Jenmenke

Road Warrior

Idaho

Road Warriors Four. Day Six!

Wednesday 8/12.

We got up bright and early to hike to the highest peak we could see from our site. There was no trail, so we blazed our own.

The Reluctant Hiker became the Angry Hiker about half way up.

We find it best to leaver her to wander, bringing up the rear, where she can talk herself into the benefits of an active lifestyle. It usually works and it did today as well.

At the top of our fire scarred peak, we took a bunch of self timers… (sorry in advance. got lots of pictures – finally)

 

 

and headed down for a big breakfast — to include BACON! Charlie manned the “toaster,”

Dave cooked the bacon and Morgan…

I can’t remember. I do know she briefly toasted, but lost that duty when she presser her hot poker into Charlie’s knee.

I have no idea how she did it, but amidst all the yelling and drama, somehow she turned it in to Charlie’s fault. He didn’t miss her when she wandered away. Probably to apply make-up in the back seat again…

Morgan had a BLT (where T=turkey). Dave had a BLT (where T=tomato). Charlie had E&T (where T=toast and E=eggs). Then Charlie had a BLS (where S=sandwich) and I had a massive, 2-egg bacon and cheese sandwich on a moldy ciabatta bun.

Sound gross?

Well it wasn’t.

Thunder sounded in the distance and we scrambled to pack up. Jen and Morgan used the leftover warm water from dishes (clean, unused water, that is) to quickly shave our beastly legs. Morgan lacerated herself in many places blaming the carnage on “too many goosebumps.” Honestly, she took like 15 minutes to shave her SHINS. I didn’t know this: you apparently must exfoliate before shaving. How can it be that I’m 47 and have been missing this pre-requisite for smooth legs? And still she managed to cut herself in about six places.

And speaking of exfoliation, can you please give Charlie a squirt of that stuff? He has found that he appreciates a good exfoliating face wash. He likes how it makes his face feel…

Oh Lord help me.

We headed out through Challis, toward Stanley and the “majestic mountains” we sought toward our next adventure.

Stanley was…hmmm….How shall I say? Disappointing. Kinda hot. Dusty. And just, well, hickish. The campgrounds sucked — from the Lakeside units to the corrals.

Yes, the scenery was lovely, but the road work, people, and campgrounds were not our “cup of tea” (to quote Carlos again). We considered dispersed camping again, but there really weren’t that many options. Finally I just said “let’s just get the Hell out of here.”

And so we did.

Hightailing it further down I75 and trying to get a little closer to Sun Valley, the designated shopping mecca of the trip.

It’s just crazy to us the campgrounds people choose. Ick. Ick. Ick. And crowded! We all just look at them and think — well maybe it’s only me who thinks this — “Where will I pee?” Or, “What if I walk out of the camper in my underwear?” Or even, “What if I fart too loud?”

You see the problem that a crowded campground presents?

And so it goes. We diss’ed all the lake campgrounds. Western state campers flock to lakes. We, of the 10,000 lakes, don’t need a lake to feel like we are on vacation. We rejected over six campgrounds on our quest, eventually reaching the Sawtooth National Recreation Center Headquarters building and found out that — surprise! — we could disperse camp anywhere! And even have a fire! (No wonder we didn’t get in trouble last night…).

So that’s what we did, finding a pretty good spot just a few miles down from the headquarters building. We passed some PRIMO spots right on the North Fork of the Big Wood River, but most were taken. There was one open spot, but Dainty Dave was too weeny to attempt it. waa! waa!

I will say this: the axel swap we did last year with the new bigger tires is AWESOME. The tires aren’t even bald yet, the camper bounces around like a real 4WD rig. Love it. We researched getting a new camper on the drive home last year and I spent probably 4 straight hours of the last leg that Dave drove reading online, eventually finding all kinds of sights detailing camper modifications. There are people who document every little thing they do to their campers. Can you imagine?

Ha. I only realized as I wrote that last bit how hypocritical I sound.

