More of being off the grid

August 18, 2015

Brrrr....  I wonder if my maternal human will let me under the covers.  I am cold!!!!  She did!  Ooooh, nice and warm.  I must purr.

We had talked to the camp hosts last night and they said it would get cold around 3am.  I told Spouse we should put an extra blanket on the bed, but he pooh poohed the idea... until around 4am.  Then he put another blanket on the bed!  When we finally got up, it was 47 degrees inside.  YIKES!  My poor orchids!  I have 2 with me, and they do not like the cold. What a poor mother I am being to them!  I had closed the window by them, but I know they could not be happy.  I drag them along for some company and then I torture them!  Sheesh!  We closed all the windows and vents and turned on the heat.  It took us a while before we could get out of bed.

We took a morning walk up to the abandoned campgrounds just above us.  It was a bit of a climb, but the view was quite nice.  Spouse spotted some deer with his new binoculars from Scheels.  It was crispy outside, but the sun was getting higher and you could feel the warmth.  It wasn't much of a hike, but it was enjoyable.  And after last year when Spouse could hardly walk, it was nice to enjoy it together.   He walks faster when it is cold so I don't leave him in the dust!

It didn't take much to ready Hannah for her day, and we were off.

We continued north on hwy 225.  The Nevada brown was in the background, but there were cattle farms and the Owyhee creek ran along the road and through the cattle grounds.  Eventually, the cattle farms disappeared, and there was nothing but high desert on the horizon.  For a million miles... desert scrub...  The only highlight was an occasional turn in the road which brought a different view.  If that wasn't bad enough, we started smelling smoke.  For the rest of our day, we were in the smoke fallout from a horrendous wildfire.  So not only are our eyes offended by the boredom, but now our noses get in on the fun.

We finally hop on to I84 towards Boise.  The smoke continues.  We stop to eat, and shop for groceries (why do we always need something?), then Spouse wants to go to Camping World on the other side of Boise.  The entire freeway system here is under construction.  The lanes are small (good thing Spouse is driving), there are cones all over the place making turns very confusing.  Spouse is looking for another shear pin, and Camping World doesn't have it.  But they do have an updated catalog, so we got that and fled back to hwy 21, heading north.

Based on the map, it is a scenic drive...  ok, it is not ugly.  It starts out with brown grassy hills overlooking a reservoir.  There are people water skiing.  But it is brown.  And it stays brown...  Wait, the map shows it as green, that must mean trees!  What's going on?  A creek is by the side of the road.  I know there must be trees, and sure enough, after 20 miles or so, the fir trees came into view.    It is pretty, but I would hardly classify this as scenic, yet.  The smoke is not helping.  What will tomorrow hold...

We lost an hour when we crossed over the Idaho state line.  So now it is getting late (about 5pm), and we pull into a campgroun,  Grayback Gulch.   Once again, no services, but the woodsy feeling is nice. And there is hardly anybody here.  I love the sounds of the wind blowing through the trees.  But it is still pretty smoky.  This has been going on for well over 100 miles...