Day Trip to No Business

Oh what a day trip.... sixty five miles driven in five hours. Lisa and I took the kids up to No Business Lookout where they were treated to a tour and some Smokey stuff to take home. Then I decided to take the long route home through New Meadows, got off track and took the longer route which came out at the sawmill at Tamarack. Long, long day but Alice and Clyde were real troopers. From the top, there's a great panaromic view of the ranch; kind of fun to get above it all and see it all in its physical context.

Pearl, ID

Pearl isn't in the middle of nowhere, it is nowhere. There is no Pearl anymore. I drove through Pearl the other day, but all that really means is that I drove the Pearl Road from Horseshoe Bend to my dad's ranch. It's a great drive when it's not muddy.* Pearl was a booming mining town and at one time there were thousands employed in mines there, clear through the 1940s. The few buildings that remained were dismantled due to continued vandalism. With the price of gold now, there's renewed interest in reopening some of the mines. There are some tailings and mine shafts you can see from the road, but mostly now it's home to cows and wildflowers and a couple of folks who'd rather not be bothered. There's no cell service in the Pearl area and there aren't any land lines either. That's even true of my dad's ranch. He's 10 minutes from the Boise MSA (metropolitan statistical area) and can't call 911 with any sort of reliability. They'd be there in 10 minutes if he could get them, but being able to place the call is a pretty important factor. I don't know why I'm sharing this, other than it's the middle of the night and I took this pretty picture on Pearl Road.

*We drove the muddy Pearl Rd. when I was 8 3/4 months pregnant with Clyde... bad idea. We nearly got stuck and I had visions of having to give birth in the back of my Highlander and not being able to call 911... I actually had to get out of the car and walk while Ben got it unstuck because I just couldn't handle it. Clyde was great and decided being a week late was better than a week early.

Shipping Sheep

The other day we picked Daddy up at work and went to Sater Meadows north of McCall. There were so many sheep! I got a cane so I could help tell the sheep where to go. They loaded some on trucks and the others they sorted. Mommy didn't have her camera, but Marg took these with her phone. It was so fun! Daddy couldn't believe how quiet sheep are compared to cows. They can jump really high. Sometimes they tried to jump the fences. We put the girls in one pen, the boys in one pen and the old ladies in another.

I like sheep!

The Last Huckleberries

It's cooling down in the mountains. We took a road trip over Lick Creek Summit down the Secesh River to the Salmon River to Warm Lake and back home. It's a beautiful drive if you're ever in the McCall area and have some time.

But the best thing happened, we found more huckleberries!!! It was September 6th and they were totally done in the valley for weeks, but we got high enough that they were perfect. And, as Clyde would say, there were "So many!!!" Clyde always asks for so many of everything. Not more or a lot, but so many.

And, they were gigantic! For those of you not familiar with huckleberries, these were probably double the size we're used to:

Luckily, the Smiths were planning on coming the next day (Labor Day) so we took them up to the same place. Some berries had succumbed to the frosty night, but there were enough they got about a pint and a half to take home. And we had huckleberry pancakes for dinner, mmmmm.

Here's some of the other cool scenery we saw on the drive:

Cool dead tree.

Fungus growing on burnt tree.

Tree growing out of a rock.

Mossy tree.

Trips to the mountains...

I got to go up by the mountains to my Mumsy and my Grandpa Harry's a lot this September. Dad is working with my Grandpa now so sometimes we go stay at the ranch. It was colder up there. We went to mom's cousin David's wedding. It was really pretty, but I had to sit still for a long time. After, I was dancing with the girls. I was pretty popular! My Mumsy had a lot of her cousins come visit at Raspberry Ranch so we stayed with her for a whole week.

Mom and dad took me to a mountain lake for a picnic. I had fun climbing the rocks.


My Mumsy has lots of hats that I got to play with. Here I am in my own cowboy hat:


Lookin' pretty good, don't you think?

Here's one of the craziest hats I've seen. It had hair kind of like Mom's...

Mumsy has a special wooden horse that rocks for me and my cousin Elliott. I got right on and rode it. Mom was surprised, but I really got her when I started trick riding:

I was so good at that, they let me try the real thing and I loved it.

On another trip to McCall, Mom and I went to the lake. The first time we went there were lots of waves, but there weren't any this time. I just walked right into the lake, but Mom made me come out because it was too cold.

I really like going to the mountains.