Pat, Vaughan, Amelia, Roger, and me overlooking Paulina Lake on the Newberry Caldera

Five years later we are in Bend again with the same cast of characters sans R and Dona. Pat still lives here, but in a new house, and is still a gracious host and great ambassador for her community.  Roger and Gail again came out from Portland.

We actually camped at La Pine State Park, which was a little further south than we imagined, since it was another fifteen minutes to the campground after turning off of the 97.  When we first pulled in we were both quietly anxious as we kept driving and driving, both of us thinking the same thing but not saying it, where in the hell is the campground?  Are we on the correct road?

We originally contemplated boondocking, but it can get hot in this part of Oregon in July so we made reservations at La Pine.  La Pine is one of those rarities, a full hook up campground.  Not a big dollar RV Resort, or a RV Park where they line you up parking lot style, but a campground.

There are many obvious benefits to a full hook up campground, especially if you are there six days, but one of the biggest benefits in our book is no one is using a generator. Kids having fun is fine.  We actually enjoy watching them doing laps on their bikes around the campground, but generators are no bueno.  The noise is disruptive, the expensive Honda or Yamaha whisper generators aren’t too bad, but invariably someone has a 5,000 watt Champion generator or some other huge industrial one that can power an entire building.  It would be quieter camping on the shoulder of the I-15 in the Inland Empire.  That’s my version of the proverbial old man standing on his porch yelling at the kids to get off the grass.

It ended up being a smart move on our part not to boondock. It was the first time for us to fire up the furnace in the morning because it was 37 degrees and then on the same day crank the AC as the thermometer pushed past 90.

Five years later, Bend is a little larger and unless my memory is failing me again, it has a few more roundabouts, but it still has the never ending flowy single track trails it’s famous for, albeit, quite dusty and breweries everywhere.

Pat took Roger and us on two rides.  A 20 mile ride with a decent amount of climbing around the Newberry Caldera and then a 32 mile epic from Mt. Bachelor to Bend.  We also did a couple of rides by ourselves, the trail system around La Pine State Park and the famous Ben, Pinedrops, Whoops, Phils loop.  Pat and her beau, Vaughan, also hosted dinner one evening in her beautiful backyard.  We’ve been truly blessed this summer to meet up with friends on most of our stops.

We rarely pay to have someone shuttle us.  The Mt Bachelor to Bend ride is only the fourth time, (and we didn’t even pay, Pat used her punch card) but we always seem to get a good story out of the drivers. They all seem to be cut from the same cloth. In Downieville, the driver referred to the Tahoe trails as “doinky doink.” A decade later we still reference that phrase when we do a really easy ride. Then there’s the famous Shuttle Bob in Kernville. He gives all the ladies a gift and a hard time to the guys. This trip we had Todd from Cog Wild. Amelia was sitting shotgun and got to hear about all the places he lived, in between listing places he drops the hippopotamus joke on her.

“Do you know why you never see hippos hiding in the trees here?” pause… “Because they hide really well!”

Full hook up

What’s wrong with a morning nap with your dog?  Some people think it’s funny and take a bunch of pictures of you.

The lunch spot overlooking East Lake on the Newberry Caldera

Common Blue Butterfly on Amelia’s hand, doesn’t that mean good luck?

Pinedrops

Pussypaws

Rock art

Cog Wild shuttle van, that’s Pat and Roger on the right

A few miles from where Todd dropped us off, Mt Bachelor in the background, bug spray in hand, the girls are ready for the mosquito zone.

The most brilliant Paintbrush any of us have ever seen

As you can tell by the expression on Amelia’s face it was a barefoot cold water crossing.  And no time for dilly dallying around when putting your shoes back on because the mosquitoes would get you.  Photo courtesy of Roger

Action shot courtesy of Pat

Sara the killer got a chipmunk.  Amelia got the assist.

Sulpher Flower Buckwheat with a calm section of the Deschutes River.

Washington Lily

Benham Falls on the Deschutes

Bye bye Bend

You don’t ride over rivers on cool bridges in San Diego.

On the trail Greg is almost always waiting for me. Mostly he is out in front, but occasionally on a technical section or a blazing downhill he says, “Amelia you get out in front.”  But on climbs, I get out of his way.

In case you didn’t know, he rides a single speed.  He talked me into riding a single speed and I did it for a couple of years.  I got stronger, but not any skinnier because as the saying goes: one gear, more beers.  Now I ride a full suspension geared bike and I don’t drink beer, but sadly I still am not any skinnier.  But I digress.