Anyway, we got the idea to put bigger axle on the camper while in Ouray last year during one of our tire blow outs. Last fall, I brought the trailer to Rodney at Highway 55 Trailer Sales in Rockford. He’s the best! It was a relatively inexpensive upgrade. The three new tires cost more than the actual axel. It really goes over the bumps and rocks well. Dave totally could have gotten into that spot…

INTERJECTION: As I write this, the kids are over by the camp stove brushing their teeth and getting ready for bed. I just heard Charlie ask for Morgan’s exfoliating face wash again. When she said NO he said “But I like how it made my face feel.” END OF INTERJECTION

Anyway, the second best thing about the new tires and axel is that it looks cool. The third best thing is that you can now see it out of the back window and rear view mirror, which is ever-helpful for backing up.

I digress.

We went to a different spot NOT on the river because weeny Dave didn’t want to attempt the back our awesome little camper into such a narrow spot. –It totally could have snuck in there. I swear. It was our 5th night of camping and our fourth site. And even though we say — EVERY YEAR — that we aren’t going to move as much, we always do. We must like it.

One thing we have improved on this year is our timing. We have yet to come screaming into a site at dusk and eating in the dark. Bravo for us. It’s only taken us about ten years to get that part right. Here, outside of Ketchum, we set up camp about 4 pm, leaving us plenty ‘O time for drinks and appies. Charlie and I took a bracing river bath in the stream across the road. I must say, it’s a lot easier camping now that I’m way less vain about my hair. I can’t tell if it’s because I don’t care, but I actually don’t think it looks all that bad! [update: after reviewing the pictures, I must retract this statement.]

We cooked our last official meal: Flank steak kabobs with onions, peppers, and zucchini. We also had beets that we cooked in the fire a couple nights ago. Tomato/mozzarella/avocado/arugula salad. And a big, fat, happy belly.

Road Warriors is Back!

I been saving myself for the past two months. Gearing up for Road Warriors.

No. Not really.

Actually, if you want the truth, writing here is a luxury. I love it. But it feels…irresponsible, somehow, when all Hell is breaking loose elsewhere. So, it becomes a luxury I can’t afford. Is that the long-lost catholic guilt in me? I don’t think so. I think it’s the good ‘ol Aksteter martyr in me. Regardless. Something had to give, and as much I’d like for it to have been soccer, it was the blog. Summer is coming to a close, though — just this morning, Morgan trooped off to her first dreaded “two a day” soccer practices. –The start of school sports. Blech.

And, we just returned from our annual camping trip. It was HEAVEN to get away. *Spoiler alert* And nothing BAD happened. Which, I will admit in advance, makes for dull reading, but makes for an awesome trip.

As always, I will write directly from the journal. If anything needs to be explained further or clarified, I will use [brackets].

So, without further ado!

ROAD WARRIORS FOUR: ON THE ROAD AGAIN.

Prologue

Morgan tried, with no success, to enlist travel companions again this year. Seems she rather enjoyed the Kooistras last year. Not that I didn’t. (I did!) I just knew, from our own ridiculous schedule, that it was pretty unlikely that they would be able to go during the only week that we would be able to go.

And, as usual, I was right. [If you are new here, please note: this is a major theme.] Only, it took a few weeks for me to be able to say “Aha! I was right,” because, also as usual, it took Jan and Wes several more calls and texts — and weeks — to get back to us with that information. Once I delivered this devastating news to Morgan, the search was on for a new camping family. I, of course, knew that this was a virtual impossibility, but ahhhh the naiveté and hope of the young! So sweet.

And in the end, she was crushed like a bug.

But really. Who are we? Dave, Charlie and I? Are we chopped liver? Buck up, little camper. We are going to have SO MUCH FUN together!

CHAPTER ONE, DAY ONE.

Friday, 8/3/12, 5 pm

So. Much. Work. I really had it good this year. No panicking. No 9 pm rooster attacks while I frantically made the spaghetti. [El Señor has left the area. He is, as we refer to it, “on walk-about”. aka: dead.] I was pretty organized. I made and froze the spaghetti and tacos on Monday. Made and froze the banana bread over the weekend. Planned to — horrors! — BUY a rotisserie chicken instead of frying one. Had been setting things out in the laundry room for over a week. But today? Still ten solid hours of prep. TEN FLIPPIN’ HOURS! That doesn’t even count the stuff leading up to today.

