacier Nat'l Park on time for the 7 AM express shuttle to the trailhead.  It was a bit overcast.  The shuttle held only 14 people and it took over 90 minutes to get where we wanted to be on the 50 mile "Road to the Sun".  We went up pretty high and were in the clouds as patches of blue appeared in the sky.  AND there was no smoke from the WA fire, thank goodness!  AND it was cool -- in the 50's.  We went past the Weeping Wall, where there are multiple springs and waterfalls right next to the road.  It was actually very convenient to be on the shuttle, and not have to worry about parking.  At one point the driver stopped and we watched a black bear cross the road!!  The hiking recommendations included sunblock, insect repellant, plenty of water, and bear pepper spray!  The bear spray was on sale at the store for $45 a can.  They also recommended making noise to alert the bears to our presence so they would avoid us.  We got off at Sunrift Gorge --the trailhead was close to the drop off spot.  We hiked down 250 ft and only .3 miles to Baring Falls, a very pretty waterfall.  We saw little gray birds on a log called "dippers" -- they periodically poke their heads in the water to catch bugs.  As we hiked, we clicked our sticks on rocks on the trail to alert the bears(!).  We hiked past St. Mary's Lake which was absolutely beautiful.  The water was a lovely blue green color (the color is caused by the action of the glaciers, crumbling the rocks into a fine dust that colors the water) and as clear as could be-- you could see every rock.  St Mary's Falls was the next waterfall, and it was gorgeous-- you could see a rainbow where the sun shone thru the mist.  We hiked a little farther to Virginia's Falls-- also very pretty, cascading down the rocks.  We had a tangerine, then hiked back, running into a lot of hikers coming toward the falls -- the park was starting to fill up.  That hike was about 5 miles total.  We kept thinking how much the hiking group at home would LOVE this hike!

We hopped on the shuttle to go to the St Mary Visitor Center on the east side of the park.  They had more displays than the west side visitor center, and also had a 20 minute film about the forming of Glacier park -- started with the ancient glaciers, the Blackfeet Indian tribe, the coming of fur traders, the institution as a national park in 1910, and the formation of the Glacier-Waterton Int'l Peace Park in 1930. In 1995 it was named a World Heritage Site.  We wanted to have a picnic lunch around there, but there were not tables, so we just sat in some tall grass to eat our sandwiches.

We then hopped back on the shuttle to ride to Logan Pass on the Continental divide at 6646 feet.  I had spoken to a lady on the first shuttle who is a campground host here during the summer.  She is a single lady from Cincinnati who spends summers here and winters in Tuscon.  She was familiar with most of the hikes, so recommended the Hidden Lake hike -- just 1.5 mi each way.  This trailhead was right behind the large building at the Pass, and you could see lines of people ascending.  The first part of it was a built boardwalk -- quite steep with lots of steps.  Larry wanted to turn back, but there were people with little kids, babies in backpacks, older people than us, so we went on.  The problem with this trail, was as we got higher, there were large areas of slushy slippery snow to climb thru.  We had our doubts, but again, everyone else was trudging up the hill, so we bit the bullet and went on.  I was very glad we had our hiking sticks, since we did a lot of slipping and sliding.  Most others had no stick, some were in flip-flops or sandals-- or barefoot!!  I kept asking people coming down if it was worth it-- they all said yes, but said it was scarier higher up.  We finally got to the scary party which was steeper and snow covered, and then it got dry, but we had to go around this corner that had just rocks and gravel and was straight down if you fell!.  I was so scared, but we plodded on and made it around this horrible corner.  There was less snow above there and there were mountain goats!!  That made it all worth while.  They were not fearful of people and just roamed around, posing for photos!  The view from that high point was gorgeous -- I think Montana outshines Idaho in the beauty dept!  We continued hiking to the lookout where Hidden Lake could be seen at the bottom of the canyon.  It was just lovely.  We walked around awhile to take photos, then turned around to head down.  I really dreaded it especially that scary corner (I think I needed a Xanax about that point).  I was praying so hard that we would not get hurt!!! We saw some more goats along the way, the slipped and slid our way down.  The scary corner was not as bad since I could manipulate my stick better on the right hand side.  Even tho we were mostly walking in snow, it was in the 60's by then, and we felt quite warm.  We were VERY glad when we made it to the bottom.

We had to wait quite awhile for the shuttle because the park was so busy.  We finally made it back to the RV around 6:15 and we were POOPED!!

(I threw in one extra gorgeous picture of our grand daughter Marlowe!!)

My daily devotions are by email, and the 2 that I read before we left the RV this morning, really fit our day.  One just started with this prayer:

"Lord, I commit my works unto you, and ask you to establish my thoughts and direct my steps. Let my heart beat with your desires. Deliver me from all wrongdoing and fleshly desires. Keep me under your faithful, loving, and warm wings of love. I praise you, Father, Savior, Deliverer. In Jesus' name."

The other devotion is from the Upper Room-- I was SO glad I had my hiking stick with me today!!!!!

"God will give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well." 2 Thessalonians 1:7 (NIV)

A hiking stick is a hiker’s best friend. On hikes in the mountains over steep trails covered with rocks and roots, my hiking stick relieves knee pressure while I am going uphill, slows me down while descending, and keeps me from falling when my feet slip on roots and rocks. Once, when my hiking stick slid down a mountain, I didn’t hesitate to slide down after it to retrieve it.

Some believe God is a crutch to lean on when we can’t handle life’s pressures, but I readily admit I can’t handle life’s pressures alone. I can do all things with Christ (see Phil. 4:13), but I make a mess on my own.

I have learned to lean on God for rest, guidance, strength, and wisdom to take the next step and to know how to respond. It also reminds me that this world is not my home. One day I’ll live in an eternal heaven where God will relieve the pressures I face now, but until then I must lean. When pressures come, we can stretch upward and lean forward toward God.

Journal Tue July 22,2014 Columbus Falls MT

We got to the Park around 7:15 and just drove to the trailhead of Avalanche Lake.  We did the first part of the Trail of the Cedars which is a boardwalk/paved trail that is handicapped accessible.  The trailhead to Avalanche Lake was about .4 mi into that trail.  It was mostly uphill but only went up 500 ft total.  We walked thru a forest of cedar, hemlock, black cottonwood.  There were areas where trees had been cut -- I guess by the national park service -- and just left where they fell.  We only met 4-5 people on the trail.  The lake was lovely, and there were actually 4 waterfalls that we could see on the rugged cliffs behind it.  It was a little overcast today, so cooler.  We hiked back and just drove around the MacDonald Lodge area-- most of the lodges have a Swiss chalet theme.  We did not stop at any of the gift shops.  We went on to the Sprague campground since they had picnic tables there.  In the campground was a great big 40 ft Phaeton RV (like the Harris's have) with a sign - Campground Host.  While we were eating, a Natl park man came by just to chat-- he actually knew Alamogordo since he has a son in ABQ and another relative in NM.  We went to talk to the lady after we ate to ask her how they ever got that big RV between the trees!!!  She said that her husband just backed in with her guidance, all the way from the entrance to the campground, and got it in the first time!!!  She said they have been volunteering the past 4-5 years-- they share the summer with another couple, so they just got here this weekend, and will stay till the campground closes in september.  They have to be available 5 days a week, then someone fills in for 2 days.  She says they just relax, kayak, and hike.  I think it would be a fun volunteer job, but Larry doesn't think he could survive without TV or internet.  

After we ate, we tried to find the trailhead to another shorter hike, but never found it.  We stopped at the Visitor Center to get more accurate info, and we will go back tomorrow morning to do that. We stopped at Smiths for a few groceries and I told the clerk I used to have a Smiths shopping card from when we had a Smiths in Alamogordo a long time ago.  She looked surprised, and said her grandparents lived in Alamogordo in the 40's and 50's-- she had never been there tho.

Larry found a bridge club in Kalispell -- about 14 miles away, so we will hike tomorrow morning, and then shuffle/deal!  This afternoon, we just vegged out-- we were still pooped from our 12 hour day yesterday of serious hiking.  We stopped at the Chamber of Commerce to get tourist info, but decided that, even tho there is a lot of stuff to do in the area, we would just stick with hiking Glacier rather than shopping or restauranting. 

Journal Wednesday July 23, 2014 Columbia Falls ID

There was quite a storm last night-- we could hear thunder and rain during the night.  It was really chilly in the RV when we woke up.  I almost wanted to just stay in bed, but it is our last day, so we donned our hiking clothes and headed to Glacier around 8 AM.  We drove to the trailhead of Johns Lake -- there is only room for 4-5 cars, so not a real popular hike, I guess.  It was 3 miles total and only went up about 300 ft.  We had the beautiful forest to ourselves and the lake was only about .5 mi from the trailhead.  I had to go off path to find a pace to photograph the lake-- it is the only one that had lots of lily pads, tho no blossoms.  It was pretty muddy near the lake edge.  We kept on the trail, had to cross the road, then go over a foot bridge where we could see the Dancing Cascades, then MacDonald Falls from the other side from where we saw them yesterday.  It actually was a very pleasant scenic trail along the river and we really enjoyed it.  On the way back out of the park, we stopped at a lot of scenic pullouts on Lake MacDonald.  You could see the huge area on Howe's Ridge on the other side of the lake that burned in the fire of 2003-- there were several fires in the area at the same time.  Again, the water is amazingly clear.  The glacier water does not promote the growth of algae, so you can see all the multicolored rocks in the water.  One of the signs at the pull off discussed that between 1920 and 1970, a lot of non-native fish were introduced to the lake that really messed up the ecosystems.  This has been banned since 1970, but the number of native fish continues to dwindle each year.  We left the park just about 10 am which was Larry's goal, so we could clean up and go to Kalispell to play bridge this afternoon.

The bridge club there met in a church basement --  they were renting it for the summer, since their other building they used was not air conditioned.  They are actually going to build their own club building.  A rich guy who likes to play bridge, gave them a good deal on a lot, and they are raising money to pay for the building.  They were able to apply for non-profit status by allowing  the university to teach bridge classes there.  So for anyone who donates money, it is tax deductible.  They had 13 tables today, but often have more than that in the summer-- up to 20! (We have only 4-5 tables if we are lucky in Alamogordo)  Everyone was very nice and friendly.  Some pairs were locals, other were snowbirds, some were Canadians.  We had a 53% game which was pretty good --  we came in 1st in C flight, 2nd in B, and 4th overall, earning 1.06 points!!   Everyone invited us to come back next time when we are in the area(!).  The last pair we played with was a couple from Canada.  The man was at the table, and the lady had gone to the restroom.  It looked like an oxygen concentrator on the table, so I expected an old sick lady, but she was an attractive spritely woman, maybe our age.  But the gizmo on the table was actually a bright light.  She had some type of eye disease, and her husband would say the cards aloud, or we did, as we played.  She must have an awesome memory.  I was amazed that she could play so well. 

It was a fun day.  The weather report on TV is from Spokane -- sounds dismal there between fires and now terrible wind and thunderstorms.  We are heading tomorrow to Butte.

Thursday July 24, 2014 Butte MT

Yesterday, after we played bridge in Columbia Falls, they were having an “RV show” at our campground.  So we got to tour about 10 RV’s.  The biggest one was only about 36 ft and was ok — but cost like $400,000!!!!  The salesman said it was a very safe RV compared to most.  The majority of the RV’s were the real small ones that I think look so cute.  They have cute little stoves and cute little refrigerators, and cute little bathrooms — most were so small, that you would have to sit on the “pot” to take your shower!  I tried to get into one and I could do it, tho it was claustrophobic.  Larry could not even fit into the bathroom!!!

Another one had 2 reclining chairs in the front, but there was no bed.  Larry sat on one recliner to see if it turned into a bed, but it didn’t.  Then I looked up and it was a Murphy bed!!!  I had never seen that in an RV— not a bad idea actually.

When we got back to the RV, our neighbor was washing his RV— again.  Every day that we were there, he was out with soap and water and his wife would spray to rinse it— our RV park had plenty of water so they allowed that.  I told him last night, that all this washing was going to make it rain— and it indeed did rain a lot during the night.  When we got up this morning it was cool and gloomy — it made it easier for us to leave Glacier since it would not have been a good day to be outdoors.  We got on the road around 8:15 and drove thru the rain, thru very pretty country.  Larry picked a red line on the map that looked the straightest — it was a pretty good road— quite a few curves, but not so many ups and downs.  The weather cleared as we drove south, and it was sunny and windy in Butte.  Since it was early, I looked up some stuff on Trip Advisor and my Montana book on what to do in Butte.  It really is a pretty town in the summer with hills, mountains in the horizon, lots of old historic buildings and relics of the old mining days throughout town.

We drove downtown to the Historic Dumas Brothel museum(!).  It was the longest running brothel in the US —1890 to 1982.  We opted to take the guided tour with Colleen, the mother of the young man who bought the building a few years ago and has been restoring it.  She said it was built by  2 Frenchmen in the red light district in the mining days.  It had 3 floors with about 8 “cribs” on each floor — the little sitting room/ bedrooms where the ladies of the night would sit on a windowsill of the room, beckoning.  The basement was literally, the “bargain” basement— not as fancy, and cheaper.  The main floor was pricier, and the top floor was really done up fancy and cost the most.  The place has had paranormal investigators there— one of the Madams Elinore Knott still allegedly roams the halls.  A ghost of a little boy who died there also is pictured.  There was an old phone in the hall with names on it still— Cecelia, et al, plus one number was for “Security”.  There was a lot of payoffs to the crooked policemen of those days.  Colleen said there were even tunnels connecting the brothel with places of business downtown, but they have crumbled.  The last Madam Ruby Garrett sold the building to a guy named Rudy, stipulating that he would restore it to its glory days.  He tried to, renting out some of the rooms in the building as an antique mall, but it was not a financial success.  In 2012, Colleen’s son Michael and his friend Travis bought it with all its “stuff”, and have dug thru all the junk in the basement to restore several of the ‘cribs” on each floor, a nice bathroom and shower on the top floor, and furnishing the rooms with stuff they found.  Most of the original woodwork is still there, and they peeled down to some of the original wall paper.  

