May 1-4, 2016 Hot Springs and Camping at Upper Stillwater Lake

I decided to divide the next set of posts into more bite-size segments!

We began the month with a trip to Hot Springs, MT to play in the  hot springs.  These have a strong sulfur smell at times and are famous for their healing waters.  I don't know how much stock I put in the healing part but they are nice to soak in.  There are four pools to chose from.  The lower one is a regular swimming pool with at best, luke-warm heated water.  The next two pools are above the main pool.  Each one is small with the lower one at a slightly "too hot to stay in for over about 30 minutes" temperature.  The one above it is at a "too hot to stay in for over five minutes" temperature.  There is one more that has a tall, wood fence around it.  It's the "hot" pool.  That's where they cook the lobsters for the hotel dining room.  (Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration but it isn't that far off either!) 

The photo was taken at a turn-out overlooking Flathead Lake on the way back to Kalispell.

A few days later we took the new/used camper van out on a short test run.  The last camper we bought we took out on a 7,000 mile trip without really getting to know it first.  That was nearly a disaster!  But that was another story from a couple of summers ago.

Since this was it's maiden voyage we also brought the car in case we had trouble with the van.  We brought our little fishing boat along (towed by the van).

While we set things up Scott checked out a picnic table where he could supervise and also go through his fishing stuff.

All set up!  Now lets go fishing!

Well, maybe after Susan tests out all of Scott's tickle zones (he has a lot of them).

So fishing we went!  We stayed in the upper lagoon since it was later in the afternoon and I didn't bring the motor for the boat (definitely will NOT do that again!).

Susan caught the first fish and Scott caught the second.  I didn't catch any at all.  A point that Scott mentioned more than once!  This was Scott's first fish and he was very excited about it.  They are both Pike.

We cooked them our usual way when camping ... wrapped in foil and cooked over a low fire or coals.  The big center packet contains the fish and the outside packets have potatoes in them.

And, yes, it was as good as it looks.

Next it was marshmallow time.  I threw the extra wood on so it would still be burning in the evening for our sit-around-the-campfire time.

The next morning we were out again only this time we went through the passage on the other side of the lagoon and into the main part of Upper Stillwater Lake.  On the left side of the lake are railroad tracks so we were treated to see several passing trains during the day and night.  In the spring there is often a flurry of trains then none for several hours.  If the snow in Glacier National Park is not stable above the tracks (as often happens in the spring) the avalanche danger is too high to let the trains through the pass.  So they hold them up on the other side of the pass and wait for the snow to stabilize.  You can tell when they let them through because its just one train after another for the next hour or so.

Our reverie was interrupted by Susan catching a fish!

It was a nice Lake Trout and put up quite a fight before she got it into the boat.

Our time at the lake is drawing to a close and Scott is just enjoying the view a bit.

These are Oregon (wild) grapes.  If they keep on like they are it will be a good crop this year.

This bat house was near our camp site.  You can watch them come out around the time it begins getting dark.

We went home wishing we had spent more time there.  In my experience that's the best time to go home.  It keeps you anticipating the next trip instead of dreading it.  We have some things to get done at home then we'll be going out again.

30 April, 2016 - Raking leaves, buying campers, firefighters, parades, and more...

It's been nice to be home!  We still had tons of unpacking to go and we're working on de-cluttering the place (which isn't nearly as much fun as cluttering it up in the first place!). Boredom hasn't been an issue lately!  The place always needs some spring cleaning so we got into that as well.

There were still some hold-out leaves left on the trees when we left last winter so we finished raking them up this spring.

Since we have no chickens to scatter our freshly raked leaves, Scott volunteered to do the job.

We took the newly acquired ATV's out for a spin as well.  Scott is sitting behind Susan on the big four-wheeler.

We bought a kit to take the film off the headlights on one of our vehicles.  Scott took it on as a personal project when he found out that we got to use the drill and sanding disk.

And we have lots of work to do on the garden area.  Our garden has suffered some neglect the last three years as we've concentrated on using up some of our stored food.  We still have plenty of food stores but are going to start bringing the garden back up to snuff as well.  More on that later.

