Mini Vacation; Salmon, Idaho

The calendar might not officially recognize this moment as summer, but in my mind it is and I've already begun having lots of summer fun. The season means its time for vacations, camping, exploring, and occassionally getting too hot and subsequently cooling down in frigid water shared by wildland creature of all sorts. This weekend I experienced these things and more.

Camping can be done a lot of different ways. Some camp outdoors with a tent, trailing dirt and mosquitos behind them with every step they take. Others camp in a camper; frying bacon, having sex, and relieving themselves inside the same 100 sqare foot box. And then there are people like Jennifer and I, who choose as their base camp a cabin equiped with amenities like a full sized bed, a shower, ceiling fan, and space heater. These folks might even consider it "camping" if a kindly older woman serves them breakfast in the morning- a breakfast of eggs, sausage and flapjacks smothered in homemade syrup. Fern and I happen to agree that experiencing the outdoors is amazing and that being able to leave our wilderness friends behind when one craves a shower or a mocha is amazinger.

So, on Thursday morning, Fern and I left Boise (Flying M mochas safely stowed in the Toyota Corrola's cup holder) and drove towards the popular mini-vacation destination, Salmon, Idaho. The first half of the trip was far more pleasant than I expected. I credit good music, good company, and my own good attitude for making molehills out of the mountains we had to drive over between Boise and Stanley.

Just a thought: The best parts of any vacation, I've learned, is the expectation and setting-out parts. They are so exciting and fun. It comes as no surprise that the no-so-fun part of any vacation is the going back home part. Going back home lacks the excitement that setting out does. Setting out involves a positive impatience laced with mystery. Wanting to get home after a vacation is wanting to return to the comfort of home. Its wanting to end the stressful and monotonous travel. Its less of a positive impatience, thanks to a lack of mystery, among other things.

Well, as we approached Stanley, halfway through the setting out part, we turned off the highway and followed directions to a trailhead a few miles up a dirt road. There we geared up and set off on a fun n' mellow 20 mile mountain bike ride. The ride included just a bit of climbing, but mostly it was rolling terrain over small rocks (what some mountain bikers morbidly call "baby heads"), through the trees, along side beautiful meadows, and across streams.

Fern succeeded in posting a blog on this particular Salmon trip before I did, and after reading it, I feel that she gave a rather full and acurate treatment of our mountain bike ride near Stanley. I'll add that while I felt silly singing "No bear, don't want no bear, ain't no bear round heerreee!" or "I couldn't bare a bare bear drinking beer and baring his teeth" and stuff of that nature, I felt it necessary and proper considering I very much don't want to ever find myself in a situation where a bear is chomping on my gourd or-god forbid-the gourd of someone with me. I've got a great imagination, which is part of the problem. I've imagined fighting off cougars and dogs but I've never been able to imagine successfully pinning a bear. So, yeah, this was on my mind during both rides over the weekend.

After the ride on Thursday, we had lunch in Stanley at the Lodge. Fern had a chili-cheese burger, I had a customized mushroom cheese burger. FYI. The drive from Stanley to Challis was kinda cool. The road was windy, the Salmon river turbulent, and surrounding mountains very interesting. They were green, red, grey...and of extreme shapes and sizes. According to the map, it was a mineral rich area spotted with gold, silver, and lead mines.

The valley Challis sits in is a very special place as well. A bit of an agricultural oasis sitting between major mountain ranges, that valley. Driving north involved squeezing through some extremely shere, rugged rock cliffs. It didn't take much more driving to get to the Greyhouse Inn Bed and Breakfast, which is situated 11 miles south of Salmon. I thought I had weathered the drive quite well-my mood was still intact-but that quickly changed when the owner of the inn informed us that she was going to place us in a cabin for both nights. When Fern and I had made our reservations the night before we had chosen a cute room in the old house for the first night and a cabin room for the second night. The reason the owner gave us for making the change without consulting us or acting as though she cared in the slightest about what we preferred was that she didn't want to have to make the beds in the room.

At moments like the one I found myself in on Thursday night, I often think of my older sister who is the most assertive member of the family, who does not hesitate to demand satisfaction or fairness whenever she finds them lacking. The example she has been to me has given me the courage to speak up when I find something (like a meal) not up to my expectations/standards. In this case, however, I was OK with moving to the Cabin because I could not think of any good reason why I shouldn't be OK with it. The lack of a good reason did not prevent me from being pretty dissapointed-I really thought it would be awesome to stay in a room in that cool, 100+ year-old house.

