St. Maries ID, Bike Trails 7/6/12 - 7/11/12

We started planning a trip to Northern Idaho to ride the Coeur d'Alene bike trails with our kids about a year ago.  As it turned out, the only ones able to go were us, Shay's family, and Jill's family.  So, we and Jill's family left Cascade and headed north to meet up with Shay and his family at Dutch's place in St. Maries, ID.

Dutch and Gail, our friends from St. Maries, were still down at their home in Ogden, UT.  But, they allowed us to park in their yard without them being there.  Dutch built the little cabin we parked next to back when I was just a kid.  I remember staying in it with my Great-grandmother and Grandfather Fisher when I was about 10 years old. The kids got tired of all of my old stories about growing up in St. Maries.  We even drove down the old Benewah Road where we lived and saw where our house was and an old swimming hole and other places I remembered.

I spent a lot of time at Rocky Point on the Benewah/Chatcolet Lake as a young girl.  We all went there and had a good time playing in the water.  Dan, Emily, Boe, Kamber, and Jill try to stay afloat on a log in the water, while Tyson looks on.

Kamber and Emily have fun playing on a log.

Sean and Marissa (behind the boat) opted to go fishing on the docks, where I fished many times with my family as a young girl.

We were all ready to head to Church in St. Maries.  The Branch there is where I got started going to Church.  I always think I am going to run into someone who remembers me as a little girl and going to Church all by myself, but it hasn't happened.

When we left Sunday afternoon to go to the campground at Harrison, ID, the kids asked to ride in our motorhome.  It has four seat belts on the table benches, so off we went.  None of them even got car sick!

Our campsite in Harrison was right on Coeur d'Alene Lake.  The kids fished a little right behind our rigs.

The next morning we were all ready to start our adventure of riding the bike trails.  The trail is all paved and is where the railroad tracks used to be.  It is about 72 miles long.  The first day we rode one way about 9 miles and then turned around and rode back, for a total of about 18 miles.  That was pretty good for our first day!  Susan, Terry, Sean, Boe, Dan, Shay, Jill, Tyson, Heidi, Marissa, Kamber, and Emily.

We brought our tandem along and so Tyson got a free ride the first day, except when Shay put his feet up and made Tyson pedal!

We stopped every few miles for everyone to catch up and make adjustments and such.

We made quite a group of 12 riding along the lake.  It was a beautiful ride.

There is a long trestle that goes over the lake, with a tall bridge that used to turn in the middle for the boats to go through.  It is now part of the bike trail and is pretty exciting to ride over. 

Here we are climbing to the top of the trestle.  It was even more fun riding back down the other side.  It was good to have the side railings along the edges to keep us on the trail!  It was pretty high when we got to the top.

On our way back home that day, we saw this family of turtles in the marsh.  The night before, Kamber, Emily, and I had gone for a ride and found a turtle on the trail.  We got to pick it up and hold it.  What fun to see this whole family!

After getting back from our bike ride, it was time to cool off with a swim.  The campground was right next to a marina and a swimming area with a dock in the middle and a diving board.  Diving into the water together are Boe, Kamber, Emily, Shay, Marissa, Jill, and Dan.  That evening, Dan, Shay, and Sean decided to ride the trail again and go far enough so that Sean could pass off part of his cycling merit badge by going 50 miles in one day.  By the time they got home that night it was dark and they were all pretty tired, but they did it!. 

The next morning, Shay and his family opted to sleep in a little and then met us later down the trail.  (I think the 50-miler the day before kind of did Shay and Sean in!)  So, that left the tandem free for Dan and Kamber to ride!  We all took off on a 20-mile ride the opposite direction from the day before.

After riding a ways, Jill and Boe traded bikes to give their bums a little change.  Boe was a pretty good sport about riding Jill's pretty pink bike!

On our way back, all of a sudden this moose came up from side and just started walking down the trail!  He walked a ways and then went back down into the river, swam across it, and went up the other side.  We had really been hoping to see a moose, and we did!  Shay, Heidi, and the kids had joined us by that time and we all go to see it.

The next day we went on a different trail, called the Hiawatha Trail.  It is about 15 miles long and all downhill, if you start at the top, which we did.  There are about ten tunnels and seven trestles on the trail.  The longest tunnel is 1.7 miles long and pitch dark!  We all had to have lights.  It looks like Terry is ready!

