Catching up
We have moved a good distance since my last post back in Idaho, so allow me to catch up some…
We left Stanley, Idaho with the plan of a single night’s stay in an established campground not far down the road at yet another hot spring. We thought we would leave the Sawtooth Mountains bathing in a final hot spring followed by a good night’s sleep. We should not have; the spring was crowded, too hot and too cold at the same time, and the campground was full of ‘trash’… and garbage. The trash – being the people – left garbage everywhere. Not just in individual camp sites, but also in the spring’s pools. A diaper… a used fuckin’ diaper left in a natural hot spring?!?! It was not the only thing of course, but I doubt any of you want a full run-down of the garbage that the trash left behind.
As for the spring itself, it was picturesque, but not much more. The water falling down the rocks was blistering hot, but by the time it dropped into any of the pools it was luke-warm at best. You had to be both in the falling water and the pool, moving constantly to try to find a comfortable temperature to sit in. And since we had to sit under a water-fall of scolding water, it was too loud to talk either. No relaxation occurred in this hot spring… we moved on the next morning.
Another 90 minutes down the road and we were in the greater Boise area. I’ve never been to Boise, not even a drive-through. So, we drive through, stopping only to use the bathroom. It had been a while, but I recognized the feeling – the tight chest, the extra weight, the stress, the depression – of suburbia-life. It came back to me so quickly. Seriously, cookie-cutter houses and strip malls only make me want to run away as fast as possible, so we did.
Out the West side of Boise is all farm land, and it was here that Kerri arranged our first ever stay [together] at a Harvest Host winery. Huston Vineyards was our home for the night. Here we kicked, screamed, and pouted our way through a wine-tasting, picked up a few fresh bottles of happy-night-juice, and called it a night.
Kerri did leave my alone in the trailer (an odd feeling, still) while she went off to do a little grocery shopping. Our plan for the rest of the work week would keep us far from anything but gas stations and corner stores and her taste for organic foods is strong. She shopped while I … well, I don’t recall what the heck I did while she was gone. I probably did what the dogs do; hibernate until she returned. Returned she did, with food to last us the week.
The following morning we were off early again. We had a fair drive ahead of us, to the town of John Day, Oregon, where we planned to stay at the local fairground’s RV park. But the park was not to our liking so we drove another 7 miles to Clyde Holliday State Recreation Site where the ambiance and views where much more to our liking. While most people would not describe camping as “luxurious”, when we have power and water hookups we are living it up! A well maintained campground with a nice little riverside trail right out our door for daily dog-walks. An easy 1 mile hop into the nearly non-existent town of Mt Vernon where a laundromat-slash-bar (yep, they were a combo business) made my weekly chores easy too. And at the end of our week stay, was one of the nicest dump stations I’ve ever met to take away the nastier parts of RV life. Ahhhh…
Well, that was enough catching up for the day, I will catch up some more soon.
Yep I use that dump site every ten to fourteen days during the summer. If you happened to be watching at the right time you would have seen a geezer in an old brown Chevy based Coachman van conversion doing the dump thing. Holiday Park is thee best in the area.
:)