Boise and Beyond

Sorry, it seems like it has been a while. We were busy in Boise and then we have had pretty spotty wifi connections.

SATURDAY MORNING

We got all packed up and said goodbye to our hosts then drove to town minus the trailer to get some free wifi, coffee and send our Century link router back via UPS. After an amazing coffee at Sisters Coffee House, we got the trailer and headed out of town. Bob at this point was still banished to the trailer but this time we made sure he stayed in the bathroom.

We got a phone call into my parents who were soooo glad to hear are voices and happy to hear we were ok like they haven’t heard from us in years. What is funny is that when we have left for longer regular vacations in the past they were happy to talk but could care less about the fact that we had been gone for 5 days.

Shortly after we spoke to them, we had been on the road for about an hour and it was time to check on Bob. Jen took Trouble back there and checked on Bob. Guess what??? Bob pooped on the bathroom floor….oh man! Maybe I should have a poll of how long Bob lasts? Poor Bob!

Our first plan was to stop at Chickahominy Reservoir and boondock there but it didn’t fit Jen’s criteria -

1. Too many other campers there to take a picture without them being in it and

2. It costs money to stay there but otherwise it did seems like a nice place to stay for $8/night but no hook ups.

We decided to move on and try our next stop that I had scoped out on the couple different apps I was using. (Imagine trying to do this without the internet and Satellite imaging….). We arrived in Juntura (population maybe 50, but not sure) and our first 2 spots were a bust due to

1. 6 miles of gravel road that we didn’t want to drive down.

2. A road that didn’t look like it could take our size and didn’t have a possible turn-around area.

We also found we lost cell coverage if we drove out of town so we stopped at the Oasis diner in town for dinner and internet scouting. I used Maps to find a couple options 8, 23, and 25 miles out of town. We had to find a couple options there because the waitress said there is NO cell reception until you get to Ontario, OR which is 50+ miles away. Fortunately, we found a spot at the 23 mile mark and we backed the trailer down this old side road next to the river. (Hmm., trailer down by the river again) I think Jen wrote about our stay in her blog so I will skip to the next day.

SUNDAY

We woke to an awesome clear, blue sky along the Malhuer River with no one in sight including most of the bugs from last night.

It didn’t take too long to get to Eagle, ID where we are staying the next 3 days with one of my best friend, Eric and his family. Shortly after we arrived, Jen took over the laptop and started working on her first blog post since being on the road and Lila caught up with Lexi, their daughter, in no time and went over to the neighbors to swim. Jack, their oldest son, showed us his collection of Lego accomplishments which were pretty darn impressive - Apollo 11 with all the different stages, a Porsche with working pistons, and an older Mustang. He also showed us his skills at Magic tricks using a deck of cards. Later, Eric and I caught up at a few of the newer breweries in town.

That night we all got back together for dinner at their house and they made some amazing tacos.

Side Note -

Lila told me a couple days before we started this adventure that she was excited to go and and eat like when Uncle Eric is in town. Huh??? I asked her what that meant and she said that Uncle Eric always makes different types of food every time he comes over. Lets just say Eric and Stephanie love to make dinners at home and they are way more involved then our typical dinners especially since over the last 3 years I hadn’t usually made it home before 9-10pm during the week so it was just Jen and Lila. So there were many nights of either left overs from Sunday/Monday or whatever was in the fridge.

After dinner, Eric, Jen and I were talking about Zion which is where we will be in a couple weeks and we looked at the weather report and it said 105° average for the high. What?! Luckily, I didn’t want to try boon docking in the desert so I booked all full hook-up campsites through August and September so no cooked cats on my watch. You know I would never hear the end of it if the cats died on my watch.

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY

Silly me, I told Eric’s wife Stephanie I would wake up at 4:45am and go try a spin class with her. What was I thinking!! Not only was that really early since that is really 3:45am PST but it was Power Hour class…ugh!! Instead of 45min it is a full hour of cycling, dang I was sore! Let’s just say that is the end of my cycling class career forever.

The rest of the week we got in some more breweries, coffee shop, amazing pizza place, and we floated the Boise River. We took Jen to my favorite brewery in Boise called Barbarian Brewing. They specialize in making unique flavors with lots of barrel-aged and sour options which Jen likes.

Eric belongs to a group called EO which is for business entrepreneurs and he had a training event that he invited us to and the scope of the seminar will probably help us out for this next year - Managing Stress in a rapidly changing world. ;)

Queen of the boat

Temperatures got into the high 90°’s here and we didn’t have air conditioning in the trailer so the boys (Trouble and Bob) almost died on Jen and Lila’s watch. Luckily, I asked Eric and Steph if they would mind if the cats came inside and they said it would be ok so they hung out all weekend in the basement bathroom.

They made themselves at home

And we’re off again…

We left Boise Wednesday morning and headed towards Well,NV where we will stay 1 night before continuing on to Great Basin National Park. New plan for Bob (aka Stinky) - We got a dog carrier from Stephanie and it is plastic with a locked cage for the door plus it has a recessed bottom with no holes in case he has more problems. We made it 1 hour again and guess what….yep, he pooped again! Fortunately, Jen and Lila cleaned it up well and we got back on the road and when we stopped in Twin Falls we picked up some Calming treats to help him out. We made it the rest of the way without an incident.

Another “Great, what is that going to cost me” event happened when we pulled into a gas station and some guy comes up and says “I heard a really bad metal on metal sound and I don’t know if if was coming from you but it seemed like it stopped when you came in”. Holy cow, what now! Fortunately, we checked everything out and Jen watched and listened as I drove around the parking lot and we didn’t hear or see anything. Whew!!

We stayed at a place called Welcome Station RV about 4 miles West of Wells, NV and it was a very nice park. It had all green grass covered spots with tree cover over most of it. They also had a scavenger hunt for the kids. We probably could have stayed there a couple more days but we had to get going to stick with our timeline.

Next stop, Ely, NV (pronounced ee-lee)

When we looked at Great Basin during the planning process the highest temps were in August and they supposedly only reach 65° so that is why we took this route originally to make sure we weren’t there in the snow. Since we didn’t have a campsite and we were going to boondock (no AC) we decided to check out the weather forecast and wowzers!!! It is supposed to be highs of 95 and lows of 60° so in the cats (and my) best interest we are staying at a KOA. I remember when I was a kid and every time we took the motorhome out us kids would beg to stay at a KOA because they had a pool and fun stuff. Our KOA this time….no pool! Poor Lila!

Oh and we made it the the KOA and Bob had his first trip incident free!!