Here is Jill's family, just out of the tunnel, Dan, Boe, Jill, and Kamber.  It is kind of spooky in the longer tunnels.  At first it was hard to keep your balance because it is so dark and all you can see is the small area of light from your headlamp.  Thank goodness we had a couple of big lights that helped lighten it up a bit.  We also put glow sticks on the backs of everyones bike so we could tell when someone was ahead of us.  We all made it through the tunnels just fine, with no crashes!

We stopped for some family photos.  Here is Shay, Heidi, Emily, Marissa, Tyson, and Sean.

The waterfall was a nice backdrop for a photo of Terry and me.

The trestles were amazing to go over.  Some of them were so high we were glad they were wide and had good railings on them.  What a fun trip we had!

Cascade Lake, Cascade ID 7/3/12 - 7/5/12

We made plans to meet up with Jill and her family in Cascade and go camping over the 4th of July.  We had been in Emmett for two months, so it was time to hit the road again!

We got a great campsite and backed in so we could see the lake out our front windows.  It was a double site so the kids got right next to us.  We stayed for three nights and had a great time.

This picture doesn't do it justice, but the evening view over the lake from our front windows was great!

We had the pontoon boat and went out in it several times.  Kamber and Boe look a little chilly riding in it on this day!

Jill caught the "record fish" while we were there!  She was pretty proud of it.

We met up with Jill and Dan's old neighbors from Rexburg, Emillee and Jared, and their family.  We sat with them on this beach and watched the fireworks.  It was a really good show.

Boe is with his neighbors, Orion and Jackson.

Kamber and neighbor Wynne are floating in their raft.

Jill really enjoyed this part of the day!

Home to Emmett 5/1/2012 - 7/1/2012

We made it home in time for me to help with our local Primary Elections. It was great to work in the elections again and to see some of the home-town people. 







Last year just before we left Emmett, Terry let me buy a used quilting machine and frame. I didn't even have time to try it out before we left, so I was kind of anxious to get home and try it out. I make quillows for each of our grandkids when they turn 12, so I had two of them to do this summer. It was so much fun to quilt them on the machine. The first one, and also the second, were far from being perfect, but hopefully I will get better the more I use it.

We got together with the Howards at the City Park a couple of times while we were home.  Here is Terry with his brother Ronnie and wife Alice.

Here is a picture of  Terry's sister Lolita and hubby Bob, brother Verel, and cousin Teresa with hubby Shawn and daughter Madeline.

This is Brother Ron's family, son Matthew and Stephanie.  Their son Mason by Ron's grandson Brandon.  Also daughters Michele and Sherry.

Here is Lolita's daughter, Teresa, with daughters, Brinley, Madeline, and Isabelle.

Matt is going down the slide with his sons, Mason and Logan.

My sister, Lorrie joined us for lunch, even though she was on EMT call.  She ended up getting called out, but got back in time to eat.

Lorrie's swing that sits on the carport keeps getting blown over by the wind and so the top got all ripped apart.  We picked out some fabric and I made a new top for it.  It actually turned out pretty good.

Lorrie has two cats that live with her.  They are always bringing their little "gifts" up to the front and back step.  Sometimes they will bring a mouse or a snake--sometimes alive and sometimes dead and half-eaten.  Terry found one of their "gifts."

Our big project for the summer was to pave our driveway.  We had been thinking about doing it for the past several years.  It turned out pretty nice. We will have it sealed in September and it will look a lot smoother and won't scuff up like it does now.

We paved it clear back to our shed.  They scooped up all of the washed gravel we had on it and piled it back in the shed.  We shared most of it with our neighbors.  Hopefully, this will make it so there will be a few less weeds for Lorrie to keep up with!

Sarah's, Shay's, Hot Springs, Garland UT 4/22/2012 - 5/8/2012

We had fun parking in Sarah & Ryan's driveway for a few days--we fit a little better with our Journey than we did with the Condo!

We got there just in time for Lindee's 4th birthday. She loves the story of "Tangles" so Sarah made her a "Tangles" cake and I got to help decorate it!   It turned out to be a masterpiece, with Sarah and Jenna's help.

Ryan & Sarah with their kids, Jenna, JT (now sometimes wanting to be called John), birthday girl Lindee, and Luke.  What fun to get to share a granddaughter's birthday!