After that, we drove to The World of Mining Museum at the Montana Tech campus.  We did not get there on time to take a mine tour, so just walked the grounds.  Mining was the big industry in Butte, and they had a lot of equipment, mining buildings, a gunpowder shack a mining adit (entrance to an old mine that went in about 30 ft), mine cars, old photos etc.  They had a whole village (Hell Roarin’ Gulch) of old buildings that were brought to the grounds filled with artifacts— doctor’s office, dentist’s office, pharmacy, bank, post office, school, church, etc.  We peeked thru windows or could enter a few to look around — it was more interesting than I thought it was going to be.  We could climb 70 ft to the top of a “headframe” of the Orphan Girl Mine— you could see where they would hoist cages full of miners or ore.  Some other unexpected stuff we saw were a collection of dollhouses, a mineral collection, and a room that had a music machine that was a piano, but also had drums and other instruments built into it— it sounded like a calliope at a carnival.

The last Butte attraction we saw was the Berkely Pit — it was very hard to get to since most of the streets on the edge of downtown were blocked— apparently, there is an Evel Knievel festival going on — there was a bike race, and a guy riding a motorcycle on a tight rope between 2 cranes!!  We finally got to the Pit, and it was kind of the pits— we paid $2 each to go the viewing area.  The pit was an open pit copper mine dug in 1955.  It shut down in 1982.  The pumps that kept the well dry were shut down, and it started filling with water.  The water is very acidic and 2 million gallons flow in each day.  It is now like >1 mi in diameter and 5000 ft deep!  The acidity of the water and the sludge make it kind of an odd color.  Engineers are now trying to detoxify the water and pump some of it out.  It is rather an odd attraction.  You enter thru the gift shop, then walk thru a tunnel thru a hill to the viewing area — there were not many people there.

Larry found us a bridge game for tonight, so we will be playing from 7 pm to ???  Then hitting the road again in the morning.

Friday 7/25/14

Last night we played bridge in Butte.  We found a number to call on line.  They rent a room in an elementary school that is closed, so they get to leave all their stuff out when they're done-- don't have to store bidding boxes or put chairs/tables away.  They had 5 tables.  Most of them were older than us, as usual, but were pretty sharp.  There was a lady we played with the day before in Kalispell that was 97 years old!!!  She was the one who started their bridge club, and still plays very well! ( I have a new role model!).  Anyhow, this game did not start till after 7 pm, so we did not finish till about 10:15 -- I was zombified by that time!  One man that we played with was SO slow -- it was very distracting.  One of the other players says that he figures out what cards everyone else has, and plays accordingly -- it was pretty annoying to us!  We only had a 49% game, but instead of flighting the results, they assigned "handicaps" based on your ACBL points -- so Larry has a lot of course, but I don't so, we got 6 points added to our score and came in 1st in the handicapped group, winning .99 points!!  Larry tried to explain it to me, but I still don't really get how they do that.

We woke to a cool sunny day today.  We drove to Pocatello -- Larry has decided driving about 230-240 miles per day -- we're retired and don't have to put in those 12 hour travel days like we used to.  When we got to the KOA around 1:45, I picked up some brochures in the office to see what we could do while we're here.  I gave Larry choices between the history museum, the zoo, or the "Museum of Clean".  The latter sounded unique, so we decided on that one.  When we arrived, the lady at the desk said that the owner of the museum had just started a guided tour, and would we like to take that.  There was another family with a 6 yr old boy and a 3 yr old girl on the tour.  I said "sure".  Don Aslett is an almost 80 year old Mormon gentleman, who is the CEO of a large company called Varsity Contractors, a multi million dollar corporation with offices in 11 states.  So I guess he can afford his passion which is collecting cleaning items!  He has a huge collection of old vacuums -- some were operated by bellows in the old days.  He demonstrated several-- one was a rocking chair that filled a bellows when it rocked, and had a hose connected to it so another person could vacuum.  (My grandchildren -- especially Michael !-- would love this place.)  He let the children try out several of the vacuum contraptions and old carpet sweepers.  We then went into the area where he had a collection of toilets-- outhouse, prison toilets that had a sink connected to them, potty chairs, chamber pots, etc etc.  There was a collection of old washing machines, wringer washers, floor polishers, rug beaters-- it sounds kind of weird, but it really was interesting -- and he did enjoy talking.  He paid a lot of money for some of his artifacts.  He put on a puppet show for the kids which was really cute.  In the front lobby there was a huge Noah's ark with tables and chairs for projects, and a staircase going to the top where there were pairs of stuffed animals.  He also had a world shaped cage for kids to climb around in.  There was a chimney sweep area (played a video of Mary Poppins singing Chim chim cheree!), and the 2 little kids got to go into the chimney to "sweep".  He showed a video of when he was interviewed on the news when he opened his museum in 2011 -- I'm going to try to see if I can see it again on U-tube).  The building was big and airy and painted nicely -- he said it was a total mess when he bought it, and he did a lot of the fixing up by himself.  He gave me one of his books-- "Is there Life after Housework" and autographed it to me!  One board talked about his life-- how he cleaned houses while in college, then did his mission (in Hawaii!), then married and had 6 children.  There was also an art gallery with cleaning related topics -- paintings, figurines, knights made out of cleaning utensils.  I think we were there about 2 hours -- it was really fun! And it was certainly different!!!  I would highly recommend it to anyone who happens to be passing thru Pocatello.  We were very lucky that the owner Don just happened to be guiding a tour when we came in.

On the way home, I put the KOA on the Mapquest and was just playing games on my phone.  All of a sudden, it said to go 256 miles in I-15!!!

Here I had put the KOA in Butte on it instead of Pocatello, so Larry was faithfully following the directions, resulting in an extra 20 mile trip to the campground!!!  

Tomorrow, we head to UT..

journal Saturday July 27 Green River UT

This was not a good day.  We had planned to get an early start to start our drive to Green River UT, then Gunnison CO tomorrow.  As we were getting everything stowed and disconnected, Larry noticed a puddle of red liquid at the back of the RV.  It was hydraulic liquid that is needed in the RV to operate the jacks and the slides.  On a Saturday morning, we got a lot of answering machines at any RV service places in Pocatello.  Larry called Good Sam, and they gave him the name of Bish's RV center and he got a human there.  They said to come over, so I followed Larry in the car.  The people were so nice-- the service man said that he had 3 cases of this problem just this week-- a broken O-ring gasket -- as soon as the jacks are turned on, the pump just pumps the hydraulic fluid right out to the ground!  He said it would have to be ordered since they had none for our RV type, but that it was safe to drive.  He said when we stopped, we could just collect the hydraulic fluid in a bowl and "recycle" back in.  He topped off the hydraulic fluid in the container, and sent us off without even charging us!!  So very nice!  

We took the long way since Larry thought he could avoid mountain roads, but the long way was just as mountainous as the short way, but it took an extra hour!  It actually was quite pretty along the road (see photos from the RV on the road).  We arrived around 5:15.  Larry put my big white bowl under the hydraulic fluid container.  As soon as he turned the jacks on, the entire container spurted out!!! (see photo).  We recycled a fair amount and put it back in plus Larry had bought 4 bottles at a store in Pocatello before we left, and dumped those in too.  We can't use the jacks, but the slides work.  Larry got back on the phone -- there is a place in Grand Junction that might have been able to service us, but no one answered the phone on a Saturday night.  Even if we wait around till Monday, it is likely that they would have to order the part which would take a few days.

So...... Larry decided we would skip Gunnison (we would surely need our jacks there + it is out in the middle of the Rocky Mtns, far away from a big city) and just drive to ABQ tomorrow.  I am feeling very sad.  The RV park here is pretty ugly (see photo), tho apparently this is the watermelon capital of the USA (see photo).  The only thing that makes me less sad, is that my Weather Channel predicts rain in Gunnison most of the week.  But we were really looking forward to going.

Anyhow, we will drive the 400 some miles to ABQ tomorrow, staying at the Enchanted Trails again on the west side which is very close to the RV store where we bought our RV which has a service dept and is near Freightliner-- it is due for a big checkup.  We may have to "camp" at Brian's part of the time.  So we will just hang around ABQ till the big SuperHero birthday party for Josh (and Brian) on Saturday, and head home by Saturday night.

So thus ends my journal on this trip.  Over and out....

 

journal july 2014 Utah and Idaho

6/30/14 ABQ

Yesterday, we helped with the music in both church services (our new pastor Dustin Wilhite got "installed"), then hit the road in our well packed RV -- we always take twice as much stuff as we need, but we have lots or room.  Larry was going to drive right to ABQ, but decided to stop at the Scenic truck stop to gas up --  it was VERY lucky he did that, since he then realized that he left his wallet at home on the dresser(!!!).  He used my credit card (the cashier commented how he did not look like a "Nancy"!), and we headed back home to retrieve the wallet.  If we had gotten all the way to ABQ and then got gas, we probably would have had to park the RV and take the car all the way home again!!!!

Anyhow, we got to the RV park near 5 pm.  We had joined the "Coast to Coast" RV club, and they do have a park on the northwest side of ABQ-- we are very close to the Camping World store.  So instead of the $50 a night rate of the KOA (they are VERY proud of their RV park!), we are paying $15 a night.  It is called the Enchanted Trails RV park and Trading Post.   It looks really old and kind of seedy, but the KOA is not exactly beautiful either.  The park brochure said that this was originally the Hill Top Trading Post, constructed in the late 40's to attract travelers on Route 66.  At that time, it had "teepees on the roof line, a burro wandering the parking lot, big arrows sticking out of the ground, and a stuffed bear at the door".   It was converted to a campground in the early 70's.  The adobe styled office building was used in several "mediocre" films.  They have a collection of vintage travel trailers on display near the office -- they are really cute and quaint-- I peeked in the windows -- there are stuffed small easy chairs, little white rounded refrigerators and 2 burner stoves, a lot of wood paneling -- really cozy and old fashioned looking -- no TV's or microwaves for sure!

We had planned to meet up with Leslie and Josh to go hike in the Sandias this morning since Brian had to work, but the national forest is closed due to fire danger-- yesterday was the last day it was open to hikers.  So, we ran around shopping all morning-- Sam's, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, Bed Bath, Wine store, Cottonwood Mall -- supporting the local economy!  We planned to meet up with Leslie and Josh to go to the Tinkertown museum, but her stepsister Alexis went into labor, so they are on a baby-wait.  They are babysitting the big sister Maya while they wait.  So after lunch, we went to the Apple store to ask questions about our phones -- it turned out that we were on the same "cloud", so now the guy fixed it so I have my own "cloud" -- it is still not clear to me what this means for me, but I do have more gigabytes than I had before-- I am not sure what I will do with them(!).  We met up with Brian, Leslie, Josh, and Maya -- then Leslie took Maya to her baseball game -- we opted out since it is VERY hot today in ABQ.  So I and "the boys" went out for pizza.  Larry is busy planning our route to Moab UT tomorrow -- looks like it will be warm in UT as well, even tho we are going in a northerly direction. We will go thru Gallup rather than to Farmington first.  I finally heard from my old neighbor Katie Barnett, who lives in Salt Lake City -- we will find a time to get together with her and 2 of her "kids" -- Annie and Moose while we are there.  

Tuesday 7/1 Moab, 7/2 Salt Lake City

On Monday we drove from ABQ to Moab -- we went thru Gallup -- pretty red rocks -- then to Shiprock -- not really scenic.  We thought about the fact that if we really had joined the Indian Health Service as we planned to in the 70's, we might have been stationed in a place like that!  It got prettier going thru Cortez -- lots of farms and meadows going north of there.  Going into Utah was dry and deserty and desolate, tho as we approached Moab, there were lots of pretty rock formations.  The KOA was south of Moab -- nice view of red rocks and cliffs.  Larry did not feel like unhooking the car, so we just stayed in the RV park.  It was very hot and dusty.  We just vegged out, cooked supper, and sat --  I do not like doing nothing (that's why I did not journal yesterday).  After supper it was a little cooler, and we just walked around the RV park -- it really was pretty full.  There were a lot of very cute little trailers-- looked like there was just a little sink, tiny frig, and bed inside.  There were lots of families -- could not imagine what they would do in the heat-- maybe boat or rafting trips-- it certainly is too hot to hike in the Nat'l Parks this time of year.  We went to the pool around 8 pm, but there were a lot of little kids in it.  I went on in and it felt good to cool off.  Old curmudgeon Larry just sat on the side and watched children splash each other.

This morning (Tuesday), we left Moab to drive to Salt Lake City.  Once you get north of Moab, there is again, a lot of desolation, tho it is hilly desolation -- we got really good mileage (like 9MPG) going down the hill -- not so good going up.  I always wonder how the pioneers made it, when our diesel pusher was straining itself!  We drove thru some nice looking little towns-- Green River, and Price, then thru the line up of towns going toward SLC on I-15 Provo, Sandy, etc.  We got into the KOA around 1:45.  It is really a lovely park with nice size spaces and a lot of grass.  Another nice thing is that there is a free shuttle running back and forth to Temple Square every 30 minutes from around 9:30 AM to 8:30 PM.  So we hopped on the shuttle around 3 pm.  An older couple (older than us!) drove us first to the airport (not very far away from here) -- they run the shuttle out there, advertising it for people who have a layover for a few hours -- everything seems to be a ministry for the LDS church.  I'm not sure why they included the KOA on their route -- maybe the proprieters are also LDS.  On the way to the airport, they showed us some of the sights-- the Salt Lake, the copper mine that is still in operation.  When they dropped us off at Temple Square, the lady with us went inside to get us a pair of guides to give us a tour.  Our guides were 2 young ladies from the Phillippines who were doing their mission here for about 2 yr.  They did not know each other before they came to SLC, but now room together.  I told them that I thought of the Philippines as being mainly Catholic -- one girl (they both had Sister __last name on their name tags) said she was raised Mormon, and the other was a convert.  They took turns witnessing to us, and were very sweet.  They took us thru North Visitors Center, then the Tabernacle, giving us a demo of the acoustics there-- ripping a paper up, dropping pins on the podium -- even our deaf ears could hear!  We went thru another building Assembly Hall (built 1882) where they have meetings and concerts.  We saw the Temple from the outside (built 1853-1893), and they had a little model that showed what was in the rooms.  The girls said they had been allowed to go in, but not even every Mormon is allowed to enter the Temple.  At the end of the tour, I asked to take their picture so I could remember them -- they said they could only have it done if one of us stood in the photo with them, so see below.  They were very sweet and sincere, for sure.

