The Old Back Yard

Standing atop a cliff that I've been going to since I can remember being able to walk brings back a few memories. This time was different than the fifty other times I'd been there in one way, I brought a camera. From this vantage point, many a hunter has collected their yearly food stock, but on this day, all I requested was a good view. 200+ feet below, a lone doe walked across the old ice mines, holes dug out of large volcanic rock to keep food cold many years previous. Welcome to my old back yard.

That is Moscow Mountain in the background, just left of center.

On the hike down and around from the cliff to the ice mines for the usual closer inspection, we found signs of somebody's successful hunt.

Going back down the hill, a picture of the cherry orchard was in order. The orchard used to produce large tasty cherries, but after years of not being cared for, they grow smaller and less impressively.

The cherry orchard was/is on the right side of the flat section in the center of the picture. Note the large "K" on the hillside to the left for Kendrick.

As for the rest of the weekend, a seafood dinner Friday night started things on the right foot! The next day Lianne, Mark and the kids showed up (older sister and family) and a trip to the bowling alley was on the agenda. Watching a 3 and 5 year old bowl two games was great, many times wondering if the ball would eventually hit the pins or not. Maybe a little embarrassing on my part though when I could only muster a bit more power as my back was still messing with me. It was more of a shuffling/sliding effect of getting the ball down the alley than true bowling.

The next day, Kyley got to experience my dad's road motorcycle, the Honda Goldwing. Later, we took the kids down to the park where I used to play and showed them the pool where I learned to swim. Many a good tan was earned there, no farmers tans from riding a bike too much back then. Eventually, the time came for the usual late departure and return to the real world, here and now.

Random Stuff

House parties are the way to go for sure! Saturday night was a ton of fun over at the Rumps' new place. A good percentage of the racing community showed up and we worked the entire night on finishing off a keg of Table Rock micro. Start a fire in the driveway and b.s. the night away, that's the way to do it.

Next day, I took my mom and Kyley out to the Kuna Caves

And without any good reason, Wednesday morning, my back went out on me and I've been hobbling along ever since. Luckily, it's getting better. Tomorrow, Kyley and I take off north to hang out with family and as long as the weather is good, do some more motorcycling. This one's brief, I'm kinda blogged out lately... or it's the back kicking in again. If you think I'm gonna breakdown and suck on the bike, think again! I'll admit, 28 isn't the same as 18, but I've got new cycling shoes and they've got a lot of miles left in 'em.

Over 'n Out-

MCW

Deadwood Hot Springs

The snow will be coming to the back country soon, so venturing as much as possible now is a must. Saturday's trip was a sort of a birthday present to my mom and a chance for me to go see some new country. I had hoped that my sister and brother-in-law could go too, but they were too busy with their new jobs. Also, Kyley was still in Chicago so... anyways. On the way there, I decided to check out the Bear Valley road route, which takes off from highway 21 closer to Stanley than Lohman. On the way there, we got an incredible shot of the Sawtooth mountain range

Once we started the hike, I got the GPS up and running, but when we got to where I thought the coordinances were for the hot spring, there were no hot springs! Nor was there anywhere around that looked like there could be hot springs.

On the hike in:

We just kept on going up Warm Springs and I hoped that we'd come across some warm water. Sure enough, another mile up the trail, we found hot water, but it disappeared into the hillside with no pools anywhere in sight. To find them, I went running all over up the hill, but to no avail. There were elk trails and even a previously cut out trail, but they led to places that I wasn't going. On the way back down the hill, I decided to trek further up the creek and vuala, there was steam all over the place which led directly to the hot springs.

Instead of you getting to see me running all over the hillside to find it, I just erased the trip in and GPS'ed the way out instead. The little red flag is where I thought the hot springs would be, but that was closer to where we had to take off from the main trail onto an older, lesser used trail that continued up warm springs. Total hike, one way, would be a little over three miles as long as you don't tack on a hike all over the hillside.

There were 3 main pools, one natural cave pool and two built up pools that were much larger. We showed up too late to fill up the larger pool, but the smaller of the two built up pools was already full and ready for use. Upon hopping in, the temp was perfect at around 100 degrees.

I gotta ask, is that litte extra section on the right detention for those who get too drunk?

We didn't get much time to sit, around 45 minutes or so and we had to get going to beat sun down. On the way out, I wanted to check out the Scott Mountain road. It was pitch black out with no moon, but I could tell that the area was a must see. On the other hand, the road was pretty bad. Don't take your two wheel drive on it unless you want to drive 5 mph or less most of the way and say sayonara to your shocks. Luckily I drive a car designed for rally racing (Outback Sport). Mine's not suped up at all though, in fact, it's the 1.8 liter rather than the 2.2. Someday I've got to see that road in the daylight!

On the agenda for this coming weekend: A trip to the Trinity Lakes, Oktoberfest at Eric's and then a visit to the Kuna Caves and maybe Givens hot springs.

It's good to have nice weather in the offseason!!!