We bought an 1988 Ford One-ton camper conversion van.  This is what we've been looking for the last several years.  Something that's easier to get around in yet still has the comforts of home (at least some of them!).  The body is in good shape and the motor seems to run fine.  It needs some minor work done but I can handle that.  The first thing that's going to go is the AC unit on top. (It's been taken off now and a roof vent put in it's place.)

The view from the center looking forward.

And from the center looking toward the back.

And Scott trying it out for comfort playing on his tablet.

The guy we bought it from was pretty honest about what worked and what didn't.  He mentioned that the back tank was about dry but the front tank was full.  Don't know if he forgot to mention or didn't know (we bought it from a dealer) that the tank switch didn't work so when the rear tank ran dry ... Susan made a trip to town to get some more gasoline!  I had a feeling I should have filled the rear tank before we left but I didn't.  The Onan generator starts and runs but they have the wiring so messed up I don't know if it actually generates electricity yet.  I knew about that before we bought it.  The generator is nice but was not a deal breaker. I have some other tweaking to do on it as well before it's pronounced "healed."  By the way, the front tank was indeed full of gasoline.

Part of spring cleaning is burning slash piles.  We only had three I was concerned with so we picked a day between rain storms to do some burning.  Unfortunately, before the day was over I had to make a trip the emergency room.  My asthma flared up and the inhaler I carry for emergency use wasn't able to knock it back. I didn't realize at first what was happening.  We were finishing up on colds we caught in Nevada so I thought the coughing was from the cold.  I just got tired and laid on the ground next to the fire to rest.  Susan couldn't see me then and came over to find out why.  So Susan got me loaded up and we headed for Prompt Care in Eureka (about 20 miles).  They got me breathing okay again (Susan said I don't look that good when I'm turning purplish/blue .. I kinda' looked like Papa Smurf) and sent me home with a nebulizer and $100.00 in prescription medicines.  I'ts been pretty good since then.  Hope it stays that way.

Scott's uncle Tristan is the assistant fire chief on the local volunteer fire department and offered to let Scott ride in the truck in the Rendezvous parade.  Scott, of course, thought that was a fantastic idea and couldn't wait to get suited up and go with them.

Of course all the guys (and gals) know Scott and were enthusiastic about him being there.  They really are a great bunch of people who regularly put their lives on the line and get nothing but a "thank you" in return (most of the time).

Ready to roll!  That little guy is so happy he's about to burst.

We had to rush to get back on the street to see the parade.  

We didn't get to see all of it because we had to pick Scott up at the fire station.  This is looking down main street in Eureka.  That's probably about half the population in this end of the county.  There was a new archery shop in town so I stopped there and bought another string server and some more broad heads for my arrows (Zwickey 2-blade).

Parking can be a bit of a chore in a small town.  This is the highway coming in to Eureka from the south.

Booths are set up at the lower end of town near the river.

We also had company coming so we headed home quickly after the parade and were just a few minutes ahead of Scott's mom and dad and little brother.

We needed to swap out the studded snow tires on Scott's mom's car so his dad and I spent some time doing that before we had lunch.

20 April, 2016 - Going Home, Crossbows, ATV's and Emergency Rooms

Were back home again.  We've been anxious to get back home so we left a couple of weeks earlier than originally planned.  We also made some changes in how we are going to do future trips (both in the winter and during the year).  One of those changes is becoming more mobile.  To do that we had to pare down on what we have in Nevada and make the motor home easier to relocate.  There's just too many places to go and see and as the saying goes, ... "we aren't getting any younger!"

So ... we began with moving things into storage that we planned to take back to Montana this time. One thing we learned is that the more room you have the more things you accumulate so we ended up renting a 16 foot truck from Budget Rental.  Their prices were a lot cheaper than U-Haul or any other company we contacted and the truck was very adequate for what we needed to move.  We also rented a tow dolly to tow the car on.  That way Susan and I could trade off on the driving and make better time.  We also closed out the storage unit we had. We're trying to reduce the clutter in our lives both here and in MT.