We then walked across the street to the Conference Center, and upon walking in, got assigned a personal guide.  It was a woman, maybe about our age named Marilyn Bushman.  She wore dark glasses-- the kind people wear after cataract surgery.  She apparently has some sort of painful eye disease that has diminished her vision quite a bit.  The Conference Center was built around 2003 to accommodate the large number of visitors that they have -- it seats 23,000, has balconies with no pillars at all (good architect!).  The Tabernacle, conference center, and Assembly Hall all have organs and pianos.  There was someone practicing the organ while we were at the Conference Center.  She took us to the top floor, where 4 acres of gardens are planted and native plants and grasses grow.  A huge waterfall starts at the top of this building, and cascades down to street level.  She was very chatty, answering questions willingly-- I asked her why she did not have "Sister Bushman" on her name tag like our Philippine guides-- she explained that she has worked there part time as a missionary the past 4 years-- the young girls are full time missionaries.  She showed us a lot of art-- one room had paintings of Book of Mormon stories -- about the Lamanites and Nephites-- I asked where the stories took place and she said here in America(!).  I asked where-- like the Northeast or Southwest -- she did not know.  I also asked her what Mormons thought about Methodists-- what would happen to us after we die.  All she did was smile sweetly and said, that all she knew was that God loved us very much.  She shared with us how she and her husband had come to the center the year of the Olympics, and did not think they could get in to the special program that night, but amazingly found a parking spot right across from the center on the street.  Then they mingled with the crowd, and just thought they would ask about tickets, and found that 2 tickets were available.  Then amazingly, even tho they were 30 minutes late getting seated, the speaker (who was the church big leader at the time) had been outside passing the Olympic torch, so he got there 30 minutes late and they got to hear him speak and enjoy a great program.  She was practically in tears, saying she had never told anyone about this before --  I told her that her guardian angel must have been watching out for her that night, and she said "I just have to hug you" and she did!  Then we got to talking about her family -- I just asked if she was from a big family --  she said she could trace her family back to Joseph Smith.  Several ancestors were from Nauvoo IL before moving to Utah.  She is one of 10 children, and her husband is one of 11.  Her grandfather had 2 wives (before polygamy was outlawed), and each wife had 10 children!  Her husband also works as a guide at the Conference Center -- they have 5 children --  3 boys and 2 girls.  Only 2 were married, and they both have divorced.  She has only 2 grandkids that she rarely sees.  (I am not sure how this all works for the family celestial planet?!?) Anyhow, she seemed very devout, and seemed to have surprised herself with how much she shared with us.

We then went to the Family History Library.  We each got assigned a helper who got us started on a site.  I only got to my grandparents, and not much flashed up -- I thought I would just give my name, and the computer would immediately discover that I was of royal blood!  For some reason, Larry's family tree (which he knew nothing about his ancestors) popped up --  a lot of Scandinavian royalty in his family, all the way back to the 200's -- go figure!!!  Anyhow, they gave us the website so we can keep working on this at home if we want to.

We then went to the Church History Museum -- we were on our own for this one --  a lot of artifacts from the pioneers.  It was interesting, but we were starting to wear out.  We caught the shuttle back to the RV park around 7:20, ate, walked the park, and are about ready to turn in.  

The news said that today was the hottest day of the year in Salt Lake City.  We got to be in ABQ Monday for their hottest day of the year!!! Hope it is cooler in Idaho!!!

July 3, 2014 Salt Lake City

journal Thursday July 3, 2014  Salt Lake City

We again took the free shuttle from the KOA to Temple Square.  WE went back to the Church History Museum since we only visited the 1st floor last night.  We went to the 2nd floor where they had an art exhibit of artists from the 90's and '00's-- mostly mother and children works of art that were really quite nice-- each had a little story relating to Morman family ideals.  There was a children's hands on area, along with more pictures of church leaders and more artifacts.  The basement had more artifacts and a large display relating to the Morman's support of Boy Scouts -- I'm not sure how they actually had gotten linked up, but i know the Alamogordo LDS church has an active Boy Scout troop.   

I visited the gift shop -- I was just curious about items relating to Mormon children.  Indeed they had little action figures of ancient warriors in the Book of Mormon.  There were children's story books about the Nephites and Lamanites.  There were pottery beehives-- Utah is called the Beehive state.  The early pioneers used the beehive as a symbol of working cooperatively and industriously.  

We then walked over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building where there is a 500 seat theater, showing a 63 minute film "Joseph Smith: Prophet of Restoration".  It was very well filmed on a huge IMAX type screen.  It gave the story of Joseph's childhood, his visions of God the Father and Jesus, the visitation of the angel Moroni, his quest to find the right church, his calling to form his own church, meeting his wife, he and his church being persecuted and relocating to PA, IN, MO, and Nauvoo IL; building temples in several towns, getting tarred and feathered in MO, being put in jail, and finally with he and his brother Hyrum getting murdered.  (I don't understand why people felt so threatened by the Mormons at that time of history, that they wanted to kill them.)  It ended with Brigham Young leading 80,00 Mormon pioneers to the Rocky Mtns.  It was interesting, but I noticed that the story line left out all the other wives.

We then walked over to the Tabernacle for the noon organ recital.  The organist was a distinguished looking white haired gentleman names Clay Christianson.  He played fugue in D Major, his own arrangement of My Country tis of Thee, Amazing Grace, a Mormon hymn - Come, Come Ye Saints, an unnamed song, and Toccata.  Before he played, he gave another acoustic demo -- ripping paper, dropping pins.  The organ was constructed in the 1860's and has been rebuilt an enlarged.  Huge gold organ pipes are on the front wall of the Tabernacle-- he pointed out that these were not metallic-- they were actually made of wood, plastered over, then painted gold to look like metal pipes!  Altogether, there are 11,623 pipes (Larry had guessed 12,00 yesterday when our guide asks how many pipes we thought there were!!)  There are 5 manuals (keyboards) -- when he had to play on the top keyboard, he had to lean way forward and reach up high.  His shoe clad feet literally danced on the foot pedals -- Larry said a "real" organist never removes his or her shoes to play (guess Larry does not consider himself "real").  A different organist was listed each day of the week -- we wondered whether Frank Ashdown has ever gotten to play at that organ-- Larry thinks he maybe has -- he also thinks some of Frank's compositions have been performed at the Tabernacle.

We walked over to the Beehive House, the 1854 official residence of Brigham Young -- again we had 2 young girl guides to show us around -- much of the furnishings were original.

We went to the Church Office building and took the elevator to the 14th floor observation deck.  An older lady pointed out things of interest that we could see-- the Great Salt Lake, Capital building, some other historic buildings.  

We then went back to the Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg (I was getting turned around at this point, but Larry has good sense of direction!).  We took the elevator up to the 10th floor where they had a very nice Garden Restaurant.  The waitress (like most people in Temple Square) was a little excessively cheerful, but we enjoyed our sandwiches with a nice view of downtown.  

We took our free shuttle back to the RV park.  Several of the people were on the shuttle when we left the RV Park this morning -- guess they got wore out the same time we did!  They are from New Zeeland-- said they are missing out on lots of rainy weather there -- they recommend visiting NZ in Feb or Mar -- the fall of the year there, when the weather is most "stable".

After resting up, we took the shuttle back downtown -- we visited the North Visitor Center which had many large paintings of the life of Jesus, plus a large white statue of Jesus (photo below). We walked over to the Assembly Center where they had a fountain with a Seagull monument (photo below).  Oddly, the California sea gull is the state bird of Utah!  The Mormon pioneers had to work very hard to divert water from the mountains to irrigate and farm the land.  One year they had an infestation of locusts that they could not get rid of, even by burning fields.  Miraculously, a flock of sea gulls somehow flew in from CA and ate the locusts, saving the crops.

At 7:30, we went to the Conference Center to hear the Mormon Tabernacle choir rehearsal -- when they let us in right at 7:30, the choir was already rehearsing with a full orchestra (see photo-- only about a 3rd of the choir).  All the women wore skirts (every female volunteer we met wore skirts) and all the men had collared shirts -- no wild T-shirts.  There are 360 non paid volunteers in the choir, so it is quite a big loft.  It must have been warm up there, since most of the ladies were fanning themselves.  They rehearsed "There's a Place for Us" from West Side Story, "Be Still My Soul", and another song I did not know before we left at 8:15 to catch our shuttle back to the KOA.  There were not as many people in the audience as I would have expected -- there was a polite "smattering" of applause after each song.  Historically, the choir started in 1847 at a church conference, just 29 days after the pioneers arrived here.  Their first radio broadcast was in 1929--called "Music and the Spoken Word", and continues as a weekly broadcast -- we plan to attend the service there Sunday instead of a UMC church!  

When we went to catch the shuttle at 8:30, there was a family with 9 children waiting with us -- their ages looked about age 3 to 19.  One other "older" couple with us was waiting also.  The Mom assured us that they could seat the kids on laps, but thank goodness, the shuttle driver said another shuttle was coming in 5 minutes!  

We hope to get up early to hike in the morning.

Journal July 4, 2014 Salt Lake City

We got up at 5:30 so we would get an early start hiking.  We drove to Big Cottonwood Canyon up the mountain.  There were very many bikers going up the road.  We turned off about 9 miles up to the trailhead for Doughnut Falls.  There were only a few other cars at the trailhead.  The hike was 3 miles round trip --  I like destination hikes, so it was nice to hike to a waterfall.  Lots of wildflowers, and much greener than our mountains.  The hike was mostly uphill -- one lady I met at the outhouse before starting the hike, said that all the trails here are pretty easy, but are all uphill.  We huffed and puffed a fair amount-- it wasn't till we got near the falls that we had to clamber down rocks.  At least it was all downhill going back-- we were done in less than an hour.

We then drove up further to the Brighton ski resort where the trailhead was to several lakes.  They were having a big July 4 breakfast there, so there were lots of people.  There were a lot of people hiking, many with small children and babies.  The beginning of the trail was very steep -- we stopped a lot to huff and puff on this one.  Farther up it was shadier, and different wild flowers than we saw lower down.  We took the turnoff to Dog Lake, which was very small -- from what I read about it on the internet, it is a shrinking lake, getting more overgrown with marshy plants -- eventually will just be a meadow.  We then hiked further to Lake Catherine-- very pretty large lake with lots of boulders, and a dam at one end which accounted for its formation.  Larry went into shutdown mode and did not want to go to Lakes Mary and Martha that were within the next mile, so we turned around and went back down.  Our Map My Walk Ap measured this hike at 3.6 miles total -- it was a lot harder since it was a lot steeper.  We had our picnic lunch, and headed back to the RV.  We cleaned up and rested up.  We left around 4 pm to meet up with Katie Barnett and her son Moose (Michael), our old neighbors from Alamogordo (see photo).  Moose grilled us some delicious ribs, Katie cooked corn on the cob, and I brought chips and a strawberry salad.  We enjoyed reminiscing about old times.  They had moved up here in 2008 after her husband Rick died unexpectedly of a heart attack.  Katie actually lived with her parents for several years as a caregiver until they passed away within 6 months of each other.  

Right now we are listening to lots of fireworks in our very full RV park.  We plan to go to Park City tomorrow.

(Sorry that I have no control over which direction my phone photos come into an email.)

July 5,2014 Salt Lake City

We got to Park City around 9 am -- we drove right to the Utah Olympic Park -- it was fun to see the museum of the 2002 Winter Olympics -- they said how this was an Olympics that actually made money, and that has sustained the park as a continuing Olympic training facility.  Skiers from the US and Australia train there all year long.  This park hosts bobsled, skeleton, luge, and Nordic ski jumping.  At the museum, they ad a collection of the colorful outfits skiers wear.  If you wanted to (we did not today), you could take a bobsled ride with one driver and 3 helmeted "guests" going 70 MPH for a 1 minute ride!  We got to see where the bobsleds take off and got to go to the top of the Nordic ski jump -- Larry does not like heights, so did not peek over the edge like I did.  Other rides available to the public are the Alpine slide-- this is not an olympic ride-- we have done these before in CO Springs -- it is fun, tho not scary at all, since you can go as slow as you want.  There were also zipline rides, or you could sign up training for Nordic ski jumping!  At 11 AM they had their Freestyle Show featuring the Flying Ace All Stars  These ski jumps are made of plastic that they spray with water.  The skiers wear wet suits (they train from May-Oct) -- they have to climb stairs to the top of the slides, then whoosh down, do lots of flips in the air, and then go into a pool of water.  The water is not heated, so it is very cold in spring, only about 65 in the summer.  The pool has a bubbler system which breaks up the surface tension -- nice for the athletes if they happen to belly flop on their jump.  They also had a guy to demo the trampoline they use to train on so they can do summersaults, flips, twists, etc in the air.  These young people are really dedicated! They had a few younger kids age 12 who performed.  There were a LOT of people at the show -- several hundred -- it was out in the sun and VERY HOT! (I thought it might be cool up in the mountains, but it was very warm.) I tried to make a video on my phone-- hope it comes thru to you!

We then drove to Main Street Park City where there were a LOT of people.  Surprising, they have free parking garages.  We had some lunch, then went to the Park City Museum.  It was a nice little museum, documenting the history of the town.  In 1868, silver was discovered and it became a boom town-- 10.000 people.  The mine owners got rich, the miners made a living. One of the wealthy Ontario mine owners was George Hearst, the father of Wm Randolph Hearst. During prohibition, there were lots of bootleggers there!  There was also gambling along with a "red light" district-- they called it Sin City -- it was not a Mormon town at all.  In 1949 most of the mines closed and the place almost became a ghost town -- it was listed in a book about ghost towns in 1951!  There was a little skiing going on since the early 1900's, but no resorts.  In 1963, they got a federal loan to start a ski area.  In 1978 the last mine closed.  The museum had videos of interviews of locals, who talked about the changes in the 70's when the "hippies" came to town.  Skiing grew as a major part of the economy, and the town started growing again.  One of the ski resorts actually used one of the mine trains to transport skiers up to the top of the mountain -- we got to sit in a car in the museum.  It was not a fun or luxurious trip, since the mines were dirty, drippy, and very dark.  The Olympic games were awarded to them in 1995, and everything in the Olympic park was built for the 2002 Olympics.  

On the way out to town, we stopped briefly at the Outlet Mall -- there were SO many people that we could hardly get a parking spot-- then did not even buy anything.  We came back to the RV hot and tired, but it was a fun day.   I had thought about hiking on the trails in Park City, but it was way too hot!

journal Sunday July 6, 2014 Salt Lake City

We put on our Sunday clothes and took the free van downtown to attend the Music and the Spoken Word program at the Mormon conference center.  It was not a true church service, so I was a little disappointed not to get to experience that, but I am counting it as our church attendance for this Sunday!  This center seats 23,000 -- there were a lot of people there, tho no one in the 2 balconies -- Larry thinks maybe 5000 were there.  