So, he rides a single speed and he’s a guy which means he rides faster than me which equals waiting for me.  On new dirt (code for new trails) he stops more often, “To keep you in my sights, Amelia.”

On our first ride in Ketchum about half way through the ride I came upon Greg waiting for me and said, “It sounds like there are people ahead of us singing.”

Not ten minutes later, there he is waiting again. “Listen, it’s not people singing, it’s cows mooing,” he said.

Half way up some steep ass grueling switchbacks that had me panting so hard I couldn’t even register what Greg was saying to me. (BTW, he does that to me a lot…talks to me at the top of a climb where he has caught his breath, but I am completely out of breath doubled over panting like a dog.)  Anyway, I catch my breath and look to where he is pointing.  Sheep.  Tons of sheep.  And of course, there was literally one black sheep.  On a steep ass mountain.  Bleating.  Eating.  Bleating.  Maneuvering over the steep ass terrain as if it were a walk in the park.  All the while bleating!  We laughed at our discovery and their funny bleating.  Then we mimicked them as we rode away to finish my favorite ride of our summer trip so far.

On other rides at the trailheads we read about the sheep, but did not get any pictures of the sheep on the trail.

Sheep facts

Greg waited until I caught my breath to take this picture.

Our best boondock spot yet

Boy oh boy did we stumble upon an awesome spot.  It’s so good we can’t tell you where it is, except that it’s in the Sun Valley area. 🙂  We had done our due diligence, researched boondock sites for the area, got on google earth to get a clear picture, and defined our top four spots.  The spot we landed on we didn’t even know about, but a fellow traveler, who took our first spot, told us about it.  While on the road, for the most part, it’s refreshing how good natured and kind hearted most people are.  The same thing happened to us at the Valley of the Gods, so we naturally try to do the same, we’ll tell you in person about this site, but we are not going to send it out on the world wide web.

Again we shared the enjoyment of friends, Doña, originally from San Diego, now living in Boise, came out to visit for a couple of days.  And Acomb and his girl Lynn, flew out from SoCal to spend his birthday with us.

As for the mountain biking, there’s a crazy amount of steep climbs, breathtaking views,  well marked trails, and a lot of gulches.  And we had a couple of cold mornings for July, cold like 28 degrees outside and 43 degrees in the Airstream!  And lucky Amelia, she saw a Pileated Woodpecker.  The biggest woodpecker we have in North America.

One of the best signs ever.  This was behind Castle’s Corner Exxon Station in Carey, Idaho.

Someone looks happy on her first ride in the Sun Valley area, Fox Creek.

Evening pic of our awesome spot.  The sunset was around 9:30pm and it would be light until 10pm.  Because of the steep mountains around us we would be in the shade at 7:30pm.

This deer seemed oblivious to us, walking around outside of our dining room window.

Adams Gulch ride, right from the get go it was climb, climb, climb.

Doña & Amelia.  I don’t know if it’s true or not but rumor has it they were the first women mountain bikers in San Diego.

A view of Sun Valley Ski Resort from the White Cloud Trail

Loving our public lands

Our spot was way, way down in this valley.

Amelia on the Grinder Trail in Galena.

Senate Meadows, Galena

The creek below our spot, I can’t name it because that would give away our spot.

116 years between us and a lot of stories

Lynn and Amelia, spring chickens compared to their old men

You can take the girl out of Clairemont, but you can’t take the school crossing guard out of the girl.  True story, Amelia was on safety patrol at Longfellow Elementary in Clairemont.  Ketchum has flags at many of the crosswalks, so we were all having fun.  Some of the rich folks in their fancy SUVs had no sense of humor.

Having fun

Amelia collects heart rocks, so we had to get a picture of Heart Rock Ranch

Squeezing out of the Buffalo Caves

It was nice to get Idaho Falls in the rear view mirror.  Heading towards Arco we saw antelope on both sides of the road and the Three Buttes were getting larger.

One of my classic childhood stories involved the Craters.  My brother and I, to say the least, weren’t the biggest fans of our paternal grandparents, Beaumont and Mildred.  It wasn’t until later we found out Mildred wasn’t even our dad’s mom.  They always seemed to be around, Sacramento, Idaho Falls, and San Diego, they were close by.  They wanted to see their grandkids, but when it came to taking us someplace they could only handle one of us at a time.