Why is that? I seriously want to know. [Chris: this means you. I was at your house the day before you left for the week with five (or is it six? I can never remember) kids and you were playing checkers — CHECKERS — with Maili the night before you were to leave at 9 in the morning. And! Charlie was sleeping over that night! I would never let my kids have friends over the night before we left. God forbid they see what a freak-out bitch I can be! *breath* *breath* Can you see how hysterical I become? Does this happen to anyone else?] What the heck?

The meal line-up is: spaghetti, flank steak kabobs, tacos, green curry and rib eyes… I feel like there is one more, cuz that is only 5 meals… but I can’t remember. The garden, for all its issues this summer, was good to us in all areas except edamame. Which is a serious drag. — and also a first, if my bad memory serves me. In its place, I am lugging along a suitcase of cambozola. [Camembert/gorgonzola cheese, like a creamy blue. Worth dying for.] A delicious substitute that involves a 1500% uptick in fat grams and serves no nutritional purpose whatsoever.

Perfect.

Well, after telling everyone we were heading to Colorado again, we are currently headed west on I-94 towards western Montana and northern Idaho. That’s about all I know. So it’ll be as much a surprise for me as for you. I know this much:

….never mind. I guess he doesn’t really know where we are going either. I guess the plan is that we decide once we get to Bozeman. Which is a serious head-scratcher, really, since the guy has been pouring over maps every night for the past week. And he really doesn’t know where we are going? It isn’t like I care. I just find it… odd.

The plan is to drive through the night. We shall see…

[sorry. no photos from day one. I forgot to take any pictures.]

Road Warriors 2010 Day 5

Day Five

8/2/2010

No Signature Toast this morning. Charlie slept later than everyone. Another FIRST for 2010. Dave made bacon. Not bacon and eggs. Just bacon. I had granola and this new brand of greek yogurt I got at Cub Foods. It was so disgusting looking that I could barely eat it. It looked exactly like gloppy tofu. And I LIKE tofu! Pretty sour too…

Oh, who really CARES about my stupid yogurt?!

Our campsite was pretty humorous, since we were almost sitting on the road in our chairs, due to the fire pit placement. We felt like that sad-but-happy couple from the Montana campsite mentioned earlier in the trip. The place was packed, too, though we overlooked the indignity since we liked all the dogs.

Interesting (and freakish) is that speed boats can go on this river. And they do: roaring up and down on a fairly regular basis. It’s so weird! You look at the river, with all the swirls in the the current and the shoreline and you just don’t think it can be possible because it looks so shallow!

We were on the road at 10 am. We headed back in to Thompson Falls to pick up a prescription for Charlie’s new affliction: swimmer’s ear. (Not a first, btw). I was so thankful that we were staying in a place close enough to a town with a pharmacy AND that I actually had a cell signal to call Curt Whisler and Catalyst Clinic in Watertown. Thanks guys!

While I milled around the drug store waiting for the ear drops (what in HEAVEN’S NAME takes so long at pharmacies?), I managed to spend another $30 on: magazines, lip balm, and three different products for Morgan’s toxic feet. (I think I just answered my own question.)

Dave drove north on Hwy 200 about 30 minutes before we blew another car tire.

Simply inexplicable.

And, we had forgotten to buy more of the magical Fix-A-Flat. (Not inexplicable.)

We did a 180 and headed back to the town of Clark Fork to a Chevron Station where they said they could work us in in about an hour. We ambled off to do errands (like buy more Fix-A-Flat). We went to a feed store and met a cross-eyed cat (I swear it is true) and went across the street to dine at Mom’s Cafe.

The cafe garnered mixed reviews from the tough crowd. I thought it was fine, but Dave didn’t like his “baby burger,” declaring it, “cooked to annihilation and barely edible.” Such an elitist. Maybe he should stop ordering kid’s meals.

The car was ready just as we arrived, so the timing was perfect. And the cost? $10.

We’ll take it.

How is that even possible, $10?

In the car again at 3:30 and Dave is saying we won’t make Banff by nightfall. I say he’s wrong. It’s Canada or bust.

We drove by Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho and it was AH-MAZING. Insanely beautiful. We had no idea. And it’s a REAL LAKE and not a reservoir! It’s over 1000 feet deep. Truly beautiful. Now we are thinking the lakeside campgrounds in Coeur d’Alene Idaho might not have been as lame as we thought, if it is anything like this lake.