There were lots of volunteers with smiling faces to welcome us (interestingly, for this and the choir rehearsal, there were smiling ladies to check handbags for firearms and bombs too!). 

The service began at 9:30, but the choir and speaker did a complete rehearsal, then took a break.  The "emcee" gave a little pep talk ahead of time reminding us that this service was videotaped and broadcasted both live and on delayed time (or on-line or on U-tube!).  He discussed that the Mormon pioneers had their first choir 1 month after arrival in the mid 1800's, and that the first radio broadcast of Music and the Word was in 1929 -- it has broadcasted weekly since then.  The ladies in the choir were all in long lilac short sleeved jacket dresses, but they vary each performance--  they have 10 colors of dresses total -- last week was fuchsia!  So they stock like 2000 dresses for the ladies to wear.  The men have 5 different colors of suits to wear, as well as tuxedos, so their clothing is also stored.  There are 360 singing at a time, but they have 400 in the choir.  The age range is 20-60.  You must live within 100 miles of SLC to be in the choir, since they practice every Thursday night, perform every Sunday, and have about 75 scheduled concerts a year.  They are all volunteers.  They can stay in the choir for 20 years, and then get bumped for a new singer!  The guy then introduced some visitors-- one family was having a big reunion, there was a movie actor I never heard of, there was a flautist from Austria, and also, but the way, Mitt Romney was there!!!  We were seated on the L side so Larry could watch the organist-- I got a glimpse of Mitt on the R side.  

They started with beautiful movie pictures of Utah, then said the same words used for 80 years-- "From the Crossroads of the West, we welcome you....)  They had a full orchestra + the organist.  Screens at the front zeroed in on the faces of individual choir members and orchestra players.  A large camera moved around on a crane to catch the harpist or violinist in action.  They sang Let There Be Light, There is Sunshine in My Soul Today, How Excellent Thy Name Oh Lord, In Christ there is No eAst or West, Somewhere (from West Side Story), Count your Blessings Instead of Sheep (from Irving Berlin's White Christmas), and On Great Lone Hills (from Finlandia) -- so a mixture of classical, hymns, and pop.  They sounded really good!

I'm not sure who the speaker was as far as his position in the church -- Lloyd Newell.  He gave a nice tai about how happiness and gratitude are linked, and how we say "grace" before meals, but should also say "grace" before concerts, before opening a book, before playing...etc.  No scripture or Book of Mormon was read.  As we filed out, there were more smiling ladies in dresses, men in suits and white shirts and ties.  (One of the guides had told us that there is actually a store downtown that sells "Mormon clothes" for the young missionaries, and I guess the old ones too!

Anyhow, we went back to the RV park for lunch, and went hiking the Bell Falls trail at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon.  It was supposed to be 4 miles round trip, but as usual with Utah trails, it went straight up!  The trailhead was actually in a neighborhood with a path that went between peoples' houses.  It was listed as "moderate", but it was pretty strenuous-- especially in the heat.  If I have to touch rocks, go on the seat of my pants, or pull myself on tree branches, I consider it to be strenuous.  We got to a water fall (see below-- sideways!) and Larry wanted to make that the destination for our destination hike, but we managed to clamber up higher to the "reservoir" which was a lovely little lake -- we only went about .7 miles, but the remaining trail to the Bell Falls continued straight up, so we fizzled out.  There were lots of boulders to sit on at the reservoir--kids were swimming in the cold water, adults were fishing-- the water was very clear and you could see lots of trout.  There were a lot of ducks there who were not at all afraid -- they must get fed a lot-- kids were feeding them little bread pieces -- there were mama ducks and babies-- very cute.  After 15-20 minutes, we turned to go back down again -- the .7 miles seemed a lot shorter going down, but it was still very rocky, gravelly, and treacherous, so we were both very careful -- any other hikers came by-->we would let them pass us old folks!  Most hikers looked in their 20's or 30's -- several families with school age kids.  

Once we got back to the RV, we have just been begging out.  I really wanted to go see the Great Salt Lake, but Larry refused -- everything that we have read or been told about it, makes it sound like it is not a tourist attraction -- often smelly with algae, hot, no boats since the salinity would injure boat engines.  So I did not get to float in it-- maybe just as well!  Larry spent an hour washing bugs off the windshield so he can see where he is going tomorrow as we head north to Idaho!

Monday July 7, 2014 Twin falls ID

We left Salt Lake City around 8:30 -- we were at the north end of the city, so no traffic problems leaving town. Part of the highway was pretty close to the Great Salt Lake, so I got to see it-- looked pretty actually with blue water.  We went up and down hills, thru wilderness (tho greener than our desert in NM), and got to Twin Falls around 1:15.  The KOA is nice -- about 3 miles from town.  We got settled and went to the Visitor's center to get local info.  It was located right next to the Perrine bridge-- it was built in 1979 -- t 1500 ft long , it is the longest suspension bridge in the west.  I.B. Perrine was the man who first settled the Snake River Canon in 1884.  It was amazing to be driving thru a desert and then see the beautiful river in the canyon.  2 golf courses are located in the bottom of the canyon on each side of the river-- the green grass looks so pretty.  The Snake River was actually named after the Snake Indian tribe-- I always thought it got its name from the serpentine weaving of the river bed.  About a mile down from the visitor's center is Evel Kneivel's jump site -- his motor cycle jump fizzled in 1974 when the parachute on his rocket propelled cycle deployed prematurely, and he just floated down to the river bed.  We drove down a road to the bottom where there was Centennial Park -- there were waterfalls from springs along the sides of the canyon, and there were picnic tables and boat ramps at the park.  The park was built by the local Rotary club!  

It was very hot, so we postponed hiking till tomorrow morning.  We drove thru town-- lots of shopping-- Costco, Michaels, Old Navy, Target, Best Buy etc.  We decided to drive about 30 miles north to Shoshone to go to the Idaho Mammoth Cave-- I read about it on Trip Advisor and it sounded interesting.  It is privately owned and turned out to be an adventure.  There is a lot of lava rock in Idaho -- this cave was formed by volcanic flow, but then a section collapsed -- it was apparently used by stone age men, and had been discovered in the early 1900's, then forgot about.  The present owner, Richard Olson was a high school senior in 1954-- he came upon the entrance while hunting bobcats.  He got the title to the cave, and actually raised mushrooms in the cave for several years.  In the 60's, he was asked by the gov't to use the cave as a fallout shelter, in case the US was attacked, so they kept stores of food down there for 20 years.  When we got there, no one else was there except for Richard's son who took our $10 fee and gave us each a lantern to carry and told us to follow the path by ourselves.  So off we went with our lanterns, going around a curved path thru volcanic rocks downward to the cave -- it really would be called a lava tube.  It was 41 degrees inside, which felt very good.  Bats live in the cave, but we did not see any.  They guy told us that the cave goes back about a half mile, but the path for visitors is just 1/4 mile long.  He told me that he was the one that paved the pathway himself!  We then went into the museum and it was unbelievable!  There were fossils, rocks, arrowheads, taxidermed animals, minerals, precious stones, Indian pots, other archeological artifacts from all over the world.  He had papers of authenticity all over.  He also had papers saying that he had purchased or was given all the stuff he had, and nothing was illegally obtained.  There must have been millions of dollars worth of stuff in this building, arranged in 3 concentric circles.  When we finished the museum (you could spend a LOT of time there and not see it all), an older man was sitting on an old couch -- it was Richard Olsen himself.  He was not very chatty, but just repeated the story of finding the cave while hunting bobcats.  I asked him about another cave about 10 miles down the road, the Shoshone Ice Caves --  he thought they were worth going to, so we drove over there.

This cave was smaller -- we had a local high school girl guide us -- we had to walk a path thru lava rock quite a ways, which then spiraled down 90 ft to the cave door.  She said an 8 yr old boy found the cave while looking for a lost goat.  The opening was very small, and in the early 1900's, ice was cut and taken to town to use for refrigeration.  Ice was also taken to bars so people could have ice cold beer in Idaho!  The owners decided to make the opening bigger by dynamiting it, but then they found that about 80% of the ice inside melted, defeating the purpose of having people visit an ice cave.  So they piled up a bunch of rocks and cemented them, with a door that opens and closes, and the ice did re-form.  This lava tube is well lit.  It is just about 30 degrees year round (felt good!) -- the girl said sometimes after the winter snow melt, they have to pump water out, or the tube would fill with ice.  In the cave were large areas of ice of the floor of the cave -- I asked if it was strong enough to skate in, and she said that people had skating parties in the old days.  (I asked how big her high school class was-- she is one of 28 students!)

We decided to eat out tonight at the Canyon Crest restaurant, located at the cliff edge of the Snake River.  We ate outside and enjoyed the lovely view of the Snake River and Perrine Bridge.  I had salmon and Larry had seafood pasta-- both very good.  We both had huge helpings of asparagus as well.  There is a lot of farm land in the area since the soil is rich volcanic and they can irrigate from the Snake River.  As you drive thru the desert, you can see bright green squares where the farms are.

We hope to get up early tomorrow and do our waterfall hike before it gets too hot!

journal Tuesday July 8 2014

We got up fairly early this morning so we could hike before it got too hot.  We got to Shoshone Falls park around 7:15 and it was nice and cool.  Shoshone Falls is lovely, although it has more water in the spring time when the snow melt occurs and before the farmers start irrigating.  Reportedly, pioneers in the 1800's would hike miles out of their way to see the Falls-- named after the Shoshone Indians.  In 1883, a Mr Walgamott got "squatter's rights" to the falls, and built roads, a ferry and a hotel.  In 1932, another owner gave the rights to the city of Twin falls, stipulating that it be maintained as a public park.  The park around it is grassy with picnic tables and lots of viewpoints of the falls -- "the Niagara of the West".  It tumbles 212 feet to the canyon floor-- actually 50 ft further than Niagara.  We took the Rim trail about 2 miles along -- lots of people had donated memorial lookouts (Larry did not climb out on most of them -- I did and it gave me a little butterfly feeling in my stomach!).  The Rim trail ended at private land at the dirt hill "ramp" (see photo below), where Evel Knievel did his failed jump.  

We then drove over to Dierkes Lake -- John Dierkes came here from Germany in 1906 and homesteaded the area behind Shoshone Falls.  All his orchards got flooded by the canal irrigation system built at that time, so he then had a lake and charged admission.  It finally got sold to the city in 1967 -- it has a swimming beach, a boat dock, picnic tables, playground-- very pretty.  There was supposedly a hiking trail around the lake-- Larry "shut down" and sat in the shade at a table.  I started walking and got halfway around, then chickened out when I saw a lot of stairs going up to the high rim of the canyon on the other side-- there were some really fancy houses up there, and I was afraid the stairs belonged to them.  So I back tracked -- about halfway back, I met a lady hiking and she said that the stairs were actually for hikers.  I did not feel like going all the way to that area, so just headed for where Larry was.  Unfortunately, all the sprinkler systems were on, so I got nice and wet trying to run around them-- felt pretty good at that point!

We went back to the Visitor Center at the Perrine bridge, and there were some jumpers there.  Twin Falls attracts BASE (building, antenna, span or bridge, earth) jumpers from all over the world, because it is the only one where it is legal to jump all year round.  The jumpers gather in the grassy area by the bridge, laying out their parachutes and arranging the strings just so -- so they don't get tangled up, I guess.  They are supposed to take sky diving lessons before trying this.  Out of about 30.000 jumps, there have been 2 deaths (did not hear injury statistics!).  While I was waiting for them to get ready, I tried to walk out on the bridge on the pedestrian sidewalk, but the traffic made the bridge sway so much, that I couldn't stand it, so went back.  When the jumpers were ready, they walked out to the middle of the bridge, climbed over the daily that was about 4 ft high, then just jumped and parachuted to the bottom.  The floating looked fun, but the jumping sure must take guts!

After lunch it was hot, so we went to the Herrett Center museum for the Arts and Sciences at the College of Southern Utah.  It had a lot of fossils and Indian artifacts, a complete mammoth skeleton, and an art exhibit.  They had a planetarium show, but it was geared for little kids, so we did not do that.  I asked if there was a history museum, and the lady at the desk told us about the Twin Falls county Historical Society Museum-- it was a little off the beaten path-- doubt they get many visitors, although when we arrived, 2 ladies and 3 cub scouts came at the same time-- I think the curator was in shock to have so many people!  The museum was housed in an old school building that was in use till the 60's.  It gave information about Mr Perrine, the guy who came here and had the vision to irrigate, resulting in the town and all the farrms in the area.  I picked up a brochure about a trout hatchery not too far away, but we searched and searched for it and couldn't find it -- I looked at the date of the brochure and it was 2001, so the hatchery probably was long gone!  

We have enjoyed the pool at the KOA here since it is open till 10 and not packed with little kids.  Tomorrow, we head to McCall which is north of 

Boise.  We decided just to skip Boise on this trip. 

journal Wednesday July 9  McCall ID

We left Twin Falls around 8:20 AM. The road to Boise was thru a high desert landscape, tho a little grassier than NM.  Again there were lots of green swatches where irrigation and farming was going on.  Boise looks like a pretty big city -- there is a river there-- the Boise river -- but we really did not see much.  The road from Boise to McCall was very hilly.  It was overcast, and when we finally got to McCall, it was drizzling.  The RV park is lovely -- Larry had called just yesterday, and we were very lucky to get a spot.  The lady at the desk had to manipulate reservations a little, but was nice enough to do so.  Our spot is close to the clubhouse where they have an indoor pool -- the walls are open for the summer.  There is also a hot tub and steam room, and from 8-10 it is adults only!  The park is tiered -- the top area has a lot of cabins (very nice looking) and some RV's.  We are in the middle section -- nice paved roads, nice green grass.  The lower section actually has riverside spots, so they have a view of the river.  

It kept drizzling and then raining harder, but we drove downtown to see Payette Lake and go to the visitor center.  There is quite a nice sandy beach in that area, but there were no swimmers or boaters in the rain.  McCall is a tourist town, but the shops were not junky.  Population is only 3000.  I suspect that they are busier in the winter with skiing close byWe browsed thru shops, then saw a large building.  Our poor eyes thought it said public sale, but it said public Skate!  It was a huge indoor ice rink!  The lady there says the Idaho Steelheads hockey team pro hockey team trains there sometimes.  There are also hockey clinics and camps -- most of the players come from elsewhere like Boise.  There was just one teen girl skating when we were there-- it was quite a large rink.  We then drove to the local fish hatchery -- this one was not hard to find.  It had information about salmon and also trout.  Lots of cute little fish in the huge tanks.  They raise them to stock the streams in the area for angler.