On this particular occasion I was the unlucky one they wanted to take on an overnight trip to the Craters.  It was a hot summer day and Beaumont had the AC going full blast in his blue Chevrolet Caprice.  Both of them were smoking cigarettes like chimneys, with the front windows cracked just a little for the smoke to escape, but plenty of it still engulfed me in the backseat.  We spent the night at a motel in Arco, where they smoked in the room until it was lights out.  The next morning we had breakfast at a diner, where they smoked straight through the meal, and then afterwards the waitress kept refilling their coffee cups and they kept smoking and sipping.  I remember just wanting to yell, “Let’s go!”

We did the Craters and and then came home in the afternoon.  Something happened and they had to leave which meant Eric didn’t have to go on an overnight trip with them.  He was ecstatic about it, but acted like he was bummed in front of them.  To make up for it they gave him $50 cash!  Once they left Eric was running around laughing and shaking the money.

The park is in great shape.  The rangers and volunteers do a wonderful job. At over 750,000 acres it’s big, but feels small because of what you can actually access.  It is perfect for a two day visit, especially if you are lucky enough to grab one of the first come first serve spots in the 42 unit campground, which we did.  The resiliency and stark contrast between the black lava and living plants is awesome.  It’s an other worldly experience.

You are allowed to go unguided in any of the five caves, you just need a permit, which is free and amounts to only answering a few questions.  We took a group guided tour.  Which is something we usually do not do, but may have to more often because it was really fascinating.  The Ranger did a great job talking about the volcanic activity and different types of lava, how they formed, and answering questions.  After the guided tour of Indian Tunnel  we did three more caves on our own.  Well, really two and a half, we started to go into Boy Scout Cave but got the heebie-jeebies about how dark it was and how low you had to crawl through some of the passages.  The iPhone flashlights are only so good, we would’ve felt more comfortable with our 800 lumens mountain biking lights.

My favorite was the Beauty Cave.  It was darker than dark, but no low ceilings, and at the very back there was ice!  I still can’t believe they let you trounce around in the caves unguided.  Even more amazing, we never saw any graffiti.

Craters of the Moon, a really different place worth visiting.

Caves make me think of Tom Sawyer.

It can certainly be spooky in the caves if you let your mind get the best of you.

Cinder Garden of Dwarf Buckwheat, Dwarf Purple Monkeyflower, and a few Primrose Monkeyflowers

Primrose Monkeyflower, the itty bitty tiny little flowers are something else.

Dwarf Purple Monkeyflower

Dwarf Buckwheat

Huge pressure ridge

Cushion Wild Buckwheat

Wax Currant

Limber pinecone

It looks like someone splattered yellow paint all over this lichen covered rock.

The hard to photo Blue Copper Butterfly on a Cushion Wild Buckwheat

My two girls enjoying the morning sun.

Atop the Inferno Cone looking east

Southern view

Blazing Star

I once lived in this house.

As a child you kind of live in your own world and are oblivious to your surroundings.  If you are lucky you’re just a kid having fun, that was me in Idaho Falls.  We moved there in the middle of 5th grade and left for San Diego at the end of 8th grade, what I consider the formative years.  My recollections of that time are a lot of camping, fishing, hunting, learning to ski, and picking wild asparagus along the irrigation canals.

My Grid Kid football team (just like Pop Warner, but for some reason it was called Grid Kid in Idaho?) got to play in the Southeastern Idaho championship game on AstroTurf at the Idaho State University mini dome in Pocatello.  This is when AstroTurf was a big deal.  Our little league baseball had four teams.  The blue hats, light blue hats, red hats, and green hats.  I kid you not!  I was on the green hats.

I learned to play the trumpet and was even in the marching band.  I also remember the biting cold and having to walk to the school bus stop.  One time we all waited and waited and the bus never showed up, so we went home and school ended up being canceled.  The busses could not start in 20 below zero weather that day.

During the winter, the city would make ice skating rinks on the empty lots in the neighborhoods.  They would just snowplow the snow to form a rink and then the water truck would come by to fill it, it would freeze, and we would skate.

The last time I was in Idaho Falls was 1994, and before that 1978.  In the 44 years since we moved a lot of changes have occurred in the world and Idaho Falls.  My childhood memory of Idaho Falls was not meshing with what I was seeing and feeling.  I guess it’s silly to think it would, but it still brought me down.

It seemed like a clean, neat little Mormon town when we lived there.  What I saw was run down, dirty, and a rough crowd with a bad element.  I’m sure it didn’t help that our first stop was downtown to find a place for dinner.  Driving there we passed payday loan stores, vape shops, smoke shops, liquor stores, and seedy bars with rooms above.  Maybe that stuff was always there, minus the vape shops, but I don’t think so.