I bet you would assume I would post a picture or two here, right?

Nope. It’s CANADA OR BUST, remember?

**** R E C A L C U L A T I N G ****

One hour delay at the Canadian border customs station…

**** R E C A L C U L A T I N G ****

Yah, so it was a total delay of about 3 hours when you added the tire and customs together, so it’s true. We didn’t make it to Banff.

It was a seriously sad car full O’Menkes. [editors note: do I even need to say anything about “car full O’Menke’s? I don’t think I was even drinking.] Honestly, we are better Road Warriors than this journal portrays. Four days from Wyoming to Banff?

Unacceptable.

Making matters more precarious was the fact that our trusty Rand McNally Road Atlas seemed to give up its accuracy after crossing the border. Either that, or these Canadian’s are messing with us by moving major landmarks around. We missed the two campgrounds we planned to stay at about an hour south of Banff. Of course, I am too cheap to have the data roaming turned on for my iPhone so I can’t consult my maps there, and everyone knows how bad Blackberries suck(Dave’s phone). We did have a GPS with maps of Canada along that we had given to Dave for Father’s Day, but Dave absolutely loathes it. And since I was driving, I couldn’t consult it myself. –Oh believe me, I tried, but I have to concur that the GPS is a frustrating little device when you are used to the touch screen on an iphone.

After some (very) terse words. (I mean, for LORD’S sake, just turn the damn thing on and look at it! Maybe we’ll be able to find the fricken’ CAMPGROUND). I finally fumbled around with it myself enough to seriously freak him out and make him look at it and lo and behold it took us right to the last provincial park on the map before Radium Hot Springs and the entrance to Kootenai.

The only problem was that the last provincial park on the map did not have any camping. It was a picnic grounds.

Excited eruptions from the back seat immediately followed (I forgot they were even back there) along the lines of “Yea! We get to stay in a hotel!” You’d think they’d know us better than that by now.

The plan now was to cross our fingers and bomb it for Banff and take the first site we could get. However, along the way, crazily enough and like a mirage, Dry Gulch Provincial Park Campground appeared unexpectedly out of nowhere about 5 miles later and we snagged one of the last sites. It wasn’t pretty, but we weren’t complaining.

We set up and had the most anticipated meal of the trip for everyone except for me: Spaghetti.

I made the “seasoned toast” and pretty much ruined it. I added way too much Lawry’s. It’s true.

I’m damned near perfect, but I’m honest, too. And I screwed up. Which makes me realize I didn’t document my worst camping screw up in years: I forgot to stow the pop-up crank handle when we left the last campsite. I left it attached to the outside of the camper as we drove away. Luckily it was discovered in Thompson Falls while I was in the pharmacy spending Dave’s hard-earned money.

OH THE SHAME! The potential DISASTER! I hang my head. What more can I do but confess it here.

…and move on, pretending it never happened at all.

So the spaghetti was fabie. I still brought too much, though. My notes said to bring exactly “4 cups of sauce.” But as usual, it just didn’t seem like enough! The kids are bigger! Hell, I’m bigger! And how much did we eat?

Four cups.

We had to throw the other cup and a half away. It pained Dave greatly. But there are to be no leftovers while camping. It was a lot harder for me to throw the extra green curry from last night.

Mosquitos were a significant factor again, which we just don’t understand, never having run into it before.

Tucked in and lights out by dark. Lightning in the distance.

…that brewed into a full blown thunderstorm an hour later. It poured! I had to crawl over Dave to zipper-shut the screens on the kid’s side. He did give me a loving pat on the butt as I straddled the gap. And I wonder what would happen if I hadn’t gotten up. Would the kids wake up and shut them? Would Dave? I just don’t think so. I crawled back over him and back into my sleeping bag, stewing about the rain and how it complicates the packing of the camper in the morning and then…

I REMEMBERED ALL THE SHOES OUTSIDE THE DOOR!

I grabbed a flashlight and crawled back over Dave to try to fish them into the camper without actually having to go outside in the downpour and getting all wet. I rescued the shoes, but I also had a pretty wet head.

And then I crawled back over Dave and into bed and stewed some more, trying to just enjoy the rain. Eventually it stopped and I slept like the dead knowing the shoes were dry and that we were close to our destination.