It finally stopped raining around 5 pm, so we walked around the RV park, then made supper.  It is actually cool here!!!!!! like 67 degrees.  We are looking forward to hiking in the morning-- no rain predicted for tomorrow.  

The attached video (if it comes thru), is of the BASE divers at the Perrine bridge in Twin Falls.  I was quite aways away to photograph it, so look for a blue parachute.

Journal Thursday July 10.2014

Last night we walked over to the indoor pool -- water was very nice.  They also have a steam room-- I had never been in one of those -- it was 117 degrees-- I stayed in there about 45 seconds!  In the hot tub we met a nice couple, Janet and Bob.  They were from WA and both worked at the university there.  I asked them what they had done in McCall, and they were into hiking!-- more like 10 mile hikes.  They recommended one that I read about-- Goose Falls -- this may be the same hike Jim and Glenda took a few weeks ago.

So we headed for Goose Falls to hike this morning.  We stopped at the Forest Ranger office, and got info on several hikes.  I told him I liked destination hikes, so he recommended this one-- he recommended starting at the bottom and hiking up to the falls rather than the other trailhead which involved hiking down to the falls-- and then of course hiking up again.  We drove about 8 miles to the Last Chance Campground -- there was just one other car at the trailhead.  It was in the 60's-- very nice.  The trail was fairly shady thru a forest of fir trees.  Most of it was soft dirt-- not so rocky as in NM -- muddy in a few spots since it had rained yesterday-- we had to balance on a log once to avoid mud (see photo).  Supposedly it was 2.8 miles to the Falls, and 3 miles to the Bridge.  Larry used the Map My Walk which uses a satellite to measure how far you hike -- he got 7.3 miles for the whole thing!  The hike was really fairly easy with a gentle grade -- just the last little cutoff to the falls was steeper -- glad we had our sticks to keep us balanced.  The falls were beautiful and we had our snack there.  Then a guy suddenly appeared with his bike!  That part of the path was really rocky, and he rode his bike up there!!!  He and his wife had dropped their kids off at Kayaking camp, so they were in McCall for several days.  I could not believe he rode his bike up that last bit to the falls!  We then decided to walk the .2 miles to the bridge (that turned out to be .5 mi on the Map My Walk!).  The bridge led to another section of the trail.  It was over part of the waterfall, so very nice to take photos!  

We turned around to hike back then.  We ran into 2 (rather overweight!) mountain bikers, and then a big Mennonite family -- a whole bunch of kids-- the dad was carrying a 2 yr old on his shoulders-- the women and girls were all in caps and long dresses!  We let them know that the trail to the waterfall was longer than on the sign-- the hike really took us about 3 hours total-- they weren't sure they wanted to go that far.  Then we saw a lady off trail who asked if we had seen a little white dog-- we had not, but within a few minutes, we saw the white dog on the path ahead of us, so we called to the lady, and they got reunited.

We decided to have our picnic lunch at Ponderosa State Park -- the "jewel" of the Idaho state park system.  It is a peninsula that sticks out into Payette Lake.  We got a map at the Visitor Center-- there are lots of hiking trails and biking trails, but we were pretty pooped.  We drove to a picnic area and found a shady table with a lake view-- there was a little sandy beach there with families swimming.  We then just took the scenic drive up to the 2 lookout points on top-- the Narrows and Osprey points.  Both had beautiful views of the lake with only a short hike from the car.  At this point, I got a text from Tommie asking for my oreo ice cream dessert recipe.  So I sat on the bench there with my scenic view and typed my recipe to Tommie!!  

We got to the RV to clean up and veg out the rest of the afternoon.  We followed the Harris's footsteps again and went out to dinner at The Steamers restaurant downtown.  Larry had scallops and I had shrimp-- both very good entrees, with nice salads, and split a creme brûlée!  We walked along the beach walk after dinner.  I am amazed what nice clean sandy beaches are on the lake-- I slipped off my sandals to wade a little in the water -- a little chillier than I would want to swim in, but nice clean clear water.  

We hit the hot tub and pool at the park again -- nice having adults only after 8 pm.  We really like McCall a lot! 

Friday journal July 11,2014

We packed a picnic lunch and headed toward Boulder Lake to hike.  My brochure said it was a 4 mi round trip.  We found the Boulder Lake Rd and we were to follow it "for a few miles" to get to the trailhead -- NOT!  It was 5 miles on a mostly dirt/gravel/rutted/potholed road.  We stopped when we saw some cars parked at a camping area.  There was a portapotty with a lock on it!  We walked a ways and did find the reservoir where the trailhead was supposed to be, and walking some more, we did find the trailhead.  It was cool when we started, but warmed up quickly.  This is rated a "moderate" trail, and indeed it was.  Most of it was in the shade, but the forest service does not invest in many signs -- in fact the trailhead was the only sign.  We ran into a boy scout troop (about 15 kids and 4 adults) who had camped overnight at the lake, and were on their way back to their vehicles.  They warned us that the trail was a little tricky at parts -- some mud, some streams to cross on logs or hopping rocks.  We took a few wrong turns, naturally, making the total hike over 5 miles instead of 4.  The lake was absolutely beautiful-- clear cool water, fish were hopping, lots of small waterfalls coming off the lake over big rocks.  Since I did not get to use the porta potty, I took advantage of a big log by the lake. (I never do this, but knew I would not make it back!)  About 6-7 minutes later, a bunch of people backpacking in to spend the night showed up!!!  Good timing.  There were a lot of mosquitos in that area.  Larry had read an article that mosquitoes are attracted to dark colors and people with O+ blood.  So he was wearing a long sleeve black hiking shirt, and he is O+!  I was fine but he had them crawling on his sleeves-- they did not bite thru the shirt fortunately!  Again, we were glad for our Map Your Walk Ap on the phone -- it does not show the path but it did show the lake, so we could tell if we were heading the right direction, and also if we were going in circles (which we did at one point!)  We sat on a big rock by the reservoir to have our lunch.  It was a lovely morning.

After we cleaned up and rested up, we decided to take a chairlift ride at a ski resort about 10 miles away.  Larry is not crazy about heights, but he did well.  The Brundage Resort looked nice, and there were a lot of people riding.  Some rode the chairlift up and biked or walked down a path.  We were too pooped from our morning hike, so we just walked around on top.  There were lots of purple and yellow flowers below the chair lift lines, and at the top, there were lots of little pretty white flowers.  I got Edelweiss in my head, and asked the chairlift worker if that's what they were-- he had no clue.  But one of the other riders said that it was Edelweiss-- soft and white, clean and bright--so pretty! Now I'm humming it again!

We stopped and got groceries on the way home and they had a Paul's card to get cheaper prices, so we applied for a card.  The cashier said that they gave out points with every transaction, and she gave us a card that she had used for people who did not have or did not want to register for a card all day, and said we could just use all the points in the clothing section of the store (it was a dept store too.  So we had like $45 worth of points to spend -- got some beach towels, a nice hat for Larry, and some sewing scissors.  The lady at that cash register said that the grocery cashier should not have done that, with that card, but let us use our points anyhow-- such a deal!!

We grilled some pork chops for supper, then walked around the RV park for awhile.  All of a sudden we saw a fox in the road--first I thought it was a dog! --  it was the skinniest, most pathetic fox imaginable.  Then somebody's cat meowed at it, and it ran away!  

Tomorrow, we head to White Bird.

ournal Saturday July 12,2014 White Bird ID

Last night at the pool, we ran into the couple we met the first day-- Bob and Janet.  They talked about some more hikes they did, and another guy in the hot tub talked about the Hot Springs he had visited-- we probably could have stayed in McCall longer and seen more stuff.  They were also leaving today to get back to work on Monday (we are SO happy to be retired!!).  

We left the RV park around 8:15 to head north to White Bird.  We passed Riggins and saw the Ranger Station where we planned to back track to after we got to White Bird.  A lot of ups and downs -- more downs since this is a much lower altitude than McCall-- like only 1200 feet.  We tried to follow the directions to the RV park in the Trailer Life Guide -- this is such a small town, we figured we would have no trouble.  Unfortunately we missed the sign to the RV park and went right instead of left.  We drove about 8 miles and knew we were not on the right road, but there was no place to turn around.  Larry wanted to call the RV park, but we had no phone service(!!).  No one else was on this road, so we stopped and unhooked the car-- Larry saw a farm house and went down that driveway (a good dip unfortunately), to back out again with some difficulty.  I went ahead back to town and stopped at a store to get directions, and indeed it was the opposite direction.  This is not a fancy park, but is convenient to the jet boat ride we are taking tomorrow (we are following in the Harris's footsteps still!!).  The park only has about 10 spots-- we actually chose one not under a tree so our satellite would work.  It is hot here too!

We found out that after Riggins, we were in the Pacific time zone, so we gained an hour!  After we settled in, I packed a picnic lunch and we headed back to Riggins-- we lost an hour then!  We talked to the ranger at the Hell's Canyon Visitor Center-- I told him we wanted a place to go to picnic, to see some beautiful views, and to hike a little.  He sent us up toward Heaven's Gate-- it was 5 miles of paved road, then 13 miles of gravel or dirt-- not too rutty, but one lane with a sheer drop off on one side.  There were lots of pretty wild flowers and nice views along the way up.  We stopped at a picnic table and ate, then went to an area where there were several cars to hike a little of the Seven Devils trail -- it was a lot of downhill, plus it was an area where there had been a forest fire, so we decided to go on to Heaven's Gate.  We hiked a little around there, even thru one snowy area (it was probably in the high 70's temperature).  We were about to leave, when I saw a sign at the other end of the parking area -- a .2 mi trek to the lookout higher up.  Larry "shut down", so sat in the car while I walked up.  The trail was pretty steep and the .2 miles took me almost 45 minutes!  Lots of pretty flowers and fantastic views tho.  I met some people who were on their way down-- they asked me where I was from, and said they were from Michigan -- I mentioned that I went to college in Grand Rapids-- they were familiar with Calvin College, and their grown son who was with them, attended Hope College in Holland MI!  At the top, was a house where a fire watcher stayed.  He and his wife have been doing this for 4 years since he retired from being a firefighter in CA.  He is there 6 out of 7 days -- there is a bed, stove, radio, frig up there-- kind of nice.  They have an RV that they park lower down and he hikes up from there each day.  Their home base is Twin Falls.  I asked about the burnt areas  just below the station -- he said the fire was around 2005 -- then pointed out where other fires had burned in the last 10 years.  It was a 360 degree view up there.  There were hundreds of butterflies up there -- the guy said there will be even more in the next month when even more flowers will be blooming.  You could see the 7 devils (black mountain peaks-- see photo), the fire watcher guy pointed out Oregon and Montana, but said it was too smoky to the NW since there were fires burning in WA right now.  It only took me about 12 minutes to go down the trail.  I met man at the top, and I complained that it had seemed like more than .2 mi going up that hill -- he said it is 20 miles going up, and only .2 mi going down-- that is exactly how it felt!!

On the way back down, we stopped back where we had picnicked and located the little 7 Devil's Lake that we had not seen when we were eating-- we just had to drive a little further thru the campground, and it was like a 2 minute walk to the lake-- very pretty (see photo).  There were a few kayakers.  As a whole, we ran into very few people in this Nat'l Recreation area.  

We stopped at a little market on the way back to the RV park and got some corn on the cob for supper and some fruit. 

journal Sunday July 13, 2014 White Bird ID

We had planned to leave the RV park at 9 so that we would be at the Pittsburg landing of Hells Canyon for our 10 am “launch”.  Larry had gone to the Park office to use the courtesy phone and make our RV reservation in CoeurdaLane, and the lady at the desk told him she was just about to let us know that the boat would be an hour late.  So then we left just before 10 AM, driving 17 miles down a mostly gravel road to the marina.  A few other people were there already who had not gotten the message (no cell service around here), so they were there an hour already.  Then we got word that there were more delays— the jet boat had to pick up some rafters, so we did not take off till 10.  We boated over to the

Kirkwood museum/homestead — the house there was built in the 30’s — people during the depression came and settled there.  There was a little museum and some other buildings and old farm equipment.  The lady caretaker at the house was working there just this week — she lived in WA and was a teacher.  She and her husband got to stay in the old house — they just boated all their supplies in.  She showed us just the kitchen (still in use) and the bathroom that had the first bathtub of Hells Canyon (only about half the length of a normal bathtub, black, and no longer in use!).  They had box lunches for us and lots of shady picnic tables.

It was very hot in the canyon which is elevation only about 1200 ft, but once the boat started, we had lots of breeze.  The Snake River starts in Yellowstone park, then winds down, forming the boundary of Oregon and Idaho.  It varies from 2-3 ft deep to ~100 ft deep.  We saw some deer, wild sheep, and bald eagles along the canyon.  We had to put on life jackets (rather mildewy!) when we approached some rapids.  There were lots of rafters, small jet boaters, kayakers, and fisher men along the way.  We made another stop just before the Devil’s dam — there was a visitor center that people could drive to, and there was a short film there we watched.  We cruised close to the dam, then headed back.  We needed to put life jackets on again, and the pilot took us thru some fun rapids— many of us got half soaked or full soaked!  We met several nice people along the way.  Two ladies were from Arkansas — maybe close to our age — they had driven all the way to WA to pick up a 42+foot RV that one lady had purchased.  They left husbands at home, and were meandering back to Arkansas by themselves— pretty plucky ladies!  Another couple was from GA — she is a teacher and he owns a poultry farm— he was leaving his son in charge for the first time, since he is heir to the business!  Another couple had their 2 daughters with them, ages 11 and 15.  They were from Grand Rapids MI (where I went to college), and were RVing for a month —  I thought they must be teachers, but he owned his own machine shop and had trained 2 guys to cover for him.  Everyone was pretty friendly, since we were all getting soaked off and on during the trip back — it was fun, windy, and bumpy.  Our pilot pointed out some interesting areas— there were paths that people actually rode horses on— one path had a catastrophic event many years ago— a group of men were traveling to work there for many months, and the mule carrying the load of whiskey bottles lost it’s load— so they called it Temperance Rock!  

