We Committed to SUMMER!

Bear grass flowers were in full blossom this year after the heavy spring rains.  These ones were up near Burgdorf Hot Springs where we camped for a couple nights with Sean & Emily.  We went on two gorgeous hikes up there.

Corn lillies!  I was trying to take a photo similar to what's on our friend Todd's wall.

Beautiful hike near Jeanette Trail past Burgdorf Hot Springs.

So many wildflowers; the pink ones are shooting stars.

From our hike near Burgdorf.

We drove up to this fire lookout and climbed up to get an incredible view.

Our first barbecue grill!  And I got planters and flowers in Coeur D'Alene for our porch.

We went on a big hike from the Boulder Lake trail area and saw 10 lakes!

The day before his birthday on a beautiful hike!

One of several lakes up in that trail system.

Rewarded with an expansive view and lots of glacier lillies in full bloom.

Boulder Lake

Ferns and other beautiful plants on the Boulder Lake Trail

We bought a 1977 ambulance from our neighbor Lilla's son (who is a small airplane mechanic, so we knew it was taken care of) and we're going to use it as a camper van to travel around the Southwest this winter.

Got some paddleboards from the previous birthday and Christmas monies that we supplemented. They're inflatable and a lot of fun!

This first trip was on the meanders, near the north shore of our Payette Lake.  Really easy to see the fish because the water is so clear.

Flowers did well largely because our kind neighbors water them when we're away.

Paddleboarding on Upper Payette Lake

Among the water lillies at Upper Payette Lake off Warren Wagon Road.

Another hike in the Boulder Lake Area, this time from Louie Lake (photographed here with Jughandle Mountain in the background) over to the Boulder Lake trail.

We timed this hike perfectly for the lupines in full blossom!

You can see Dave hiking among the flowers here.

A yellow spider on a flower on the French Creek Trail off Warren Wagon Road.

Yet another hike that was new to us, and we were excited to see how lush it was!

Sharlie's Garden was in glorious bloom!

Mom and Dad came to visit us, and drove such a long day to get to us.  This is at our property, after driving around Lake Cascade with them.

Posing at the downtown bear statue in McCall.  We had a lot of fun playing disc golf at the course and bocce ball on the beach.  Also went on the walk to the river to see the fish and had a great dinner with a lake view at the Chinese restaurant. We went on a lake cruise and had a wonderful meal at the Mexican restaurant at the edge of town.

We went searching for huckleberries on the French Creek trail and found some!

Our favorite day was a long afternoon spent at North Beach.  We all tried paddleboarding, played catch, barbecued, sat in the hammock and had a picnic dinner.  What a great summer day!

Thank you very much for visiting Szulok!  Such wonderful memories, love you!

This is on the rail to trail path that goes from McCall to Lake Fork.  It's really scenic.  We tried it on our fat bikes that Dave just got for us.

That's me riding and Dave's great photography.

We paddleboarded on Little Payette lake also, off of Lick Creek Road.  It was a really windy day so we didn't stay out for a long time.  But great mountain views.  We also tried Rotary beach on Payette Lake and a few other trips on the meanders (river), including once with our friends Delta and Collin and saw a moose closeup on our return trip.

Dave checking out the beaches on the river.

Enjoying the view and beach chairs at Little Payette Lake.

We made a pact and decided that once we got our schedules lined up, we would fully commit to Summer!  That would mean waking up early and staying outside late and doing as many fun things as possible to make our summer last as long as possible.  We spent some cash to be able to do all those activities, but it really does seem like we've been stretching summer out with all the hiking, biking and paddleboarding that we've been doing.  And we're hoping the trend continues, for the rest of our times off in McCall as well as the trip down to the southwest that we've planned for this winter.  Basically we're going to keep renting out our condo and fly from work to wherever we end up parking our ambulance.  Hoping to see a lot more of the Southwest, especially Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Texas.  Might end up focusing mostly on the Arizona Trail (hiking and biking).  Thanks for looking at our pictures, love you!  Ildi & Dave

Alaska, Sierra Nevada & 50th Anniversary

We've had a whirlwind past four months!      

View from the top of Brundage Mountain.  Skiing after a month in Florida was interesting, going from summertime straight back into winter.  I got to go skiing with Jules from Antarctica at Brundage and spent some time with Karen from Marble Point who was passing through town too.

I drove to Big Sky Montana to go to a good friend's wedding.  Todd and I ski'd way up at the bowl!

Beth and I at the wedding.  It was a fun outdoorsy wedding with friends there from Antarctica as well as new friends from the reality tv show that Marshell was in (Alt for Norge).  It's been fun keeping in touch with some of those people over the past few months.

Marshell and Jake.  They looked amazing skiing around in this outfit!  Their photographer is someone who had worked for Mountain Life Photography in Whitefish!

