Camp Hosts at McCormick Park Sep 9-23

We decided to take a break from camp hosting and go camping! We went to a Thousand Trails campground in Bend, Or. We had to listen to their sales pitch, which we shouldn't have, because we are now Thousand Trail members. But, it will really add to the parks we can stay at and there is a really good program to help your kids get membership some day. Terry's sister and brother-in-law are also members so it will be easier to camp with them a little more.

As you can see, we really did go "camping" with our tent and all! It was pretty cozy. The temperature dipped down into the mid 30's at night. Needless to say, we stayed in our tent in the mornings until the sun came up and shined in our window. A good thing about it was that we didn't bring anything to cook with, so we ate food out of our cooler and from Wal Mart deli. I didn't have to do dishes or anything! It was lots of fun and relaxing.


We took our tandem bicycle, which had a flat tire at the time. We went into Wal Mart and bought a new tube and Terry fixed it. It was fun to ride around the park. The park had 300 sites, so it was pretty big and was right in the middle of the forest. There were some big gray squirrels with long bushy tails. We came back to camp one day and one was inside the screen house. I tried to get a picture before it found its way out, but he escaped before I got the camera ready.

Several years ago, I went with Terry when he was the bus driver for the basketball teams when they had a conference in Bend. We saw this tree that had a lot of shoes hanging on it.

We saw it again when we went to the Thousand Trails campground. We stopped and took a picture. I wish we would have had an old pair of shoes to add to the tree. There were a lot more shoes on it than there were when we saw it with the basketball team.

After we got back to McCormick, we found out that one of our friends in our Ward at home, Kitty Fluckiger Carroll, had passed away. She found out that she had cancer several months ago. We have known her and her family since we were kids. We went home to Emmett for the funeral. She left behind her husband, a daughter who is a senior in high school (who was one of my special Young Women when we lived at home), a son who is about fourteen, and a married son with two little boys. The funeral was a wonderful tribute to her life.

It was kind of fun being home again for a day. We didn't get to see Lorrie because she was at work, but she had everything looking spiffy! I did our laundry and then we went back to McCormick.

We decided we better get some more fishing done so we can have more in our freezer when we leave in two weeks. We didn't have much luck with any keepers, but I sure had fun catching this big catfish. It is probably the biggest fish I have ever caught. It was about 5 pounds and I caught it on a little light-weight pole with a crappie jig on it. Those catfish will bite on anything!

We brought it back to camp to get a picture. I tried to hold it without a rag around it, but I just couldn't do it. It was so slippery and ugly and whenever it moved around too much, I would drop it (with a loud sound effect) and so I finally used a rag to hold it. Later, we tried to give it away. Everyone said it was really too big to eat, so we took it down and put it back in the river.

Our very good friends, Don and Renae Walker, came and spent the weekend with us. The first night they were here, we had a wild group of people staying along the entrance road to the Park. They were drinking a lot, whopping and hollering, and shooting some guns, round after round. We ended up having to call 911 several times and get the Sheriff's Deputy to come and settle them down. They had put a large pontoon boat in the water (after dark) and the Deputy couldn't find them. They were still there the next day and still shooting guns and partying. We got the Deputy back and he threatened them that he would get the State Police here and carry them all off to jail if there were any more complaints against them or any more shooting. He would have made them leave right then, but they were all so intoxicated that they couldn't drive, so they spent another night. They were pretty quiet that night and they were gone when we got back from Church. We were sure glad.

We were worried about the weather being bad with Don and Renae here, but it held off raining long enough for us to go fishing. They had a bet going as to which of them would catch the biggest fish. It isn't hard to see who won!

We did really good fishing and came back with 79 crappie and 2 bass. After cleaning all of them, Terry and Don decided that next time we would throw the little ones back! We had a really fun weekend, fishing, playing games, visiting, and eating.

The Snake

I just learned how to put a video on the blog so I thought it would be fun to show you the video of the snake we met our first week as Camp Hosts!

Camp Hosts at McCormick Aug 26 - Sept 8

Our little lizard is still hanging around. We never know where he will be, but he has some favorite places to spend his time. As you can see, he kind of likes hanging out on our shoes. I am always leery about putting on my shoes each morning!

He has also made "friends" with our other "pets." Here he is visiting our mama turtle.

We had one of Hell's Canyon's famous wind storms the weekend before Labor Day and some of the electrical lines going up the hill on the Idaho side of Brownlee Dam whipped together. The sparks started a fire at about 6:00 pm. It was pretty exciting.

A crew of volunteer Idaho Power people and others got up there pretty fast and with the cooperation of the wind, they had it out by midnight. It burned at least 20 acres. The wind even kept the smoke from coming down into our camp. There were a couple of little boys who came up to me really scared to go to bed because they thought the fire would come down in the park while they slept. I assured them that there were good men up there fighting it and I was sure we would be safe!

We go on walks most mornings. I took the camera one morning and caught some of the local wildlife. There were lots of fish jumping, but I couldn't get a good picture of them.

This little cottontail rabbit let us get pretty close to him before he ran away. He is the first rabbit we have seen around here.

Of course, there are always the herons everywhere. The other day we were sitting at our picnic table and saw a pure white heron fly over us. It was really pretty.

Here is a lizard we saw by the dam. I think he is the same species that hangs around our Condo, but he was quite a bit fatter. They are a little different than the Arizona lizards.

There are a lot of osprey and also bald eagles on the river. Lots of times, we see them with fish in their claws.

We scared this osprey off of several roosting places as we walked along. He was probably glad to see us get off his hill!

Everyone has been telling us that September will be a really slow month, after the Labor Day weekend. Well, the park was empty for two hours the Monday before Labor Day.

We decided to take pictures of the empty park because we didn't know how long it would last.

Well, it lasted two hours and then people started coming. We were totally packed by the weekend, which we all pretty much expected.

They were a pretty good group, though, and we didn't have any big problems.

Even the spots behind us that are in the gravel were full! We lost a few people after Labor Day, but we have kept pretty full all week afterwards and were totally full the next weekend also.

The best thing about Labor Day weekend was that our son Ron and his wife and three kids came and stayed with us for a couple of days. It had been quite a while since we had had a grandma/grandpa fix! Here is Wesley and Ryley settled in with a movie one night while Grandpa made popcorn (that is a tradition when the grandkids stay with us.)

Little Chaz was entertained playing on the Mule. Grandpa had to hide the key, but the next day after they left, he found that the lights had been left on. Thank goodness it started when the maintenance man came and got on it!

Smokey the Bear came to visit us on Labor Day. Unfortunately, he came after a good part of the campers had left, but those still there enjoyed seeing him. He had gifts and hugs for everyone.

We are headed to Bend, Oregon, on Sunday, the 9th. We are going to camp out in a tent for three nights. We are staying in a Thousand Trails Park. If we listen to their sales pitch for their program, we will get a $50 Camping World gift certificate and 30 nights free camping in their parks during the next year. Terry's sister and brother-in-law have that program, so we thought it would be fun to camp with them sometime in the next year. Also, it will be a nice break from being camp hosts for a bit. I just hope I won't think I have to replace their toilet paper in the bathrooms if I see one empty!