We had a couple of more things to do before we left so we got them finished up.  One was a fence repair project but the Park Service didn't drop the materials off where they were supposed to (we don't have a clue where they put them!) and we already had the rental truck scheduled so they'll have to do that one themselves or wait for us to get back next year.

The other thing was to clean out the motor home and put a new master cylinder on it.  The master cylinder shouldn't have been a big job but it took me awhile to get it done.  One problem was a lack of tools.  If I had had a cement floor, jacks and my air ratchet I'd have finished it within an hour at most.  But when you work on the dirt with hand tools only it takes a bit longer.  But it's finished now so we have reliable brakes again on the motor home.

Susan went to work on the motor home removing the things we were taking home and packing up and mouse proofing the things we left in it.  I cleaned out the storage compartments leaving only the tools I needed there.  Susan loaded up the car several times for our trips into town to the storage unit. Finally it all came together and we were ready to hit the road.

One of our trips to storage.  We were organizing things in the storage unit and decided to take a break.  Susan's phone battery was low so she set up the portable RAV - 15 solar panels to charge her phone while she used it.  We carry one of these and one set of  Goal Zero 7.5 panels with us in the vehicle at all times.  We have three of the RAV - 15's and two of the Goal Zero 7.5's.  Either does a fine job of recharging our cell phones and tablets.

Scott got a "bubble machine."  It's battery operated and you fill the reservoir with soap then turn it on.  A "wagon wheel" arrangement of hoops is turned by a battery powered motor.  As they turn the hoop ends drop into the reservoir.  When they come back out of it they are rotated over a vent with a fan blowing underneath it.  The air blowing through puts out hundreds of bubbles.  It will keep small children occupied for quite a while.  A calm day works best!  

Las Vegas smog!  We had to go to Vegas to get our truck and do some final shopping.  We stopped at Harbor Freight Tools for ramps.  We waited over 30 minutes for them to find the ramps (to load the ATV) I wanted but they never did.  So we left there without the ramps and made the rounds of Walmart and Costco.  One of the Costco stores there has lots of drinks and we wanted to stock up on Mean Bean coffee drinks for the trip and to have on hand in MT.  We bought several cases to take with us.  After that we headed for Budget Rental to pick up our truck.  That was uneventful as was the trip back to the camper.  We still needed some ramps though so after dropping off the truck at the motor home we drove back to Vegas in the car to buy some ramps.  I chose different ramps and they actually found them in the back room so we paid for them and headed back to the lake.

Odie knew we were getting ready to hit the road so she made it a point to stay underfoot.

One the road again!  Scott likes to travel which is really good since we do so much of it.

I believe this was taken in Utah.  Utah has a lot of places we want to explore and we plan on spending more time there in the future.

Home in Montana again. Those familiar with snow country will recognize the tall post circled in the background.  When you see these it means go south in winter!

We are within 175 miles of home here! That was a welcome sight!

Well ... we had so much to do when we got home and everything took far longer than planned.  We had just pulled into the driveway when I spotted a gopher in my garden area so I grabbed one of my crossbows and a blunt arrow and ended his hole digging, crop eating career ... permanently!   That was just the first of our opportunities to increase our patience.

Our two youngest kids and one son-in-law helped us unload the truck which was very much appreciated.  We put everything in the living room except for the outdoor stuff so then we had a living room stuffed full of things we needed to find a place for in an already over stuffed cabin and storage buildings.  Susan has been very busy putting things away.  We are going to have several loads going to thrift stores.

Second item was that we needed to find and ATV for Susan.  This is where living away from populated areas sucks.  We spent two days in Kalispell before we located a suitable machine for her.  It's a Yamaha 350 bear, full time 4wd and it's in great shape and works good.  But there's more to the story ...

We looked at a couple of dealerships and the last one had a nice new 300 cc ATV we liked.  Susan took it on a test drive and when she got back we stood next to a pontoon boat talking to the salesman.  Scott was, of course, climbing on the pontoon boat. I got annoyed with the salesman (a young guy) who kept moving into my line of vision because I was watching Scott instead of him.  (I guess salesmen think it's important to have potential customers make eye contact?)  Anyway, I was really getting annoyed the last time he did it and as soon as he sidestepped again I heard a thump then Scott was crying very hard.  He'd fallen off the side of the boat to the pavement landing square on his lower back and butt.  He calmed down after a few minutes but still hurt so we took him to the emergency room to have him checked out.