Just before returning to the marina, they stopped the boat at the “biggest beach” on the river.  The sandy beaches along the way are small, but a nice fine sand.  Several people wore bathing suits and hopped in the water — it was chilly but felt good— I just waded in to my knees.  

The boat ride lasted about 5 hours total, and we were all pretty hot.  They had lots of ice water along fortunately.  The pilot announced that all of us were getting free “Kilgore I survived Hell’s Canyon” shirts, so that was nice.

Tomorrow, we head to Coeur da’Lene.

journal Monday July 14, 2014 Coeur D’alene ID

We left White Bird a little after 8 AM.  I talked some to the lady at the desk of the park, Tammy.  She is a local girl who grew up in Granger, just north of White Bird.  After high school she went to Utah for awhile, then came back and married a man 5 yr older than her with 2 daughters.  She is 45 now, and they also have a son who just graduated from HS — he will work a year, then go to college in Lewiston ID.  She was a friend of one of the Killgore’s daughters, and that’s how she got the job.  She knew our pilot, Kurt Killgore very well — said there are only 2 pilots who really knew that Snake River, and Kurt is one of them.  The next 3-4 days are “quiet” days on the river, so they don’t have any excursions those days — that’s why we ended up spending a Sunday doing our trip.  

It had sprinkled during the night and was slightly less hot.  It sprinkled off and on all the way to Coeur D’alene — 200 miles north.  We passed the Nez Perce reservation — my Idaho book gave some of the sad history.  This tribe inhabited Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.  In 1855, there were many white settlers, and they negotiated an agreement to make a 5000 sq mile reservation for the Indians.  But 5 yr later, gold was discovered,, and in 1893 a new treaty reduced the size of the reservation to just 500 sq miles.  In 1877, the Indians went to war against the white men, eventually losing and relocating to Kansas, Oklahoma, with a few remaining here on only 88,000 acres.  Really quite a sad story.

We then drove thru Moscow, home of the University of Idaho.  The town is surrounded by “the Palouse” — treeless rolling hills with lots of farms growing wheat, barley, chickpeas and lentils.

We got into the Blackwell Island RV park — it is just 1 1/miles from downtown.  We walked around the park, but it was very hot.  There is a little beach on the lake here, tho the sand is kind of gravelly compared to the nice smooth sand on the Snake River yesterday.  Lots of families with kids were playing in the water, which is nice and clear, tho a bit chilly.  We drove downtown, which did not take long at all.  We went to the visitor center to get brochures, then parked and walked around.  There is the Coeur D’alene resort on the lakefront— lots of people swimming, walking, and biking. We walked out on the boardwalk in front of the resort— it is the longest floating wooden boardwalk in the country — 3300 feet.  I felt like I needed to have sea legs to walk on this.  There were lots of  private boats in blue covered little docks.  There were people water skiing, and we even watched a sea plane take off.  There is a hiking trail at Tubbs Hill on the other side of the resort —  135 acres of publicly owned land, with several miles of hiking trails going around the peninsula, or up to the top — we plan to get up early and do that before it gets hot out tomorrow.  

After browsing in a few shops, we went back to the RV to rest up (retirement is good!), then went for an early dinner at the Floating Cedars restaurant located about 1/4 mi from our RV park.  I felt like I was on a cruise ship, since you could see the horizon — and the light fixtures! — gently rocking.  We had some free cocktail coupons from the RV park, then enjoyed a nice salad bar (I had huckleberry vinaigrette dressing on mine), prime rib (Larry), grilled steelhead (me — it is a kind of a salmon from the Columbia river), and we had a huckleberry ice cream sundae for desert — very nice, with a view of the Lake.

We were going to walk around the RV park again for exercise, but it had started sprinkling harder and we are now cool for a change!!  The RV park is completely full— we were very lucky to get a spot— in fact tomorrow, we have to move to a different spot for the next 2 nights to make room for more!  There is a No Vacancy sign at the office.  

It is supposed to be sunny and in the 90’s for our next 2 days here — still can’t believe it is this warm so far north.

journal Tuesday July 15, 2014 Coeur D’alene ID

We got up fairly early to hike Tubbs Hill which is right down town.   It was nice to drive only 2 miles to the trailhead.  We got there a little after 7 AM and decided to take the upper path first that goes to the top of the hill.  It was a lot of uphill hiking —  we had our hiking shoes and our sticks, and all the young people were running up and down the paths!  It was nice because it was mostly shaded and had lovely views of the lake.  We found huckleberry bushes along the way — I found a few that were real dark and very sweet.  Others were bluish (see photo), but still fairly sweet.  The real unripe ones were light green.  The huckleberries really look like blueberries, but when you chew them, there are little seeds inside that you have to spit out.  We also found some wild raspberries to sample.  After we did the top loop, we hiked back down to the bottom loop, which actually had better views since there were a lot of hidden coves and small beaches.  Larry used his Map Your Walk Ap, and we covered about 5.3 miles.  

We got back to the RV park and needed to move to another spot — we were in a “premium spot” last night that was closer to the lake.  Now we are with the ordinary people. (we were lucky to get a spot at all in this park actually).  

After we cleaned up and ate, we went downtown again (nice being so close) to go to the History Museum of Northern Idaho.  It had a 30 minute film about the history of Coeur D’alene, starting with the Indians and the French fur traders, going into the discovery of gold and silver, the coming of the railroad, logging, the use of steamboats which turned it into more of a resort community, even in the late 1800’s.  The museum had a lot of old photos and maps and artifacts.

We went down to the main drag to browse shops and galleries.  At least I did- - Larry parked himself on a bench in the shade while I meandered.  It actually worked better than having him follow me, find a bench in front of each store, or breathe down my neck! 

We then drove to the north end of town where they have a lot of chain restaurants, a mall, a Costco, Target, Walmart, JoAnn Fabrics, Michaels, about 5 grocery stores — lots of shopping here for sure. 

Tonight, we went to the duplicate bridge game at 6:30 pm.  It was held in the dining room of an independent adult living center.   It was a very nice facility.  They had 5 tables, and it was fun to meet different people— a few were natives, some were “snowbirds” from FL, one had moved here after living in Fairbanks for 59 years, one lived in EP from 1949-1962 (before our time), a young looking woman (40ish) was from Canada, one lady was from Germany and had moved here then from Canada.  We played pretty lousy with only a 46% game(!), but came in 1st in the C flight, so since it was a charity game, we got .66 points!!!

Tomorrow, we plan to hike early, do laundry, get some more groceries, then head north on Thursday to the Abbotts.

Wednesday July 16, 2014 Coeur D’alene ID

We drove about 5 miles to the Beauty Bay area this morning to hike the Mineral Springs trail.  It was about 4 miles total —  a lot of uphill at the beginning (went up over 600 ft from the trailhead), then on a ridge with some nice lookouts of the lake.  Some boy scouts had taken on the project of putting numbers on trees, putting in benches to rest on, and making a nice guide book.  In the late 1800’s, there was a lot of mining going on in the area — zinc and lead were found in this area.  There was a spur on the trail that led to an area that had been mined, and there was an adit (good scrabble word), or opening carved into the hill side— it did not go real far in.  We hiked mostly in the shade of Ponderosa Pine and Douglas fir trees.  Our little booklet identified some of the plants — snowberry bushes, some huckleberry bushes, and lots of ocean spray plants with a spray of little white flowers.  We met only a few people on this trail — not like Tubbs Hill yesterday.  A group of 4 ladies asked us to take a photo of them, then they reciprocated.

It was still early when we finished, so we drove to Post Falls (where Jim and Glenda had stayed).  They said there was not much to see there, and it was true!   We went to Treaty Rock park (right in the middle of town) and took the short hike to the big rock that had Frederick Post’s name carved on the rock where he and the local Indian chief Seltice had negotiated a land use deal for his sawmill.  Underneath his name are some Indian pictographs.  That area of rock was covered by a huge sheet of plexi-glass— when I tried to photograph it, I just got reflections of the trees behind it, so I couldn’t do it.  We then drove another mile or 2 to Falls Park to see the falls (made by a dam there— not real exciting to see) and the Spokane River gorge which was quite pretty.  It was a nice little park with picnic tables, a place for kids to fish, and the walk around it to the Falls.  

We saw a sign for Cabela’s at mile marker 1— we could have gone on to WA — Spokane was like 15 mi down the road, but we just went to the store.  We had never been in such a store— looks like a hunter’s paradise.  There were racks and racks of camouflage patterned clothing.  Lots of guns and ammo.  We did not feel like we belonged in this store— not in our genetics I guess.  We stopped and got a few groceries on the way home. 

After cleaning up and resting up, we went downtown to the Farmer’s Market.  People were lined up and at 4 pm, a man rang a triangle and they dashed forward.  We just got some fresh raspberries, a loaf of bread, and green beans.  I had hoped for tomatoes, but the few there got grabbed by those in the starting line.  We grilled some steak and corn on the cob for supper.  While we were cooking, the electricity started to wane — lights and air conditioning stayed on, but TV went off.  The man next door came over to check— he had lost all his electric.  It came back on and off again, but then stayed on.  The man across from us was from Canada.  He and his wife drove his big truck that he pulls his trailer with, to Spokane to shop, and got into a pile up accident.  No one was hurt, but his truck had a lot of damage.  So they had to get the truck towed, and had to rent a car.  He plans to put the trailer into storage till the truck gets fixed, and will come back down to get it.  He and his sons did the Alaska trip last summer — said it rained a lot, but they very much enjoyed themselves.

Larry talked to Jan Abbot —  they will meet us at the road to their cabin tomorrow morning to guide us along.  The weather is supposed to cool off this weekend- Yay!  

We are downtown in Sandpoint this morning (Saturday) and brought our computer and jet back so we could "borrow" WiFi in the downtown streets.  We got to the Farmer's Market -- nice veggies, fruit, crafts, bread.  We are about to hit the shops.  Sadly, it is still smoky here from those WA fires -- hoping this will not be the case when we get to Glacier Nat'l Park tomorrow.

Thursday July 17, 2014 Lake Pond Orielle

We left Coeur D’alene a little after 8 am to drive the 40 some miles to the Abbotts cabin.  We got to Sagle, and called Jim.  He and his grandson Simon were going to dump trash and said they would meet us on the road, but we never saw them.  Larry had gotten directions from Jan, so we went down a lot of narrow roads to the gravel road Camp Bay Road.  Unfortunately, we made a wrong turn and ended up at the Lake-- but not by the Abbotts.  Larry disconnected the car so he could turn the RV around, and we backtracked to Elliot Road — I went on ahead, hoping I would see Jim or Jan, but after going on that road to the point of a dirt road, I turned around and drove back.  Just as I saw Larry coming in the RV down the road, I saw Jan running in front of him.  Larry found one spot on the road where he had a phone signal and called Jan, asking her “Where am I?”!!  She came running out on the road, having just seen me go by when I had chosen another wrong fork to take.  She got us directed to a meadow area just down from their cabin on a little bay where there was a 110 electrical outlet and a faucet.  Unfortunately, the faucet was not functioning (Jim called his neighbor who owned that faucet, and they had turned it off and were out of town) but at least we have electricity.  The Abbott’s cabin is small but nice.  They had bought the land for $2000 and it is now worth much much more-- like $500,000!!  The cabin had been on the lot next to theirs.  When the people on that lot wanted to build a fancy house, the Abbotts paid to move the cabin to their own lot.  They have been coming to stay in it the last 9-10 years.  It is built back a little from the lake and they chose to leave the big lovely pine trees in front of it.  They have their own dock, a speed boat, kayaks, canoe, jet ski (it is in the shop right now).  

They told us about the Bird Aviation and Invention museum a few miles away.  Dr. Forrest Bird was a pilot in WWII and was also an inventor— in fact he invented the Bird respirator — we were familiar with the Baby Bird respirator used for newborns.  A lot of the museum was dedicated to airplanes — he had quite a collection of planes, helicopters, plus some old cars— all in pristine condition.  The 2nd floor had cases of respirators, endotracheal tubes, an old iron lung, a negative pressure respirator for infants (like we used in Cleveland in training).  When we first came in, we saw an older man sitting in a chair — when we were on the other side of the museum, I heard someone call him Dr Bird!  But by the time we left, he was gone.  A volunteer took us in a golf cart down to the air strip (he himself came in a small plane to work today from Sandpoint).  He opened another building to show us more planes — there was a display about the Kodiak company that made bush planes — said that a lot of missionaries in 3rd world countries needed that sort of transportation, so this company provided a plane at a discounted price to missionaries out of every 10 planes they manufactured.  

We had hoped to go boating on the lake, but the wind kicked up.  There was also a lot of smoke obliterating the view from the fires in WA — it did not smell smoky but lots of haze.  Jim barbecued some ribs and chicken for supper.  We had bought bread and green beans at the Farmer’s market in Coeur d’Alene yesterday, so we pooled our resources.  Jan made a huckleberry pie for dessert— just delicious.  (I found out that the berries I was eating on our hike in Coeur D’alene were not huckleberries after all — hope they were not poisonous!!! ) After we ate, the lake calmed down, so we boat a little-- caught photo of an interesting sunset thru the smoky air.

Tomorrow we hope to hike — hope the smoke is dissipated.  It is not quite as hot as it has been, thank goodness.  It is very quiet now in our RV — can’t get satellite TV — too many trees.  

Friday July 18, 2018 Lake Pond Orielle

We met the Abbotts at their cabin at 8 am for huckleberry pancakes made by their grandson Simon — very delicious!  Somehow a text made it to Larry’s phone from our next door neighbor DeeAnn — there had been a terrible storm in Alamogordo last night — they lost a tree— we lost some metal covering on our patio ceiling plus an uprooted plant in the front yard — sounds like they woke up to a big mess.  Jan and Jim called their neighbor back home Kathy OQuinn to check on their solar panels, but the wind was not as bad at their house— all was ok.  DeeAnn said that a tornado had even been sighted south of town, and that the winds were 75-100 MPH!!