After dinner we drove down E 17th St.  The farmer’s field my brother and I used to walk through to go to Albertson’s to eat free donut holes (that’s right free, they hadn’t yet figured out yet they could sell them) was now a mile of strip centers and a Sam’s Club.  Amazingly enough the Albertson’s was still there.

All the old houses on the north side of the street looked worse than their age.  The backstops for the little league fields where still behind the old KID tv/radio building, but you could tell the fields haven’t been used in years.

I called my dad and told him what I saw, he confirmed my thoughts.  Back when we lived there it was a clean, neat little Mormon town.  I had plans to see all my old haunts but after one evening I saw enough, so we stayed around the Ririe area.  And I worked on getting my head screwed back on.  We didn’t go back to IF, we just drove through on our way to the next stop.

Field of mustard seed heading into Ririe

Sara chilling while we were setting up

Sunset over Ririe Reservoir

We did a short ride at this trailhead.

This part of Idaho is not known for mountain biking trails.  There’s a lot of shared use with ATV’s.

Osprey are a dime a dozen along the Snake River.  So many, that special platforms are built for their nests.  This couple was making a colorful statement.

Where I learned to ski, Kelly Canyon Ski Resort.  I can’t believe they are still in business!  It hasn’t changed a bit, still a rinky dink four lift ski area, heck still the same old slow chairs.  I guess 40 minutes from Idaho Falls is what keeps them in business.

An evening stroll on one of the docks at Ririe Reservoir.

Juniper Campground, a Bonneville County Park.  It was really quite nice, full hook ups, spacious and no mosquitoes.  It was also quiet mid week, but apparently it fills up during the weekend with loud water enthusiasts using Ririe Reservoir.

Utah’s state flower in Idaho, a Sego Lily

Teton Mountain Range

The Tetons are truly mesmerizing.

The National Park Service has a real dilemma on their hands.  The most popular parks are being loved to death.  The crowds overwhelm the roads, facilities, and trails.  On our one hike, we saw two trails that were closed due to damage because of heavy use and were being repaired, so the sign said.  You try not to let the masses impact your enjoyment, but it does.  The idea of getting out in nature, at least for us, has been to escape the crowds and detox from the hustle and bustle of everyday living.  I don’t know what the answer is to the problem, but they need to figure something out before we ruin these national treasures.

When we were planning this trip, even though Yellowstone is only 30 miles away, we decided to skip it because of the crowds.  I’ve been there many times as a kid growing up in Idaho Falls, and Amelia once, but she was so young she only has vague recollections.  Perhaps when she retires we’ll go off season, if there’s such a thing as an off season then.

Just like when we were at the Grand Canyon and Bryce, we boondocked right outside of the park boundary on national forest land.  Our site was just okay.  It’s become a popular boondock spot because of websites like campendium, so you’ll never be alone.  The dirt road is heavily traveled and dusty.  But the reason why we cut our stay short was the mosquitoes!  If West Nile Virus is still a thing, then we most certainly got it.  Our spoiled San Diego skin is not used to being penetrated by mosquitoes.  We must be a delicacy the way they were coming after us.  In the morning and evening, while taking shelter in the Airstream, the mosquitoes were outside clinging onto the screens.  I have no doubt those little rat bastards knew we were inside.

Serendipitously our paths crossed with the Lynch family and they camped right next to us.  It was a real treat to spend time with them.  Jim used to lay tile with my brother and we haven’t seen him and his family since we left Mammoth.

A wiseman (my cousin in Tahoe) once told me there are only two seasons in the mountains, white and orange.  He wasn’t kidding.  We hit numerous one lane flagman situations on the drive from Park City to the Tetons.

Our spot with a beautiful field of cinquefoils and geraniums.

My favorite shot: this was our first evening about 30 yards from our campsite.

Old lady jonesing on a rawhide.

The hike to Hidden Falls with the Lynch family

Me and Jim

The Lynch family and Amelia at Hidden Falls

Play the above video!

Trying to recapture the famous Ansel Adams photograph.

Amelia, ankle deep in the Snake

Love the sign, but it doesn’t matter.  People don’t pay attention.  It’s frustrating as hell to come up on someone, yell at them, and get zero response.

Amelia without earbuds on the Putt Putt trail.  There wasn’t anything putt putt about it.

Driving way from our spot