I started working at Alaska Clean Seas on April 12th doing Spill Response.  It's a job I had been working on getting since Dave first went to work up in Alaska in 2012.  I got to see Dave for a few hours in Anchorage on my way up so we went to a delicious dinner. 

I got to drive around to a lot of different field sites on my first work hitch, including over the ice road out to Ooguruk.  At first glance, looked a lot like Antarctica.

A training exercise I got to attend to learn some winter tactics.

The second training exercise I got to go to.  Both were really big productions and took weeks to set up.  It was great to see the equipment in action.

After my first work hitch, I met Dave for only a day which we spent at Lake Tahoe.   But first we visited my parents and my Grandma.  I love the view from her new place!

The dam where all the big fish are in Tahoe City. We spent the night in an Airbnb cabin so that we could walk around and find all the secret beaches and walkways.  It was great to find more places!

Dave and I at Lake Tahoe.

After Dave left, my parents and I went up to Lake Tahoe for the day too.  We journeyed to South Lake Tahoe and found this beautiful hiking trail right next to the city.  It goes all the way out to the beach.  We also relaxed at the private beach that Dave and I found a couple years ago.

We took a scenic road trip to Bishop, California, Mono Lakes and Mammoth Lakes, because we hadn't seen much of that area before.  We stayed in the town of Mammoth Lakes to be able to see more of the area, and enjoyed an authentic Mexican dinner and hot tub at the hotel.

 

Each lake seemed stunningly beautiful!  And the area uncrowded.  Thank you very much Szulok, it was a Wonderful Trip!!!

Most of them were a short drive from the town or off of 584 (395S).

This is the base of the Mammoth Lakes ski resort.  I took this photo because we had ridden this gondola to the top of the mountain in the photo with Dave and my parents the last time we visited in the summer months and hiked around the top.  Incredible views, and in the summer, Devils Postpile National Monument is open and just a few minutes down this road.

This beautiful view is in Idaho south of Nampa on my drive back to McCall from Reno.

Beautiful McCall in the the springtime.  It rained nonstop all spring according to our Chiropractor. Definitely rained all the time I was in McCall, but here was a moment that the rains paused. Everything is gloriously green right now because of our spring.

I got to see Julie on my way through Boise, and spring was in full bloom there too.  These poppies were in her neighborhood...we were walking to lunch downtown.  It's so great to get to see them.

Back at work, my favorite thing there is always training.  There was one about the different capabilities of our pumps, and this one out at ENI doing an insitu burn.

 Flew to Indiana after my work hitch to spend time with Dave's parents before the 50th Anniversary celebration.  Got to see Dave's Aunt Lois, as well as Aunt Doris & Uncle Paul and meet Willow.

Had a great time celebrating Roger & Bette's 50th Anniversary at a lakefront cottage in N. Indiana.

We stayed at Lake Tippecanoe and enjoyed the lake and a lake cruise, meals and games together.

The celebration day was a wonderful barbecue and aunts & uncles drove up from Fort Wayne.

Happy 50th Anniversary.  It was a great celebration, thank you very much!!!

From Indiana, I went straight up to Coeur D'Alene in northern Idaho for a Heavy Equipment Operator Class.

At the very beginning of the class, I took some free time in the evening to hike near the lake.  A lot of the scenery looks like McCall.

Instead of the bear statue at the lakefront they have the moose!

I also got to go on a long hike up to a communications tower with our South Pole friend Johan. Afterwards he took me to dinner at some Antarctic friends' house.  It was serendipitous because I ended up house and cat sitting for them for a week while they cared for her dad.  This was the view!

Class was 160 hours of instruction crammed into 3 weeks instead of 4.  For me that was 6 am to midnight every day, with the textbooks we had to read and the internet modules we had to complete at home before class.

There were 19 of us students, selected from all around the country from over 700 applicants.  We stayed in a motel that we shared with another student, ate lunch at the Kootenai Technical Education campus and drove 25 minutes each way.

Besides the lectures we got to operate a wide array of machines.  My favorites were the ones that did the digging: the Excavator, mini excavator and the Backhoe photographed here and below.  It was an application I had never done before.

Digging a trench for class.

This was my favorite, the motor grader, and what I got to demonstrate the day we had contractors come to see what the class was about.  I got several job offers after they had seen me level out the field

This was the big road we built.  I was on the dozer this day flattening the piles of dirt that were being delivered by the haul truck.  We made it quite tall.

After finishing school, I drove back to McCall and had a glorious week of summertime before returning to work.  We did a lot of hiking and wildflower finding.  We are well and love and miss you all.  Thank you for looking at our photos.  Please come visit us soon!  Ildi & Dave