While we were in the Salt Lake area, we took time to go car shopping.  We ended up with a little Dodge Neon.  It is strange to have a car again.  But, I must say, the Scentsy sign looks rather good on it.  At least no one will laugh at us any more for carrying just bicycles on our car dolly!

This is where I turn over the Journey to Terry and I drive the Hippo towards home.  I told him to remember that he could not put the Journey on cruise and go back and make himself a sandwich or anything!

Since Sarah's other kids were in school, we grabbed Lindee and took her with us.  This is the first time she has spent the night anywhere without Mom and Dad or any brothers or sister.  She did great.  She got a little sad the next morning so we let her call Mom.  We didn't know until later that Sarah was at the school helping out in one of the kids classrooms, and Lindee just left a voicemail!  We thought she acted a little funny as she was talking, and she finally just hung up! 

Here is a "bathing beauty" getting dried off after swimming in the hot springs pool.  She is a little fish in the water!  We had lots of fun with her.

Sarah and the rest of the family came that evening and stayed with us until the next morning when we headed to Idaho Falls to Shay's for Tyson's baptism.  We broke in the Journey pretty well and found out there is plenty of sleeping room for eight!

We are so proud of Tyson for making the decision to be baptized into the Chuch, and of Shay for being worthy to baptize him.  He is the last one in Shay's family to be baptised.  Boy, the kids sure grew up fast!

Tyson's cousins, JT and Luke, are happy and proud of Tyson, too.

We got a chance to stop at Malad City, ID, before we headed back to Emmett, and visited with my Uncle Dan and his wife Joyce.  They have such a nice place, out a ways from town.  They have lots of deer and animals come right into their yard.  Uncle Dan is my Dad's older brother.  He and one other, Uncle Bill, are the only sibblings of my Dad's left.  It was so good to visit with him and catch up on their news.

Well, I guess our season is about over and we are headed back to Emmett for a couple of months. 

Wahweap, Lake Powell, Page UT 4/12/2012 - 4/16/2012

We hadn't gone to Lake Powell for several years, so we decided we would go this year.  We get to stay here through our Camperworld membership in Utah.  It is always amazing to us because they give us a receipt for payment when we arrive.  This year it was over $300 to stay one week--all paid for by Camperworld, in which we have a lifetime paid dues membership.  This is just one of the reasons we can afford to be full-time RVers!

  

They have nice clean sites and the trees are getting a little bigger each time we go there.  When we came into the park through the Ranger Station we were pulling our car dolly with just our bikes on it.  The Ranger said, "Looks like you lost your car."  Terry pointed out that we had our bikes back there.  The Ranger just shook his head and said, "Well, I guess I can tell you to just go 'park and ride!'"  He seemed to think it was pretty funny.

 This is the view out our window above our sofa.  It was great!

We rode our bikes to the big marina where people rent spots to moor their boats.  Some of them moor them out in the middle of the lake and then they bring their dingeys or jet skis to ride out to them.  I think it costs a lot less to do that.

We talked to some people who had their boat moored at the marina and they said that lots of times they come and spend some time there and don't even take their boat out, especially with fuel being so expensive.  It is just kind of like being in an RV park (but a little closer together).  They have water, sewer, and power hook-ups.  They have guests come and they just get out the barbeque and let the grandkids play in the water around the boat!

A lot of these cannot be called "boats."  They are big houseboats and small yachts!  It would have been fun to see inside some of them.

 Terry and I picked out our favorites.  This was one of mine--one of several!

 Terry's favorite was this "yacht.! 

 It was beautiful and sleek and had three levels on it.  He would look pretty good being the skipper!

 It was interesting to see how most everyone coiled the ends of the ropes along the dock.  It made everythink look nice and neat.  I don't know if they did it because of how it looked, or to keep people from tripping over all of the rope ends--maybe both.

Well, when we left Lake Powell, Terry finally got brave enough to let me drive the Journey.  I drove for about two hours.  We kind of went the back way when we left so I got some good experience driving on some pretty narrow and winding roads.  Needless to say, I am sure Terry was happy to take over the driving so he could relax the rest of the trip.  I do enjoy the passenger side better, but at least I will feel a little more confident when I have to drive.  We are now headed to Sarah's home in Grantsville, UT.