Memorial Day Weekend

Yesterday the flood gages in the Idaho panhandle hit their peak and it looks like the area streams and rivers are starting to recede little by little. The combination of a deep snow pack, warm weather last week and rain this week sent huge volumes of water down into the Coeur d’Alene River and St. Joe River drainages. Lake Cd’A is muddy and debris strewn, the color of the Mississippi. On Wednesday we packed the final items and drove down to Bell Bay via the Rose Lake route. Along this path the chain lakes have become one with the Coeur d’Alene River. The river has burst its banks and the areas that border the small lakes have filled with the cold muddy water. It is amazing to drive down and look at the vast expanse of water. The Trail of The Coeur d’Alene’s, our favorite bike path, is entirely covered and in some areas is acting to create small water falls between the river and low lands (check out the photos). Since our arrival, the cool weather has come in, of course, and thus the snowpack has stopped the rapid melting allowing the lake to expel its captured liquid.

Bell Bay is a beautiful as ever! We have settled in and met the new hosts. They are very nice; this is their first hosting gig. Linda found out that hosts get paid in accordance to the number of sites that they manage. Bell Bay has fewer sites then, let’s say, Kit Price on the Cd’A River. So the camp hosts at that site would make more money monthly then at Bell Bay. There is more work involved and some of the other campgrounds are used a lot more, but I would guess that this camp would be a good gig to have.

Camper set up was a breeze, we had to remember the sequence we established, and I had to remember some of the more technical aspects of the awning and other gear, but it went very smooth. We arrived and within about ten minutes Daren and Marcy pulled in. Everyone was set up within a half hour and we were sitting around a fire by 7:00 PM. Meals in both camps were soup and snacks, so we sat around the fire and exchanged notes on out two separate trips to the Escalante region of Utah.

I began getting cold out so we gave them a tour of the Snowriver, we sat and talked until about 10:00 PM and then each camp headed to bed cozy and warm, rain falling on the camper tops.
Thursday was uneventful. We hung around camp and took a walk up to the upper campground. When we returned I took a short nap and then Daren and I drove into Cd’A. While I napped Daren had gotten a hold of their neighbor and found out that a group of folks had gotten nervous and had sandbagged the area in front of their house. He felt he needed to go in and see what they had done and if they had damaged the lawn very much. Since I had to go into town for my VP gathering, it worked out well for both of us.

We drove in and as we did we stopped and took some pictures of the flooding along the Cd’A River. Over this camping trip we were able to see the river rise and peak, as well as start to go down. It is interesting how fast this all happens. In town I went to my get together and Daren when out to his house to inspect the damage. When we got back together, he said that the folks did a good job of not destroying the lawn, but he felt that they had been a bit premature with the sandbag action. He believes that there was at least 18 inches of safety margin before the river would breach and with the NOAH grafts the river would fall before it hit the flood level. We took our time going back to our camp and when we arrived we gathered in our camper and chatted.
We woke up to rain again. The weather broke a bit and we ate breakfast, got dressed and jumped in the Upchurche’s truck for a high water exploration. We drove to Harrison and looked at the flood damage there. Followed a road and inspected the Trail of the Coeur d’Alene’s where we talked to one of the Indian Reservation Parks people named Dean and found that the trail was good from Harrison to Plummer. We will probably ride that stretch if the rain stops this weekend. We then drove up the river and checked out all the areas we went past the day before. Just from our observations we concluded that the river had peaked late last night and it was quickly on its way down. There was a lot of damage however and we figured that the trail will probably be closed most of the summer while the powers that be assess the damage, control the pollution and possibly get crews in for repairs.

Lunch time came quickly and we found ourselves at the Cataldo, Old Mission Inn. This little place serves up some good food for a very reasonable price. Daren and I had the fish special, Linda had a salad and Marcy ordered a bowl of clam chowder. It was fun to eat and talk while watching and listening to the local folks come and go. Everyone was checking in on each other to see if they were ok after the flood and if the water had gone down enough to get back into their place. We ate lunch and returned to camp. We cooked the Costco enchiladas we had brought and ate dinner by the fire. We were in bed by about 9:30 PM.

I hate to tell you what we did today. Nothing, nada, absolutely did not move, we sat in chairs and read, followed by sleep, followed by eating and gathering wood, followed by sleep; that was our whole day. It threatened rain a couple time so we had to move our stuff under the awning, or under a tree, but with all the rest we had gotten we were able to accomplish that task.
The Upchurches are fixing dinner tonight so Linda and I can sit in our chairs and recoup. Man these weekends are rough, another day like today and I don’t know what I’ll do.