So, I was a bit sulky Thursday night. And the drive had taken its toll. All Fern and I wanted to do was relax and snack and drink beers on the porch, yet beers were in Salmon, a full 11 miles away. After much himming and hawing, we realized we would die if we didn't have some cold beers to drink on such a warm evening. So we just did it-we drove really really fast to Salmon and stocked up on comfort food n' drink. Before heading back we cruised a bit and checked out the town. We saw many exciting places that we wanted to visit the next day.

Sleep was not so good Thursday night/Friday morning. More accurately, it was virtually non-existent for me. There was this noise coming from the ceiling fan that was just random and loud enough to drive me crazy. Also, the room was a bit on the warm side, even with the ceiling fan. Now do you see why Fern and I have sworn off sleeping in tents? We have a hard time sleeping anywhere besides our own carefully arranged nests at home.

On Friday morning we arose and made our way to the house for breakfast. We shared a table with other guests and enjoyed a homemade breakfast of eggs, sausages, pancakes, orange juice, and excellent coffee. While eating breakfast we discussed and planned our big events for the day: a trip to town and a big bike ride in the mountains.

First we went to town in search of mochas as is our custom. We wandered the town, admiring some of the old brick homes (my favorite comment at times like those is "my mom would love to live here!" and usually, I would too). We relished doing the tourist thang in that cute Idaho town. We took photos, walked in and out of shops, and really had a good time at the Lemhi County Museum. Ultimately I procured a mocha at an establishment that doubled as an outdoor outfitter. Before heading back to the cabin, we stocked up on a few supplies for our upcoming bike adventure.

Again, Fern has done a fine job of telling you all about our Friday bike ride. I'll add that Yes it was Hot! And No, it was not as difficult of a climb as I thought it might be. Still, it was the perfect ride because we got a killer workout, we made it to quite a high altitude, the scenery was nice, and Fern had a good time. Yes, I had a good time as well, but since Fern is more sensitive to the heat and has had to deal with after-fall fear, my desire was that she enjoy herself. Finally, I'll add that the fact that the return trip was all downhill back to our cabin was a huge bonus.

That evening we cleaned up and went to town for dinner, a walk, and a brief bar experience. Dinner was amazing. My favorite item was the beer-battered giant mushrooms and zuccini. Fern's salmon was amazing as well-she shared. Our walk included some happy fun times on Island Park, where I was skipping stones like a pro until swarms of mosquitos drove me back.

Pooped at the end of the night, we headed back to the cabin and slept much better than the night before. The next morning we took advantage of the free breakfast again. I thought it rather funny when the host asked if everyone had introduced themselves and I said "no"--everyone proceeded to keep to themselves. I was there for the food, not for the small talk with random American strangers.

The drive back to Boise started OK. We enjoyed a bit of Arcade Fire on the stereo. I bought Fern a Star tabloid in Challis, which I flipped through as we drove towards Mackay. The valley north and west of Mackay, which the highway passes through, along with the mountains, offered the most beautiful scenery of the trip. We stopped in Mackay to take photos and walk around the town. There were several yard sales going on. Always game, we browsed through the second hand wares. I bought The Absolute Best of John Denver, a Two Disc Collection for $6.00.

The drive out of Mackay is when things started to suck. First, we had that whole bike-falling-off-the-rack episode. Fern described the scene well in her blog except I think my first words were actually "Oh my god....your bike isn't on the rack!" The next 30 minutes included 5 minutes of freaking out and 25 minutes of thanking our lucky stars. After that I never felt very comfortable driving down the road with so much wind and traffic (on the freeway).

By the time we got to Craters of the Moon, I was ready to be done with traveling for the day. But first we had to see the monument. We rode our bikes into the park and did a 5 mile loop around some cinder cones. We stopped and walked up next to a couple lava cones in order to have a look inside. Shockingly, one of them had snow down inside. Guess they don't call em ice caves for nothing. The entire experience at the monument actually kind of sucked. It was hella windy and quite hot. And we just wanted to get home.

It was a long drive to Mountain Home and I hate being on freeways, but we did get home with several hours left in the day to unpack and unwind, which was nice.

I'm looking forward to this next weekend when I'll have another three days off in a row. I'm not sure what I'll do-maybe just stay in town-but I think it would be great if Fern and I kept having a lot of summer fun, just maybe without as much driving this time.