Autumn 2020

Dave grilling at North Beach in McCall: our last night in town before going to work.  Our friends stopped by to see us off and we even got to see a visiting Antarctic friend, Julie Grundberg.  Outdoor, distanced get togethers with our friends have been a true blessing this past year.

Blossoms in downtown Boise.  A short walk before our flights up to work.

Wassmuth Center for Human Rights park in Boise.  Great place to relax, admire & eat.

One of our favorites, in general and especially during the pandemic, a New Zealand meat pie to go. Our absolute favorite in Boise on our trips through has been saying hi to Julie & Adam on their porch.

On my flight south from work, a particularly gorgeous sunset in Alaska.

Sunset from the airplane hasn't ever looked as stunning to me.

At home in McCall.

Tamarack Resort's village construction is coming along beautifully!

It screeched to a halt in 2009 when they filed for bankruptcy.

We've enjoyed checking on their progress.  Seeing the siding go up and look more and more like a Swiss village than an abandoned Tyvek covered ghost town.

There are already several small food shops in here, a bar and a market.

This time at our property, I got a little too ahead of myself as you can see.

We were lucky and got to see the sheepherders move their flock from the mountains.

It's such a neat sight, the road being totally engulfed by sheep.  

Excited to burn!

The beautiful tamarack trees and filtered mountain view from the top of the sweet, winding footpath that Dave put in to access our huckleberry bushes at the top of our property.

On a solo trip to Riggins, I collected some beautiful rocks in the river.

One of our favorite getaways when it's cold in McCall because it's usually 20 degrees warmer.

Payette lake in McCall.

With a nod back to our wedding, we like baking these mini-egg tarts.

Look closely and gasp at Dave up on a ladder.  He did so much work making our property fire wise.

One of our favorite bike ride destination points goes to Lake Fork on the rail trail, then along a drainage ditch to this view.

Masked for the city portion of our bike ride.  

Gorgeous sunset on Payette Lake in McCall.

One of our favorite walks in town takes us on the paved path to the airfield.  Across the street is this park by the Payette river.

A short hike in Ponderosa State Park.

We voted by mail and celebrated the opportunity.

       

Autumn was true to its nature: colorful, beautiful with incredibly drastic changes.  In looking back through all the photos, I've seen that in the fall we cooked and baked a lot!  We did heaps of yard-work at our property with Dave limbing trees and trail-building and me planting sage and burning the piles. We voted!  We monitored and took joy in Tamarack Resort's construction progress, and even more joy and excitement in the construction of the town home we purchased and moved into! (I'll make a separate blog entry with those photos.) I lost a younger friend at work, hit a deer and we each had to move into our new place alone as we had been on different shifts since August which sometimes overlapped and sometimes didn't.  It was a scenic fall, and thinking back I cannot fathom how we did so much, and yet realizing how our biggest smiles were on the days we did have together, I feel lucky and blessed.  

Late Summer & Anniversary

We rode our bikes on the rail trail as well as down to the river a few times to see the fish.

Dave cooked a delicious breakfast on our anniversary and surprised me with these gorgeous flowers.

We hiked up to Deep Lake off of Warren Wagon Road.  This was our first time on this hike!

It was a short and easy trail with incredible views the whole way and a crystal clear lake.

We thankfully grilled a lot this summer.  Dave made the most incredible meats and we discovered that these small peppers taste like honey after they're grilled.  Also enjoyed Delta's tip of grilled carrots!

Dave began building a huckleberry picking trail on the steep top corner of our property this summer while I was gone at work.  He put in days of brutal labor hauling huge rocks up in a wheelbarrow - a feat that required a running start every time.  He excavated a foot deep and hauled up gravel from the previous road that cuts our property.  It's shockingly long for a trail and is absolutely beautiful!

Some of the rocks along the winding trail up to the top of our property.  A beautiful labor of love.

This bike ride followed the rail trail down to the river and then we tried out the dirt roads along the BLM lands.  Really cool to see something new nearby.

This was a new to us hike: Lake Rock Lake.  It's an unofficial trail and the book discusses tarn and scree fields rich with marmots and pika.  We had no such luck, but did catch the first of autumn with the huckleberry bushes turning a bright red.

Blossoms at Sharlie's Garden off of Warren Wagon Road.

The Gardens are an incredibly peaceful place to visit and we try to go several times a summer.

Another grilling feat: homemade hamburgers!  They were so good!  And patio dining is always a summer treat!

We celebrated our 20th Anniversary (5th Wedding) in the tiny town of Lowman, Idaho.

We drove the unpaved forest service roads to get there, in order to see new country and avoid construction on the main thoroughfare.  The road winds along the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.  We had the great fortune of coming across a flock of sheep that was being moved.

Our original sightseeing plan was to visit an artist town in the Sawtooth mountains called Atlanta.  The fires in the area prohibited that, so we went to Idaho City instead, where I had been on a previous trip with Emily.  It's a fantastic historic gold mining town.  This is Lil's, the famous historic saloon, which was closed due to Covid.

We had sweeping views of the foothills and mountains across the way from the yurt we rented on Airbnb.  The yurts were only 6 months old and were located about a mile from some natural hot springs (Kirkham).  They are also just a short walk uphill from a pub/pizza place.  The whole town of Lowman has a population of 25 people (2018) and that's part of the charm that keeps bringing us back.  We stayed at the Sourdough Lodge there last year on our way to Stanley for a multi day backpacking trip.

We spent a lot of time on the yurt's patio admiring the scenery, reminiscing of past visits, drinking pink champagne and even playing scrabble.  Dave tinted this photo green as a joke because we had differing ideas about what color the yurts are.  We had some delicious Trader Joe's pasta dinners as well as a legitimately delicious pizza from the Pub below.  This is the second anniversary that we've celebrated in a rustic setting with hot springs and I think it would be incredible to keep the tradition going!

Downtown Idaho City is very reminiscent of the old gold mining towns in central California.

Our view from the patio: another one of the yurts and the gorgeous mountains.

One day when the wind cleared the smoke from the fires, we drove to Grand Jean.  What a beautiful place!  We had been there in 2006 and had to leave our campground because of a forest fire nearby.  We ended up hiking to a fire lookout in the Whitecloud Mountains instead on that trip.  But Grand Jean is definitely on our short list of places to visit.  There is nothing but the Sawtooth Lodge and a campground there.  And this incredible view!

The river and view of the Sawtooth Mountains from the road to Grand Jean.

The Sacajawea natural hot springs, like gems, dot the river along the way to Grand Jean.  Maybe because of the fires or because it's such a long way away from other tourist places, we and another couple had our choice of six pools in this location.

This photo is from the upper pool at the Kirkham hot springs near the yurts.  What an incredible treat to be out in nature this stunning and have our choice of pools.  We soaked in this one on our last day, but on our first we chose one closer to the entrance.  There is also a main pool below this next to the river.  All for just a parking fee or free for those with the National Parks Pass.

The last night before heading up to work we had an impromptu get together with our friends at Fireman's Beach on Payette Lake.  We all brought lawn chairs so we could keep our distance.  Dave grilled sausages and bell peppers.  We got to catch up with our friends Colin & Delta, Sean & Emily and an Antarctic guest who took this photo, Julie Grundberg, who was the McMurdo Area Manager.  A great send of, in sandals with friends, to work where winter and the snow had arrived.