Over 'n Out for now-

Mr. Whisky (more phonetics)

BTW, I added pics to the Bogus blog finally

Planes, Dirtbikes, Hikes, Steaks and Apple Jacks

There was no down time at all this last weekend! The run down goes like this: the roommate Brandon shows up at my work and we load up to take off for the weekend. Destination #1 Grangeville. Meet up with my dad for a dinner at Ernies Steakhouse. If you happen to be a fan of steaks, Louie's is the place! Next morning, wake up to some clouds that we thought would put a damper on our plans to fly, but since we had no specific destination to begin with, we could fly in whatever direction with weather good enough for visual flight. By 8:00am we were in the air, destination Joseph, Oregon in the Cessna Skylane 182:

On the way there, I saw the confluence of the Salmon and Snake Rivers for the first time. There were at least 4 jetboats that had made the trip up for some stellar fishing. Before landing, the Wallowa's presented themselves, just for a moment, but in very good lighting.

Once we landed, we weren't exactly sure of where the local hotspot for breakfast was, so we flagged down a car. Not only did they let us know where to go, they gave us a ride! Turns out that the Cheyenne Cafe is where it's at if ever you want breakfast in Joseph.
On the flight back, we went a slightly different route and the Imnaha River (left) was a first time sight for me.

Upon landing, we decided that a hike was in order since the weather was good and we were close to the South Fork of the Clearwater River. The Blue Ridge trail headed toward Sourdough Peak was a good destination. Roughtly 8 miles of hiking with around 2300ft of vertical change was something that my legs just hadn't dealt with in a long time and it was a great way to get some new muscle developement before weight lifting season (aka winter) starts.

After the hike, we headed for destination #2, Kendrick, my hometown. That night, dad's friend Steve showed up with some homemade hard apple cider that could easily knock a guy flat in a matter of minutes! That stuff was good! Add to that the options of Bourbon or Blue Moons and you've got a good setup. It didn't knock me flat, but it did loosen up some sore legs. That night, a log could only wish it could sleep like I did! Wake up Sunday morning and break out the motorcycles for a refresher lesson on how to tear through some mud. It had been at least 5 years since the last time I was on a dirtbike, but it was something I'd been missing out on for sure. Brandon might rock down the trails on moutain bikes faster than me, but he ain't got anything on me when it comes to dirtbiking. Dad on the other hand does, he's been doing that stuff for years and years and... yeah, you get the idea.

The result of 10+ hours of driving = getting to do a lot of things over the weekend! The only downside is that the pile of chores around the house continues to accumulate. It could be a tough thing to catch up on since I've met a woman who I like spending time with more than doing chores. Sorry Brandon, I'll catch up on my half on Wednesday when the new beauty takes off for Chicago.

P.S.

Of course I had to GPS the flight. The image is from Grangeville (right) to Joseph (left). The first loop was to see a heard of elk, the second was to see the confluence or maybe we just couldn't make up our minds which state we wanted to be in? Top speed I saw was 155 mph. The file wouldn't import into the Delorme software, something about being above the ground I suppose. I was hoping to see an above ground 3D image, oh well. Here's the Garmin map:

Welcome To The Boondocks

Dad came down over the weekend and took the family out to Boondocks Saturday. Good stuff I tell ya! Unlimited go-carting, laser tagging, miniature golfing, air hockey, skeetball, et cetera bodes well with the high energy types (pronounced Y-en's). Most of us left with at least one mark for wrecking the go-carts, but you don't get kicked out until you've got 3 strikes, so we were all good to go. My personal favorite was the 19 cart, but the 3 wasn't too shabby either. Here's the proof that the fam is a hint on the competitive side - Dad taking Rhett for a spin in one of the double karts:

Older sis' Lianne leaning into it:

Kathleen with Mom at the helm

The niece and nephew were the most excited of anyone, but they were just missing the height limit to drive the karts on their own:

7hrs of fun will make one hungry, so off to the food court it was:

The skeetball record at Boondocks needed to be broken! My "regular" scores weren't anything to write home about, but the record score popped out a lot of tickets for the kids to go pick out kewl toys. If ever you feel the need to tie my record, here's how to do it, with the left hand none the less. Don't forget to grab the ball before it drops in the bottom hole if you do happen to miss!

None of the miniature golf pics that I wanted to turn out turned out, but this one is good anyways. It was a runaway landslide victory by Lianne, although Josh (brother-in-law) was keeping it close until about 6 or so holes to go.

Pop's also took the crew out to dinner and a movie Friday night. Joe's Crab Shack was fun, but Balls of Fury was pure cheese that only Jack Black could have made better. Sunday morning was spent having a good breakfast at Goldy's with the entire family; that's a pretty good place with unique menu selections.

The coming weekend will include a 4 seater flight into Smiley Creek Lodge (pilot Jim Babb of Grangeville) and a hike into one of a few different possibilities of mountain lakes, then dirtbiking on Sunday.