We missed the rain at Priest.

Last night the rainbow was so bright that you could see every color in the spectrum; I had to run to the camper and get the camera. The color swatches appeared right when we were loading up our plates for dinner, but the view was so spectacular I just dropped the plate and ran. Our Saturday night dinner of chicken enchiladas, Bennett camper dinner #2, would have to keep while we snapped some photos of Mother Natures art. We returned to the picnic table and sat down to dinner. The rainbow was definitely a forwarding of the weather moving in. We had been watching the rain moving Northeast up the lake.

As we finished our meal the wind picked up and we were forced inside John and Loretta’s camper to top our meal off with some peach cobbler. Loretta had made the cobbler with fresh peaches and topped it with some low fat whipped cream. It was great! We sat in the camper and talked as the wind and rain brushed their home on wheels. It’s funny how much camper people talk about how it “used to be”, when they camped in tents and the back of pickups. Wind and rain, warm and dry, we sat until I got to sleepy to stay awake and I had to head to bed.

Saturday we had got up and sat around the fire talking until everyone got antsy and had to go for a hike. We walked up a road talking and enjoying the outdoors. Our walk took us about three miles total, and got everyone out of camp for a while.

John and Loretta joined us this weekend and we really enjoyed the travel and camper talk. Friday night we sat around the fire till about 10 PM laughing and covering every topic from politics to river trips, birthday plans to the happenings of our close friends, it was good to get caught up with the lives and future plans of these good friends.

Reeder Bay, Priest Lake

better together

there’s no combination of words I can put on the back of a post card
no song that I can sing but I can try for your heart
our dreams and they are made of real things like a
shoe box of photographs of sepia tone lovin

love is the answer for least for most of the questions to my heart like
why are we here, where we go, how come we’re so hard
it’s not always easy some times life can be deceiving
i’ll tell you one thing it’s always better when we’re together
it’s always better when we’re together
we’ll look at the stars when we’re together
it’s always better when we’re together

i’ll tell you one thing, we’er better together

jack johnson

(This song reminds me of bug and myself every time I here it.)

I listened to good old (yeah old, right) Jack this morning. So many of his songs have words that touch parts of me, our life together, and our travels that it makes me smile and starts my day in a perfect fashion. Between my mornings with Jack and the ones with JT (James Taylor) I always get a great start to my day. So now you know my routine. Linda gets up and starts the hot water, then she either goes for a run or builds a morning fire and reads. I roll out of bed, make coffee, play cards and listen to the ipod. I have several friends that speak to me in the morning; Jack, JT, sometimes Gordon, Izz, the list goes on.

Friday night we drove up to Reeder Bay on Priest Lake and found a site. The good lake front sites were taken so we settled for one back away from most sites, but in an area where we had good privacy. This turned out to be good because some of the lake view folks were real noisy on Saturday night. We set up our camp and started a fire. I set out our new solar lamps on the stairs. I bought them on sale as step lights, at least that what I told Linda. The truth is I like the looks of them and I thought they would make our camper look real cozy when the sun set and darkness covers everything.

We ate cold pizza and sat by the fire till we could stay awake any longer, that would be about 7:30 pm. We climbed into the camper and went to bed. When we arrived this evening Linda noticed that the refrigerator was on and was running on DC current. Our batteries had been cooling things as we drove and when we went to bed they were down quite a bit more then normal. We took precautions and used the small Coleman lamp we always carry. I charged the solar lamps as we got ready and by bed time we had little lamps lighting the stairs, now that made things so cozy, I slept like a log.

Saturday was spent on the beach reading and getting sun. The temperature was just right while sitting on the sandy beach. When you moved up into camp, you had to put on a jacket. We relocated up to camp at about 2:30 pm and I built our fire a 3:00 pm. The Beckwith’s joined us about 5 pm; they had driven up to their cabin to move some thing up there. Their lives are changing and at this point everything revolves around the move from Idaho to Oregon. I would be freaking out if it were me, so you can’t blame them for being a bit antsy. We ate a meal from the Dutch oven and drank some spirits. We talked to about 9 pm and had a great time around the fire. The drove back to their cabin and we went to bed and read. Sleep once again came easy.

So here we are, Linda reading outside by the fire, Dean listening to Jack and typing. I think I could do this every day. I might add some fishing, but Jack and JT could come with me when I do that also.