After poking, prodding, and having him do stretches and bends they pronounced him healed and sent him home.  Okay, it was more detailed than that and they did a good job checking him out (two doctors and three different nurses) and determined that no bones were broken and probably no internal injuries.  Scott was feeling better by the minute so he took off his doctor "costume" and we left with instructions on what to watch for and to have a follow-up visit with his pediatrician if anything looked wrong.

Our next stop was McDonalds because he wanted to play in play land and we were hungry.  So fifteen minutes out of the emergency room he was playing on the equipment in McDonalds with other kids.  The recuperative ability of children is amazing!  That was on the first day of our ATV search.  The second day we answered an ad for the Yamaha and bought it.  We still hadn't turned in the rental truck and it had unlimited mileage available so we used it to transport the ATV home.  Then we drove it back and turned it in to the rental place.  We still needed to drive the car back 70 miles to home.  That was another long day!

The next saga was our internet.  I drove into Eureka to upgrade our internet service.  We got home on Sunday and on Monday morning I was in at the telephone company to have the internet upgraded to the highest level we can get.  It was slow and we kept getting a "no internet access" on our computers.  It was late in the day by then so first thing the next morning I called tech support and they did their thing which didn't help and they forwarded a repair order to the phone company.  They did some things and told us it was fixed.  It wasn't!  So we again went through tech support who Passed the buck to the phone company.  We needed to go to Kalispell again on another issue which meant we were gone all day (more about that trip on the next post).  Got home, still no internet!!!!

After almost a week of screwing around we finally have as good a WiFi as we can get at our current location.  But, that took place after the 20th so I'll tell more about that and my emergency room visit in the next installment.

Thanks for reading!

April 10, 2016 Power boats, Rain and Desert Flowers.

We are approaching our final week here in Nevada (at least for awhile) and are finishing up some projects we began a few weeks ago.  Of course we are still reserving time for having fun too!

A friend of ours had his power boat here and took us out for a ride.  Needless to say we covered more of the lake in a couple of hours than we could have done in days in our kayaks.  One one open section of the lake Scott got to take a hand at the wheel.  He was thrilled to say the least and absolutely confident that he could pilot the boat at least as well as we did (and maybe better).  He did pretty well but I don't think his skill level is up to docking it yet.

Ours boys in green were at it again that day.  This one did a couple of rounds then dropped some large things out of the plane.  We had a good view from the dock while taking the boat back out of the water.

Scott was having fun making "sea-monster" tracks on the dock.

We never seemed to get enough time in the pool!  This section is a lot like spending time in a Jacuzzi.  The water almost feels like a massage!

We were told by a local friend that the desert doesn't handle rain well!  Years ago we thought that the porous sand would let the water sink into the ground immediately but that isn't the case.  There's enough clay mixed in that the water can stand for days after a rain.  Of course it can also run off in great enough volumes to create floods.  This was in front of our motor home.

Scott, of course, took full advantage of the water to have some fun.  The boots were helpful for about the first two steps.  Then he was in over their tops.

He was still having fun though.

One of the projects we finished up was repairing some fence around a local spring.  These are scattered across the desert and easy to find if you know what to look for.  The fence was to keep the burros from harassing the Desert Bighorns that came here for water.  The bucket is about half full of fence clips for steel posts.

On the hike in we were treated to a dazzling array of wild flowers.  The colors on desert plant flowers are so brilliant it's like God is giving them a special favor to make up for their harsh growing environment.  I've labelled those we know the name of.

These are similar to the Sahara Mustard but these are okay.

Indigo Bush

Hedge hog and creosote.

Cholla

Hedgehog cactus

Creosote

Grapes

Baby birds in their nest made inside an old spool of barb wire hanging on a fence post.

There are literally hundreds of other flowers that didn't make it in this post.

It always amazes me when people see no beauty in nature.  Even the most harsh environments have their own special kind of beauty.

Thanks for looking!