August in Tahoe & McCall

We visited my family in early August and our first sightseeing location was the NV Railroad Museum in Carson City, which is an amazing place with a lot of beautiful artifacts.

The renovated trains are gorgeous!

Some weekends they take the trains outside of the building and one can ride them.

This luxurious model was used to transport business executives.

The inside.

We went to the Hot August Nights antique trailer show.

It was fun to see the Hot August Nights historic cars all over the city.

This one was my favorite; shiny and pink inside and out.

We spent a few days in South Lake Tahoe enjoying the beaches, trails and sights.

We hiked along the shore of Echo Lake for a beautiful view.

Echo Lake family photo.

We tried out different beaches in the area.  What a peaceful place!

We found the fish display and marsh hike, which lent itself to incredible mountain views of Mt. Tallac where we hiked with Tibor, Dora and the girls a couple years ago.

Back in Idaho, we went on some late summer hikes, including this one to Boulder Lake.

We visited Tamarack to see the new owner's construction progress.  Scaffolding is up!

The hike with Cynthia and Delta to Grass Mountain Lake had incredibly expansive views.

View from Williams Peak Lookout hike.

Williams Peak with helicopter resupply.

Williams Peak Fire Lookout.

Barbecue and beach time at Firemans' point on Payette Lake; a perfect summer thing to do.

What a scenic spot to grill! Wagyu steaks and bacon wrapped jalapenos.

We surprised our family with a visit in early August after the terrible news of my sweet Grandma's passing.  I don't quite have the words to relate how deeply she will be missed and how gracefully she touched our lives.  I think of her laugh often, along with her strength and kindness.

The trip to Tahoe was beautiful and a great way to take long walks and have nice dinners with my parents.  Also to see a bit of Lake Tahoe more closely.  Our time back in McCall was spent hiking and biking and relaxing with friends.  Love you all!

Idaho & Oregon in July

After my trip to Reno and California and Dave's extra week at work, we came home to McCall to beautiful weather.  Our only paddle-boarding trip this summer was fantastic!  We went with our friends Colin and Delta up the slowly moving "meanders" portion of the river that drains into Payette Lake.

We had dinner outside at the Chinese restaurant, which always has the best lake view!

We caught the bear grass flower blossoms this July off of Warren Wagon Road on the hike to Josephine Lake.  It's always worth the trip seeing entire hillsides covered by these gorgeous flowers.

Bear grass blossom up close.

Bear grass with the trail in the background.

View down the valley.

Dave and I are always thrilled when we catch bear grass season in early July.  Also morel mushroom season in late April/early May, huckleberry season in late July and the Tamarack trees turning golden brown in late October.

Love this guy and this hike!

I had perfect timing on this photo of a deer I startled.

After just a week at home, we drove to eastern Oregon to meet up with Dave's cousin Amy and her family for a camping and hiking trip in the Steens mountains.  We met up at a hot spring resort/campground in the valley.

We visited some historical towns, did some scenic drives and hiked in the mountains.

We caught wildflower season up at the higher elevations.  There were red and yellow paintbrush and mountainsides turned purple by the wild lupines.

Hiking and enjoying the view.

Dave looking down below at the Alvord desert.

We drove down to the desert and got to actually drive on the salt flats, which was so neat!

Rob, Zach, Amy, Ildi and Dave. We had a wonderful time filled with laughter, chats by the fire before nightfall, delicious meals, hammock napping and hiking.  We are so happy we did this trip together!  I'm really looking forward to the 2nd annual get together next year.  Luckily there are a ton of gorgeous State and National Monuments where we can meet up halfway.

The desert was a perfect place to teach Zach about driving since we were the only car out there.

We saw some wild horses up really close. They took an interest in Dave as they walked past.

We finally celebrated Dave's Birthday the night before we flew up to work at an Airbnb in Boise.  Love you all and thanks for looking at our photos!

Reno & Redding

I flew from Alaska to Reno just in time to celebrate the 4th of July with my parents.  The fireworks are launched from their local park, so we got to walk to the event!

We went to a food festival in downtown, and also a classical music concert in the park.

The springtime flowers near their local marsh were incredibly beautiful!

My favorite place to walk in town; Galena Park.  Plenty of Ponderosa Pines.

We took a road trip up to Redding, California, where we stayed at an Airbnb in downtown.  Our first stop was the Sundial Bridge at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park on the Sacramento River.

I really loved feeding the parakeets!

Sacramento River at sunset.

Lilly in the Botanic Gardens.

We went to see the Shasta Caverns, which starts with a boat ride across Shasta Lake.

View of Shasta Lake from the mouth of the caverns.

Stalagtites in Shasta Caverns.

Cave bacon stalagtites in the background. Really gorgeous formations for a small cave.

We walked across the Shasta Dam for a great view of the lake and mountains nearby.

I had a wonderful July visit to Reno - thank you very much for everything Szulok!  Dave unfortunately couldn't join us for this one because he had to work an extra week.  California is always full of beautiful sights, and Redding was definitely worth the drive!  Love you.