Camping and Computers

This weekend, on Friday night, we drove down to McCroskey State Park. We had never been there and wondered what it was all about. We entered the park via DeSmet Idaho and immediately started climbing to the top of the ridge along the Skyline Drive road that is an 18-mile-long gravel road that traverses the park. Skyline Drive gives you beautiful views of the Palouse prairie. We stopped at a wide spot in the road and set up for the night. We saw a couple of other vehicles, but it was a very quiet spot with a great view.

The next morning we had a quick breakfast and drove the rest of the road back to Highway 95. Then we headed to Moscow and visited Linda's parents. Our goal was to get the folks new computer set up and teach them a little bit about using it. Every thing went well on the set up, it took a while to test everything and train them how it works, but they really enjoyed out help. We drove back home and we arrived about 1:00 pm. It was a quick trip but very enjoyable.

Happy, Happy and Sad

The last weekend at Bell Bay was shared with our friends, Darren and Marcy. We had two of the best spots in the campground and spent most of our time over at our spot gazing out over the lake watching the boats, birds and weather patterns. Friday night we got set up and at about 7:30 pm a huge storm hit. The wind and rain was amazing. Darren and Marcy were in their tent trailer and we were snug in our camper watching Jim, the camp host, cruise the park watching for damage and danger. Linda and I had cooked chicken enchiladas for our dinner and the meal was finished as the storm came in. We watched the lightning and heard the thunder as it approached, it was a great show. With the rain and all we turned in early and read our books.

Linda woke early and went our for a six mile run. I stayed around camp and drank my coffee. Finishing her workout with a quick swim Linda cleaned off and joined everyone at the overlook. We had breakfast and got our shoes on so that we could hike up and find the Bell Bay cache. This cache has eluded us before and now we brought reinforcements. Darren gathered his GPS and we set out up the road. Above the cabin owned by Larry and Mary Wright, we stopped and yelled “On On” down to them. Larry sprang out of the place and hiked up to the road to greet us, Mary jogged the road up and they both joined us on our GEO quest. At the top of the hill we started our GPS’s and zeroed in on the location. Darren had problems getting his to work so we were using only my GPS for acquiring our cache. We looked for about a half hour but came up empty. Darren tried everything but could not get his to work, he thought it might be a battery problem. We gave up and hiked back down and as soon as we hit camp Darren hit the right combination of buttons and reset the GPS and it worked fine the rest of the weekend.

About 4:00 pm John and Loretta Sutherland arrived by boat, they came down to visit and planned to stay the night if all worked out. They had their food down at the boat so we ate a meal that Darren and Marcy prepared in their Dutch oven. Later everyone gathered up at camp where we talked and drank while sitting around the fire. At about 9:30 pm we all turned in, John and Loretta walked down to the boat and built their nests for the night.

The next morning we had coffee and the Sutherlands came up to visit for a bit. John wanted to fish while they returned to Cd’A so they left about 12:00 pm. We loaded up in Darren’s truck and drove to Harrison where we ate lunch at One Shot Charlie’s. We then walked the Trail of the Coeur d’Alene’s upriver to a cache. Linda found it and we signed in. We then marched back to the trail info area and discretely found a micro cache. With all this under our belts we went up to the Creamery and bought ice cream before we returned to camp. On the drive back we spotted a little bear. He was eating apples off a tree and as soon as we stopped he took off across the road.Back home we lounged around and enjoyed the afternoon. Linda and I cooked dinner and we all enjoyed the sunset.

This trip was both a happy and sad trip for us. We loved the friends who visited and camped with us and staying at the campground, which made the last weekend at Bell Bay special. It was sad because the camp was closing for the year and in that we would not be able to visit our friend Jim Valentine, the camp host, any longer. Jim has made a decision to not return to Ball Bay next year. He plans to camp with his wife, take care of his farm and enjoy his time with family and friends. It is sad, because in our short time of knowing him we felt a real connection to him and enjoyed our nightly chats at his camp. We hope to see him someday camping and hope he stays well and has a great life.We also were sad because this park was such a special place for Linda, myself and our best friend Baka. It is hard not to tear up when you remember all the fun times we had this season with Baka swimming, chasing squirrels & deer, and just sitting at our feet enjoying the evenings. We miss him every day.Linda and I cried when we left Bell Bay, we didn’t know why, we felt it was silly, but we will return next season and start new memories. It won’t be our last campout of the season so we have a lot to look forward to this fall.