What's Up?

My last post had us on Linda's last spring break trip down into Utah, now we are biding our time waiting for Linda's big day.  If you were to run into her and ask her how many days she has left, she would not hesitate to tell you.  30 day of teaching left in her career.  It is starting to get real close.

What do we do when we are on the big countdown?  We wait, watch the weather, work on the yard, plan and let the realization that she only has a quick count down left before we are able to do everything we have been planning for.

I have been filling my time by working on the yard and house, and when the weather cooperates I go fishing.  Last week I took my brother fishing.  We have never gone fishing together since we were little kids with Dad.  We went out to Hayden lake and fished for Pike. 

We were dragging lures and cruising the shores.  I caught the first fish within the first half hour and then it slowed down.  We fished for several hours and didn't catch anything.  As we turned the boat for the ramp to pull the boat out, Dale caught his fish.  I was glad he caught one and it was good sized!

Kevin Reed as former student at NIC.  In fact he was a student way back in the days when we were building the new Student Union.  That was about 15 years ago.

We fished Hayden but launched at the Honeysuckle boat ramp. Our goal was to catch some Blueback, but they were evading us so we went into shore and started fishing for Crappie.  I was fishing a small jig but it was very slow.  I tossed into shore and reeled slowly back and boom!  I caught a 21 inch trout!  That was very odd. 

Nothing else happened and we came back to the dock by about noon.  It was good being out on the boat and I really enjoyed Kevin's company.

I plan on putting the boat into Coeur d'Alene Lake this week which will make fishing much easier, this will mean I will probably post more about fish.  We will keep you posted on Linda's retirement and if we have any adventures you will be the first to know.

Antelope Island State Park & Home

On Wednesday we talked and decided to leave the Windwhistle area and drive north heading home.  The drive down was to long days and I felt that if we could break it into a three day trip I would feel better when we arrived back in Post Falls.

We packed that night and left the first thing on Thursday morning.  The drive was windy and uneventful.  When ever we had cell phone coverage Linda did research and found a place to camp at Antelope Island State Park.  This park is an actual island in the Great Salt Lake.  You drove out there on a causeway that crossed a bridge.  This allowed them to call it and actual island.


Our camp spot at Antelope Island State Park.

One thing I can tell you about this place was that there were no trees out there.  The camp areas were flat and devoid of any shade. The wind blew the entire time we were there and at times it shook the camper pretty hard.


Linda and Kobi on the shores of the Great Salt Lake.

When we arrived we walked out over the sand beach to the Great Salt Lake.  It was our first time this close to the lake and we found it to be quite strange.  It smelled like a salt marsh that had very little vegetation around it. We were not really impressed.



Sand and salt, Kobi loved it and rolled in it!

The wind blew all night and we left the area at about 6 am.  We drove to Dillon Montana and found a Good Sam RV campground where we used a free night stay coupon that we had.  The showers were very nice and we got our selves cleaned up and refreshed.

Our final leg took us home via I-90 and we arrived in Post Falls at about 1:30 pm. 

I tasted the Great Salt Lake. Yuck!

This buffalo was grazing near our camper.

We Drove the Colorado River Overlook FWD Trail

Back in the Canyonlands National Park we decided that we wanted to do some 4 x 4-ing and so we took a drive out to the Colorado River Overlook.  Our real hard rock four wheeling experience has been very limited, so we look at our guide book for specific information about trail conditions.

On the drive into Canyonlands National Park.

The guide book said that this Jeep trail was about 14 miles long and was considered very easy for Jeep travel.  It stated that there were two difficult areas along the route that would need attention but that the final 1.5 miles were smooth going on slickrock.

We had gathered water sandwiches and some apples and were on our way.


This was an "easy" trail, yeah right!

The first part of the road was very sandy and wound north to the canyon rim hard rock.  We came to the two hard four wheel areas and with some very slow and steep climbing we mad it over them.  They were about my limits as an amateur 4 x 4-er.  The path took us over some rough slickrock and along the rim until about 12 mile in and then we were stopped.

Colorado River is below.

The road continued, but it was much rougher then anything we had covered to this point.  In fact it was the most technical four wheeling that I had ever attempted. 
I looked it over and weighed our options.  I know we probably could have made it, but being in old Stinky Jeep, with regular road tires and no suspension upgrades we felt that we had better not chance it.  Another factor was that we were alone out there, if something happened, it was a 12 mile hike back.  We parked the Jeep and started hiking along the Jeep trail.  Wow, if this was and easy trail I want to see a hard one!  It was a fun hike and we made it back to our Jeep with no problems.  The drive out was fun and Linda took some pictures of me and the Jeep maneuvering along a couple of the harder spots. 

On the way our we stopped and ate lunch enjoying the ending of a great adventure.