August 2000

Has it really been a month since our last installment of the "Wanderings"? We have experienced so many twists and turns during August, it feels like we should be well into October.

We start the month off in a pleasant campground on the shores of Palisades Reservoir in Idaho. It is a irrigation reservoir and with the weather being so very dry the farmers were, already, calling upon the lake's water. The shoreline seem to drop while we watched. Besides this amazing sight, we had several other interesting experiences. Probably the most pleasant was the ripe huckleberries all over the campground's steep hillside. We had enough huckleberries during our stay to hold us for a very long while. A not so pleasant experience was Fred contracting giardia. One reason this was particularly unpleasant, the nearest medical facility as in Idaho City, some 50 miles away. (We really must figure out some way of becoming ill closer to cities.) Fortunately, the prescription worked and Fred is back to his "normal" self. For awhile there we aren't sure which was more difficult - the effects of giardia or doing without a nightly scotch for two weeks.

While enjoying the beauty of the Palisades Reservoir area, we noticed the sky continued to grow a bit more hazy each day. We heard routes into Montana were being closed and two of the National Forests we had planned on visiting this year, the Boise and Payette, were closed to camping due to massive of the forest fires. Than another another fire started near Salmon, Idaho, another place on our itinerary. Things were looking "flakey."

We left Palisades Reservoir for Rexburg, Idaho to meet up with our friends, the Hogans. After a too brief but pleasant visit with them, we headed off to do some more work in the Targhee National Forest in an area southwest of Yellowstone National Forest. It was so pretty with wide, lazy flowing rivers meanandering through miles of lodgepole pines and ancient lava flows. Although we would say this area must be the "tubbing" capital of the country, it is said the Boise area is more so. There number of people tubbing requires traffic cops to direction the flow! In our opinion, Boise may have more tubbers but those rivers can't be any prettier than the ones around Island Park, Idaho. But we probably should wait until next year for such a declaration.

News of the forest fires went from "flakey" to grim. We decided to by-pass the Boise and Payette National Forests for this year but still weren't sure what to do about Salmon and Challis National Forests. Both had fires burning but . . . We headed for the busy metropolis of Mackay (pop 142) and began the Challis National Forest. That's where the fires got to damn close. The fires in the Salmon National Forest started threatening towns and a large cluster of campgrounds near Stanley in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. We rescheduled the Salmon National Forest right out of our plans for this season but felt the Challis was still a possible. Than a local outfitter, wanting to cook some fresh caught trout, started a fire in a fire ring in our campground. Everything was fine until up came a strong wind and, PUFF, the far end of the campground was a blaze. As if this weren't enough excitement for us, that evening a fire started on a ridge about fifteen miles north of us. The next morning we couldn't see the surrounding mountains and we were suffering scratchy throats and itchy eyes. Another adjustment to our itinerary, the Challis was out. We left for Twin Falls, the southern section of the Sawtooth and smoke-free air.

We needed to visit a large town like Twin Falls for several reasons. First, we had experienced a flat tire while in Mackay. We hadn't realized just how little the tire tread was until we had that flat. Also, we had some concerns about the health of the trailer's two batteries. A larger town, such as Twin Falls, was greatly needed. Now we have brand-new tires and batteries and are good to go for another 75,000 miles.

However, Twin Falls wasn't all perfection. The weather had been so dry and warm, the local grain was ready for early harvest. Part of the harvest-cycle is to burn off the stubble left behind. So, we were surrounded by burning fields for the first couple of days. Than a dry-lightning storm (a storm with thunder and lightning but no rain) raced through and started a number of forest fires. (Of the six fires that were started in that storm, two were still burning when we left for Utah a week later.) No clear skies or smoke-free atmosphere here. Could Utah be better?

After the hot, arid weather we experienced during most of the month, so far Utah has seemed lush and green. We really enjoyed our time in Cache National Forest's Logan Canyon with its sparkling Logan River and its enormous Black willow and Box elder trees. Next we visited the Ogden Canyon with shear cliffs of ancient limestone and cute little "canyon cottages." The end of the month finds us in the Salt Lake City area in a private campground. Although it isn't as pretty as our forest campgrounds, it is nice to have the luxury of full-hook-ups. Plus, this last week of August, we have enjoyed, that's right enjoyed, several days a soaking rain.

So August saw us coping with flat tires and less than good batteries, dodging forest fires, completing the Targhee and Cache national forests, and reschedule five forests (Challis, Salmon, Boise, Payette, and Sawtooth) for next year. The new plan is to complete both Wasatch, and Marti-LaSal national forests in September than enjoy a leisurely drive home via the Monument Valley area of Utah and Arizona. We will keep you posted.

Suzi and Fred