Casual Exploring

August 22, 2015

My paternal human took me outside and I found a mousie!  I was about to make my pounce and my leash caught on a wildflower!  Darn!  My human then took me off the leash, but I could not find the mousie again.  Oh well.  I came inside, cleaned my paws and went to sleep.

I admit.  I am blond...  I thought our golf tournament started a week from tomorrow.  It starts TWO weeks from tomorrow!  We have an extra week of exploring! 

Today is a day of recovery and regeneration.  Spouse is doing ok after yesterday's hike, as am I.  No need to hurry for a walk as it is in the 30's until the sun kicks in.  So we enjoyed our coffee and a nice breakfast.   It was nice till Spouse discovered that he did something wrong with the toilet holding tank.  I am not sure what, and I didn't want to know the details...  I only wanted to know that it was fixed (and it was!).

Since we think we are going off the grid, it is time to clean Hannah.  Laundry is complimentary so of course we take advantage of that.  I then head out for my walk.

I go along the road on a horse trail.  Mountains and meadows on the right, a few cabins on the left.  I turn up a dirt trail that took me to a private ranch.  Then I headed to a road for Stanley Creek.  It is gorgeous here.  I head back. 

The wildlife here is phenomenal.  As we drove up to the hiking trail yesterday, deer scattered to the left, then to the right.  We saw a grouse on the trail (like that happens in Thousand Oaks!).  Our neighbors told us the wolves were creating quite a problem with pets and livestock till they finally allowed folks to shoot them.  Eagles can also be problematic.  Needless to say, we keep an eye on Rudy when he is outside.

With laundry done, and Hannah clean, we headed out to do some exploring.  But first, Spouse must put diesel exhaust fluid in the truck.  Our sensor said we were low.  I watch how he prepares the bottle to pour.  But wait... that was only a few seconds.  No way he poured 2 gallons of fluid out in that short of time...  Oops, knowing that we would be going a few thousand miles, he brought a near empty bottle of the diesel fluid?  Really?  We went into town and got the LAST bottle of the stuff and put it in.   We should be good for the rest of the trip.

 I think that the majority of the roads in Idaho are not paved.  The cool thing is that you can pull out onto any of these dirt roads that are not private (and a whole lot of them are not private) and set up camp.  We follow this road to the creek... we see a trailer or two.  We follow that road to a meadow, another trailer.  No rules or regulations (I know that might sound foreign to those Californians reading this!).  There are campgrounds all over should that be the need.   RV parks are more basic (which for me is much nicer).  The weekend is busy.  We saw lots of people coming up to Sawtooth yesterday when we were coming out.  Campgrounds are full.  We know to be in place before the weekend starts, at least until after labor day.  We see many off road vehicles.  This is a haven for them.  It would be sinful to live near here and not own one.  There are just too many dirt roads to explore.  Our biggest concern, since we don't know each road, should we explore it with Hannah?  We have found that some of them would be problematic.  Oh what the future holds...

One road took us to a beautiful creek in a meadow.  One took us into cattle country.  We took the paved road to Stanley Lake.  Funny, yesterday while hiking to Sawtooth, we saw a sign for Stanley Lake saying it was 8 miles from there.  We drove right up to it, walked 100 feet, then went down about 20 stairs.  Much easier this way.  It is a scenic lake surrounded by fir trees and rugged mountains, McGown peak shooting up behind it.  That is the same peak as seen from Sawtooth Lake.  Quite a few campgrounds with some sites right on the lake.  Nice.

We checked out a few more roads, then came back to Hannah.  Rudy had been interested in mouse hunting.  We knew he would be focused so we let him off the leash.  Sure enough, he got a mouse.  He pounced, the mouse poked at him.  Rudy got a bit bored.  He saw a chipmunk and was going to shift gears but I held on to him so he couldn't sprint off.  We put Rudy back in Hannah, and set the mouse free.  What fun!

We decided to go to the RV's restaurant for dinner.  Spouse was wanting some of the slow roasted prime rib.  It is a homey place with a friendly staff.  GOOD FOOD TOO!  The couple next to us was from Hailey, Idaho.  And Spouse couldn't help asking about Bruce Willis and Demi Moore (kill me now!).  Why is he fixated on that?  The couple on the other side of us live in Eagle, Idaho, near Boise.  But they moved up here a year ago from Ventura! Chat chat chat chat chat!

Tomorrow, we head up towards the town of Salmon.  We think we may be off the grid a couple of days, but we will come back on!  I didn't think I would like this RV park that we are in, but it really grew on me.  It is folksy, homey, and... rustic.

Oh yeah... it is smokier today than yesterday.  Apparently, a fire in Montana is joining in on the fun...  And Spouse, your cigar stinks!