After we ate, Jim, the grandkids Bonnie and Simon, and we, left around 9 AM so he could take us hiking to Moose Lake.  Jan stayed behind to clean her refrigerator— she has had 2 sets of company in the past 2 weeks— the Harrises, then her sister with 2 grandchildren, so had all kinds of food in there.  We did not realize how far Jim was taking us— it was like 50 miles away, and half of it was on a gravel road.  We bounced up and down hills for about 2 to 2/12 hours each way.  The hike itself was a 4 mile hike thru a beautiful fir forest— it was buggy, but we had all sprayed before we hiked, so no one got bit.  The hike was a gradual ascent, and was pretty easy.  We had to cross one broken bridge (see photo) — Jim thought someone rode their horse over it and broke it.  Moose lake was very pretty, but there still is smoke in the air from the WA fires, so the hills were hazy.  A lot of times they have seen moose there, but not today.  Jim thinks the moose population is diminishing because of wolf packs in the area — he did not see any moose tracks or scat on the trail as he has in the past.  Jim knows the names of most of the trees and plants, so that was nice.  It was mostly in the shade, but it was probably in the 80’s up there.  The hike took less than 2 hours, so the travel time was a lot longer than the hike.  We stopped at a little Amish store about halfway back and picked up sandwiches around 2 pm— they were huge — Larry and I should have split one— must took 2 halves back to the RV.  We got back around 4 pm — it was tiring just to ride in the car on such a bumpy twisting road — I and the kids were drowsing off and on in the back seat.

At 5:15, we all got in Jim’s boat to cross the lake to the “floating restaurant” — this is the 2nd floating restaurant we have been to in the past week!  The water was calm and lovely, and we “parked” in a guest parking spot and got on the pier to the restaurant.  We dined outside —  they had huge movable umbrellas over the tables, so kept everyone well shaded.  The mountains around the lake were still hazy from smoke, but the water was like glass with no wind.  We enjoyed our dinners, then boated around the shores to see some of the fancy homes and resorts in the area.  There is an island for sale that has some old cabins on it— Jim remembers staying there when he was a kid.  It is for sale for about $12million!  -- no buyers yet.  When we got back, Simon put some pine needles in the fire pit as tinder and we sat by a fire on the beach, eating (of course!) huckleberry cake— very good.  We were sad that the huckleberries on our mountain trail were still very green — Jim and Jan will head back there in Aug-Sept to pick when they are nice and ripe.  

The weather seems a little cooler thank goodness.  We will go and check out Sandpoint tomorrow.

journal Saturday July 19 Lake Pond O'reille, ID

We spent Saturday in Sandpoint ID, about 40 minutes from the Abbotts.  We went to the Farmer's Market and got some blueberries, asparagus, goat cheese, and bread, then browsed thru I got some items (on sale for 70-80%off) at the Coldwater Creek store that is going out of business after operating there since the early 80's.  Jan recommended the Litehouse Factory that makes cheeses and salad dressings -- it is the type of dressing that has to stay refrigerated-- is not out on grocery shelves.  They had a special on huckleberry vinaigrette-- very good dressing!  Huckleberries are quite the big item up here.  There were a lot of people downtown and a lot of traffic, but the shops were cute boutiques (Larry thought they were quite "proud" of their wares). We ate at Mick Duff's and sat at a sidewalk table, people watching.  The weather was not quite as hot, so it was very pleasant.  

We drove back to the Abbotts around 2 pm -- Jim, his grandson Simon, and a friend of his were all working digging a basement -- by hand.  His friend is going to show him how to brace everything so the house doesn't fall in when they get the basement finished!  Larry snoozed, I taught Jan how to make my knitted pot scrubbers I make out of nylon netting.  She only crochets, but managed to make one with some netting I brought, and it turned out very nice.  The weather got cooler and breezier, plus still a lot of smoke from the WA fires, so we didn't get to go boating at all.  We pooled resources and had a nice salmon dinner -- with huckleberry ice cream for dessert!  I love huckleberries-- Jan gave me a bag of them to take home.  

Sunday July 20 Columbia Falls MT

We took off around 8 AM-- did not plan this well, since we were missing church again.  Jan said we could stop at the UMC in Sandpoint on our way, but I think we would have taken up the entire parking lost.  It looked less smoky today, but you could really smell the smoke in the air.  I stowed things inside the RV while Larry worked outside.  I drove ahead of him to watch for other vehicles on the narrow road till we could find a flat place to connect the car.  Larry did something he had not done before-- he started driving away without unplugging the electric cord!  I guess he could see it dragging when he started to turn. Luckily it just pulled out of the outlet and did not damage the outlet.  You would think we would have the mental checklist down better by now, but ...NOT!  The scenery was gorgeous coming out of ID into MT, but it started drizzling, and persisted -- just enough to make the RV and car mud streaked -- not enough to wash them at all.  We used the Mapquest to find the campground in Columbia River, and it took us to a street that was blocked.  There was another person with a trailer who pulled into the next street and went thru a parking lot, so Larry decided to follow them. They stopped ahead at the street and got out, looking puzzled.  Larry decided not to follow them, even tho the GPS said we were at the RV park.  So we pulled thru the parking lot back toward to the exit to the main street we were on, and Larry called the RV park-- they were actually located about 4 blocks further down the street.  The lady at the desk, Carla, said this has happened to many RVers coming to their park.  One big RV ended up going down a street that turned out to be a dead end and had to (very unhappily) back up for a whole block.  We decided that GPS works pretty good in big cities, but not in the boondocks -- this happened to us a few times on our last trip -- the GPS says "you have arrived at your destination" but nothing is there.  

Anyhow, it was raining a little harder-- we got parked, unhooked the car, had lunch (we are back in Mtn time zone, so lost an hour).  I got some info about Glacier Nat'l Park from Carla at the desk, but decided we would drive to the park visitor center just to pick up info to plan for tomorrow-- it is supposed to be a nice day.  Carla said they had been getting the smoke from the WA fire till it cleared yesterday, then it rained today.  We drove thru some little towns in the 14 miles to the park entrance -- Hungry Horse, Martin City, Coram, and West Glacier.  Lot of little cabin type motels, RV parks (more "rustic" than ours), rafting, helicopter rides, etc.  We found the visitor center and stopped, but it turned out to be a Canada visitor center, with brochures about Alberta, Edmonton, etc.  We drove another mile or 2 and found the actual park entrance.  Even tho it was pouring there were 3 lanes of cars lined up about 7 deep to get in!  I really thought this would not be a real "popular" park to visit, since it is so off the beaten path, but I guess July is high season.  I stood in line at the visitor center to get info on hiking, since they did not give that out with the park map and Park News like they usually do.  The ranger gave me info about the hikes -- this time of year, he said it was good to utilize the free shuttle to get to the trailheads, and we decided to do that, since parking is limited.  We picked up some more cherries on the way back to the RV-- they look good, but are not at all as good as our local cherries in NM.  But we have been buying them and eating them anyhow.

Right now, the rain has stopped and the sun is trying to shine, so hoping for a beautiful day of hiking tomorrow.

Journal Monday July 21, 2014 Glacier

We set the alarm for 5:30 so we could get to Glacier Nat'l Park on time for the 7 AM express shuttle to the trailhead.  It was a bit overcast.  The shuttle held only 14 people and it took over 90 minutes to get where we wanted to be on the 50 mile "Road to the Sun".  We went up pretty high and were in the clouds as patches of blue appeared in the sky.  AND there was no smoke from the WA fire, thank goodness!  AND it was cool -- in the 50's.  We went past the Weeping Wall, where there are multiple springs and waterfalls right next to the road.  It was actually very convenient to be on the shuttle, and not have to worry about parking.  At one point the driver stopped and we watched a black bear cross the road!!  The hiking recommendations included sunblock, insect repellant, plenty of water, and bear pepper spray!  The bear spray was on sale at the store for $45 a can.  They also recommended making noise to alert the bears to our presence so they would avoid us.  We got off at Sunrift Gorge --the trailhead was close to the drop off spot.  We hiked down 250 ft and only .3 miles to Baring Falls, a very pretty waterfall.  We saw little gray birds on a log called "dippers" -- they periodically poke their heads in the water to catch bugs.  As we hiked, we clicked our sticks on rocks on the trail to alert the bears(!).  We hiked past St. Mary's Lake which was absolutely beautiful.  The water was a lovely blue green color (the color is caused by the action of the glaciers, crumbling the rocks into a fine dust that colors the water) and as clear as could be-- you could see every rock.  St Mary's Falls was the next waterfall, and it was gorgeous-- you could see a rainbow where the sun shone thru the mist.  We hiked a little farther to Virginia's Falls-- also very pretty, cascading down the rocks.  We had a tangerine, then hiked back, running into a lot of hikers coming toward the falls -- the park was starting to fill up.  That hike was about 5 miles total.  We kept thinking how much the hiking group at home would LOVE this hike!

We hopped on the shuttle to go to the St Mary Visitor Center on the east side of the park.  They had more displays than the west side visitor center, and also had a 20 minute film about the forming of Glacier park -- started with the ancient glaciers, the Blackfeet Indian tribe, the coming of fur traders, the institution as a national park in 1910, and the formation of the Glacier-Waterton Int'l Peace Park in 1930. In 1995 it was named a World Heritage Site.  We wanted to have a picnic lunch around there, but there were not tables, so we just sat in some tall grass to eat our sandwiches.

We then hopped back on the shuttle to ride to Logan Pass on the Continental divide at 6646 feet.  I had spoken to a lady on the first shuttle who is a campground host here during the summer.  She is a single lady from Cincinnati who spends summers here and winters in Tuscon.  She was familiar with most of the hikes, so recommended the Hidden Lake hike -- just 1.5 mi each way.  This trailhead was right behind the large building at the Pass, and you could see lines of people ascending.  The first part of it was a built boardwalk -- quite steep with lots of steps.  Larry wanted to turn back, but there were people with little kids, babies in backpacks, older people than us, so we went on.  The problem with this trail, was as we got higher, there were large areas of slushy slippery snow to climb thru.  We had our doubts, but again, everyone else was trudging up the hill, so we bit the bullet and went on.  I was very glad we had our hiking sticks, since we did a lot of slipping and sliding.  Most others had no stick, some were in flip-flops or sandals-- or barefoot!!  I kept asking people coming down if it was worth it-- they all said yes, but said it was scarier higher up.  We finally got to the scary party which was steeper and snow covered, and then it got dry, but we had to go around this corner that had just rocks and gravel and was straight down if you fell!.  I was so scared, but we plodded on and made it around this horrible corner.  There was less snow above there and there were mountain goats!!  That made it all worth while.  They were not fearful of people and just roamed around, posing for photos!  The view from that high point was gorgeous -- I think Montana outshines Idaho in the beauty dept!  We continued hiking to the lookout where Hidden Lake could be seen at the bottom of the canyon.  It was just lovely.  We walked around awhile to take photos, then turned around to head down.  I really dreaded it especially that scary corner (I think I needed a Xanax about that point).  I was praying so hard that we would not get hurt!!! We saw some more goats along the way, the slipped and slid our way down.  The scary corner was not as bad since I could manipulate my stick better on the right hand side.  Even tho we were mostly walking in snow, it was in the 60's by then, and we felt quite warm.  We were VERY glad when we made it to the bottom.

We had to wait quite awhile for the shuttle because the park was so busy.  We finally made it back to the RV around 6:15 and we were POOPED!!

(I threw in one extra gorgeous picture of our grand daughter Marlowe!!)

My daily devotions are by email, and the 2 that I read before we left the RV this morning, really fit our day.  One just started with this prayer:

"Lord, I commit my works unto you, and ask you to establish my thoughts and direct my steps. Let my heart beat with your desires. Deliver me from all wrongdoing and fleshly desires. Keep me under your faithful, loving, and warm wings of love. I praise you, Father, Savior, Deliverer. In Jesus' name."

The other devotion is from the Upper Room-- I was SO glad I had my hiking stick with me today!!!!!

"God will give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well." 2 Thessalonians 1:7 (NIV)

A hiking stick is a hiker’s best friend. On hikes in the mountains over steep trails covered with rocks and roots, my hiking stick relieves knee pressure while I am going uphill, slows me down while descending, and keeps me from falling when my feet slip on roots and rocks. Once, when my hiking stick slid down a mountain, I didn’t hesitate to slide down after it to retrieve it.

Some believe God is a crutch to lean on when we can’t handle life’s pressures, but I readily admit I can’t handle life’s pressures alone. I can do all things with Christ (see Phil. 4:13), but I make a mess on my own.

I have learned to lean on God for rest, guidance, strength, and wisdom to take the next step and to know how to respond. It also reminds me that this world is not my home. One day I’ll live in an eternal heaven where God will relieve the pressures I face now, but until then I must lean. When pressures come, we can stretch upward and lean forward toward God.

Journal Tue July 22,2014 Columbus Falls MT

We got to the Park around 7:15 and just drove to the trailhead of Avalanche Lake.  We did the first part of the Trail of the Cedars which is a boardwalk/paved trail that is handicapped accessible.  The trailhead to Avalanche Lake was about .4 mi into that trail.  It was mostly uphill but only went up 500 ft total.  We walked thru a forest of cedar, hemlock, black cottonwood.  There were areas where trees had been cut -- I guess by the national park service -- and just left where they fell.  We only met 4-5 people on the trail.  The lake was lovely, and there were actually 4 waterfalls that we could see on the rugged cliffs behind it.  It was a little overcast today, so cooler.  We hiked back and just drove around the MacDonald Lodge area-- most of the lodges have a Swiss chalet theme.  We did not stop at any of the gift shops.  We went on to the Sprague campground since they had picnic tables there.  In the campground was a great big 40 ft Phaeton RV (like the Harris's have) with a sign - Campground Host.  While we were eating, a Natl park man came by just to chat-- he actually knew Alamogordo since he has a son in ABQ and another relative in NM.  We went to talk to the lady after we ate to ask her how they ever got that big RV between the trees!!!  She said that her husband just backed in with her guidance, all the way from the entrance to the campground, and got it in the first time!!!  She said they have been volunteering the past 4-5 years-- they share the summer with another couple, so they just got here this weekend, and will stay till the campground closes in september.  They have to be available 5 days a week, then someone fills in for 2 days.  She says they just relax, kayak, and hike.  I think it would be a fun volunteer job, but Larry doesn't think he could survive without TV or internet.  

After we ate, we tried to find the trailhead to another shorter hike, but never found it.  We stopped at the Visitor Center to get more accurate info, and we will go back tomorrow morning to do that. We stopped at Smiths for a few groceries and I told the clerk I used to have a Smiths shopping card from when we had a Smiths in Alamogordo a long time ago.  She looked surprised, and said her grandparents lived in Alamogordo in the 40's and 50's-- she had never been there tho.

Larry found a bridge club in Kalispell -- about 14 miles away, so we will hike tomorrow morning, and then shuffle/deal!  This afternoon, we just vegged out-- we were still pooped from our 12 hour day yesterday of serious hiking.  We stopped at the Chamber of Commerce to get tourist info, but decided that, even tho there is a lot of stuff to do in the area, we would just stick with hiking Glacier rather than shopping or restauranting. 

Journal Wednesday July 23, 2014 Columbia Falls ID

There was quite a storm last night-- we could hear thunder and rain during the night.  It was really chilly in the RV when we woke up.  I almost wanted to just stay in bed, but it is our last day, so we donned our hiking clothes and headed to Glacier around 8 AM.  We drove to the trailhead of Johns Lake -- there is only room for 4-5 cars, so not a real popular hike, I guess.  It was 3 miles total and only went up about 300 ft.  We had the beautiful forest to ourselves and the lake was only about .5 mi from the trailhead.  I had to go off path to find a pace to photograph the lake-- it is the only one that had lots of lily pads, tho no blossoms.  It was pretty muddy near the lake edge.  We kept on the trail, had to cross the road, then go over a foot bridge where we could see the Dancing Cascades, then MacDonald Falls from the other side from where we saw them yesterday.  It actually was a very pleasant scenic trail along the river and we really enjoyed it.  On the way back out of the park, we stopped at a lot of scenic pullouts on Lake MacDonald.  You could see the huge area on Howe's Ridge on the other side of the lake that burned in the fire of 2003-- there were several fires in the area at the same time.  Again, the water is amazingly clear.  The glacier water does not promote the growth of algae, so you can see all the multicolored rocks in the water.  One of the signs at the pull off discussed that between 1920 and 1970, a lot of non-native fish were introduced to the lake that really messed up the ecosystems.  This has been banned since 1970, but the number of native fish continues to dwindle each year.  We left the park just about 10 am which was Larry's goal, so we could clean up and go to Kalispell to play bridge this afternoon.

The bridge club there met in a church basement --  they were renting it for the summer, since their other building they used was not air conditioned.  They are actually going to build their own club building.  A rich guy who likes to play bridge, gave them a good deal on a lot, and they are raising money to pay for the building.  They were able to apply for non-profit status by allowing  the university to teach bridge classes there.  So for anyone who donates money, it is tax deductible.  They had 13 tables today, but often have more than that in the summer-- up to 20! (We have only 4-5 tables if we are lucky in Alamogordo)  Everyone was very nice and friendly.  Some pairs were locals, other were snowbirds, some were Canadians.  We had a 53% game which was pretty good --  we came in 1st in C flight, 2nd in B, and 4th overall, earning 1.06 points!!   Everyone invited us to come back next time when we are in the area(!).  The last pair we played with was a couple from Canada.  The man was at the table, and the lady had gone to the restroom.  It looked like an oxygen concentrator on the table, so I expected an old sick lady, but she was an attractive spritely woman, maybe our age.  But the gizmo on the table was actually a bright light.  She had some type of eye disease, and her husband would say the cards aloud, or we did, as we played.  She must have an awesome memory.  I was amazed that she could play so well. 

It was a fun day.  The weather report on TV is from Spokane -- sounds dismal there between fires and now terrible wind and thunderstorms.  We are heading tomorrow to Butte.

Thursday July 24, 2014 Butte MT

Yesterday, after we played bridge in Columbia Falls, they were having an “RV show” at our campground.  So we got to tour about 10 RV’s.  The biggest one was only about 36 ft and was ok — but cost like $400,000!!!!  The salesman said it was a very safe RV compared to most.  The majority of the RV’s were the real small ones that I think look so cute.  They have cute little stoves and cute little refrigerators, and cute little bathrooms — most were so small, that you would have to sit on the “pot” to take your shower!  I tried to get into one and I could do it, tho it was claustrophobic.  Larry could not even fit into the bathroom!!!

Another one had 2 reclining chairs in the front, but there was no bed.  Larry sat on one recliner to see if it turned into a bed, but it didn’t.  Then I looked up and it was a Murphy bed!!!  I had never seen that in an RV— not a bad idea actually.

When we got back to the RV, our neighbor was washing his RV— again.  Every day that we were there, he was out with soap and water and his wife would spray to rinse it— our RV park had plenty of water so they allowed that.  I told him last night, that all this washing was going to make it rain— and it indeed did rain a lot during the night.  When we got up this morning it was cool and gloomy — it made it easier for us to leave Glacier since it would not have been a good day to be outdoors.  We got on the road around 8:15 and drove thru the rain, thru very pretty country.  Larry picked a red line on the map that looked the straightest — it was a pretty good road— quite a few curves, but not so many ups and downs.  The weather cleared as we drove south, and it was sunny and windy in Butte.  Since it was early, I looked up some stuff on Trip Advisor and my Montana book on what to do in Butte.  It really is a pretty town in the summer with hills, mountains in the horizon, lots of old historic buildings and relics of the old mining days throughout town.

We drove downtown to the Historic Dumas Brothel museum(!).  It was the longest running brothel in the US —1890 to 1982.  We opted to take the guided tour with Colleen, the mother of the young man who bought the building a few years ago and has been restoring it.  She said it was built by  2 Frenchmen in the red light district in the mining days.  It had 3 floors with about 8 “cribs” on each floor — the little sitting room/ bedrooms where the ladies of the night would sit on a windowsill of the room, beckoning.  The basement was literally, the “bargain” basement— not as fancy, and cheaper.  The main floor was pricier, and the top floor was really done up fancy and cost the most.  The place has had paranormal investigators there— one of the Madams Elinore Knott still allegedly roams the halls.  A ghost of a little boy who died there also is pictured.  There was an old phone in the hall with names on it still— Cecelia, et al, plus one number was for “Security”.  There was a lot of payoffs to the crooked policemen of those days.  Colleen said there were even tunnels connecting the brothel with places of business downtown, but they have crumbled.  The last Madam Ruby Garrett sold the building to a guy named Rudy, stipulating that he would restore it to its glory days.  He tried to, renting out some of the rooms in the building as an antique mall, but it was not a financial success.  In 2012, Colleen’s son Michael and his friend Travis bought it with all its “stuff”, and have dug thru all the junk in the basement to restore several of the ‘cribs” on each floor, a nice bathroom and shower on the top floor, and furnishing the rooms with stuff they found.  Most of the original woodwork is still there, and they peeled down to some of the original wall paper.  

After that, we drove to The World of Mining Museum at the Montana Tech campus.  We did not get there on time to take a mine tour, so just walked the grounds.  Mining was the big industry in Butte, and they had a lot of equipment, mining buildings, a gunpowder shack a mining adit (entrance to an old mine that went in about 30 ft), mine cars, old photos etc.  They had a whole village (Hell Roarin’ Gulch) of old buildings that were brought to the grounds filled with artifacts— doctor’s office, dentist’s office, pharmacy, bank, post office, school, church, etc.  We peeked thru windows or could enter a few to look around — it was more interesting than I thought it was going to be.  We could climb 70 ft to the top of a “headframe” of the Orphan Girl Mine— you could see where they would hoist cages full of miners or ore.  Some other unexpected stuff we saw were a collection of dollhouses, a mineral collection, and a room that had a music machine that was a piano, but also had drums and other instruments built into it— it sounded like a calliope at a carnival.

The last Butte attraction we saw was the Berkely Pit — it was very hard to get to since most of the streets on the edge of downtown were blocked— apparently, there is an Evel Knievel festival going on — there was a bike race, and a guy riding a motorcycle on a tight rope between 2 cranes!!  We finally got to the Pit, and it was kind of the pits— we paid $2 each to go the viewing area.  The pit was an open pit copper mine dug in 1955.  It shut down in 1982.  The pumps that kept the well dry were shut down, and it started filling with water.  The water is very acidic and 2 million gallons flow in each day.  It is now like >1 mi in diameter and 5000 ft deep!  The acidity of the water and the sludge make it kind of an odd color.  Engineers are now trying to detoxify the water and pump some of it out.  It is rather an odd attraction.  You enter thru the gift shop, then walk thru a tunnel thru a hill to the viewing area — there were not many people there.

Larry found us a bridge game for tonight, so we will be playing from 7 pm to ???  Then hitting the road again in the morning.

Friday 7/25/14

Last night we played bridge in Butte.  We found a number to call on line.  They rent a room in an elementary school that is closed, so they get to leave all their stuff out when they're done-- don't have to store bidding boxes or put chairs/tables away.  They had 5 tables.  Most of them were older than us, as usual, but were pretty sharp.  There was a lady we played with the day before in Kalispell that was 97 years old!!!  She was the one who started their bridge club, and still plays very well! ( I have a new role model!).  Anyhow, this game did not start till after 7 pm, so we did not finish till about 10:15 -- I was zombified by that time!  One man that we played with was SO slow -- it was very distracting.  One of the other players says that he figures out what cards everyone else has, and plays accordingly -- it was pretty annoying to us!  We only had a 49% game, but instead of flighting the results, they assigned "handicaps" based on your ACBL points -- so Larry has a lot of course, but I don't so, we got 6 points added to our score and came in 1st in the handicapped group, winning .99 points!!  Larry tried to explain it to me, but I still don't really get how they do that.

We woke to a cool sunny day today.  We drove to Pocatello -- Larry has decided driving about 230-240 miles per day -- we're retired and don't have to put in those 12 hour travel days like we used to.  When we got to the KOA around 1:45, I picked up some brochures in the office to see what we could do while we're here.  I gave Larry choices between the history museum, the zoo, or the "Museum of Clean".  The latter sounded unique, so we decided on that one.  When we arrived, the lady at the desk said that the owner of the museum had just started a guided tour, and would we like to take that.  There was another family with a 6 yr old boy and a 3 yr old girl on the tour.  I said "sure".  Don Aslett is an almost 80 year old Mormon gentleman, who is the CEO of a large company called Varsity Contractors, a multi million dollar corporation with offices in 11 states.  So I guess he can afford his passion which is collecting cleaning items!  He has a huge collection of old vacuums -- some were operated by bellows in the old days.  He demonstrated several-- one was a rocking chair that filled a bellows when it rocked, and had a hose connected to it so another person could vacuum.  (My grandchildren -- especially Michael !-- would love this place.)  He let the children try out several of the vacuum contraptions and old carpet sweepers.  We then went into the area where he had a collection of toilets-- outhouse, prison toilets that had a sink connected to them, potty chairs, chamber pots, etc etc.  There was a collection of old washing machines, wringer washers, floor polishers, rug beaters-- it sounds kind of weird, but it really was interesting -- and he did enjoy talking.  He paid a lot of money for some of his artifacts.  He put on a puppet show for the kids which was really cute.  In the front lobby there was a huge Noah's ark with tables and chairs for projects, and a staircase going to the top where there were pairs of stuffed animals.  He also had a world shaped cage for kids to climb around in.  There was a chimney sweep area (played a video of Mary Poppins singing Chim chim cheree!), and the 2 little kids got to go into the chimney to "sweep".  He showed a video of when he was interviewed on the news when he opened his museum in 2011 -- I'm going to try to see if I can see it again on U-tube).  The building was big and airy and painted nicely -- he said it was a total mess when he bought it, and he did a lot of the fixing up by himself.  He gave me one of his books-- "Is there Life after Housework" and autographed it to me!  One board talked about his life-- how he cleaned houses while in college, then did his mission (in Hawaii!), then married and had 6 children.  There was also an art gallery with cleaning related topics -- paintings, figurines, knights made out of cleaning utensils.  I think we were there about 2 hours -- it was really fun! And it was certainly different!!!  I would highly recommend it to anyone who happens to be passing thru Pocatello.  We were very lucky that the owner Don just happened to be guiding a tour when we came in.

On the way home, I put the KOA on the Mapquest and was just playing games on my phone.  All of a sudden, it said to go 256 miles in I-15!!!

Here I had put the KOA in Butte on it instead of Pocatello, so Larry was faithfully following the directions, resulting in an extra 20 mile trip to the campground!!!  

Tomorrow, we head to UT..

journal Saturday July 27 Green River UT

This was not a good day.  We had planned to get an early start to start our drive to Green River UT, then Gunnison CO tomorrow.  As we were getting everything stowed and disconnected, Larry noticed a puddle of red liquid at the back of the RV.  It was hydraulic liquid that is needed in the RV to operate the jacks and the slides.  On a Saturday morning, we got a lot of answering machines at any RV service places in Pocatello.  Larry called Good Sam, and they gave him the name of Bish's RV center and he got a human there.  They said to come over, so I followed Larry in the car.  The people were so nice-- the service man said that he had 3 cases of this problem just this week-- a broken O-ring gasket -- as soon as the jacks are turned on, the pump just pumps the hydraulic fluid right out to the ground!  He said it would have to be ordered since they had none for our RV type, but that it was safe to drive.  He said when we stopped, we could just collect the hydraulic fluid in a bowl and "recycle" back in.  He topped off the hydraulic fluid in the container, and sent us off without even charging us!!  So very nice!  

We took the long way since Larry thought he could avoid mountain roads, but the long way was just as mountainous as the short way, but it took an extra hour!  It actually was quite pretty along the road (see photos from the RV on the road).  We arrived around 5:15.  Larry put my big white bowl under the hydraulic fluid container.  As soon as he turned the jacks on, the entire container spurted out!!! (see photo).  We recycled a fair amount and put it back in plus Larry had bought 4 bottles at a store in Pocatello before we left, and dumped those in too.  We can't use the jacks, but the slides work.  Larry got back on the phone -- there is a place in Grand Junction that might have been able to service us, but no one answered the phone on a Saturday night.  Even if we wait around till Monday, it is likely that they would have to order the part which would take a few days.

So...... Larry decided we would skip Gunnison (we would surely need our jacks there + it is out in the middle of the Rocky Mtns, far away from a big city) and just drive to ABQ tomorrow.  I am feeling very sad.  The RV park here is pretty ugly (see photo), tho apparently this is the watermelon capital of the USA (see photo).  The only thing that makes me less sad, is that my Weather Channel predicts rain in Gunnison most of the week.  But we were really looking forward to going.

Anyhow, we will drive the 400 some miles to ABQ tomorrow, staying at the Enchanted Trails again on the west side which is very close to the RV store where we bought our RV which has a service dept and is near Freightliner-- it is due for a big checkup.  We may have to "camp" at Brian's part of the time.  So we will just hang around ABQ till the big SuperHero birthday party for Josh (and Brian) on Saturday, and head home by Saturday night.

So thus ends my journal on this trip.  Over and out....