Paws and Friends

June 13:  From our trip to Coeur d'Alene, ID, we piled the dogs in the jeep and drove a loop east on I-90, exciting south on Idaho State 3, to St. Maries following the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes southwest toward the  Plummer trailhead. We stopped at Heyburn State Park for lunch, and walked the trail to the bridge over the southern tip of the Lake. It was chilly with a cool wind, but still fun to walk the trail even just a small section. The Route of the Hiawatha follows the old Milwaukee Road railbed, as does the Old Milwaukee Scenic Alternate Trail, from St Maries,  through Avery, then north to Pearson. The Hiawatha begins at the East Portal of the 1.6 mile long Taft Tunnel in Montana and exits in Idaho. The journey continues through nine more tunnels and across seven high steel trestles. We definitely will return and find a way to ride both trails. We'll probably only be able to ride a short section of the Route of the Hiawatha--but it is definitely in the planning...

Yesterday we drove east over the mountains to Yakima with Mike's dad. We visited the cemetery where his mom and grandparents are buried, and told us of his experiences as a kid delivering telegrams for Western Union in the 30's. They lived in Union Gap, and in Yakima. We took back roads as much as possible, enjoying the drive, as well a learning more history from Jim as he recalled just where the old road went--"...through a tunnel there, coming out over there...." It was a great day, and great weather for the first official day of summer! On the return trip, we drove up as far as we could to the land the Irvins had in the 60's north and east of Cle Elum. Many new, large houses we noticed on the road up to their cabin. We found the gate locked, however, to what was their land, so were unable to see if the old cabin was even there. We did note that the place is currently for sale! We had a glorious time, dogs and all! And the dogs behaved very politely show...

This is absolutely his favorite thing to do! We just have to keep him from eating the ball, and pushing the ball into the creek, and watching for cars...(currently NOT a problem!), and...! Enjoy this little clown, aptly identified as a clown by Vicki Combs, Director of the corgi rescue where Vicki helped Rupert find us.... (thanks, Vicki!). Later! Paws and Friends

Officially summer starts tomorrow and we are experiencing the sun! There isn't a more beautiful spot than Valley Camp in the sunshine and we are the only campers in Valley Camp! Look! The snow is almost gone from the mountains! Understand local strawberries might be available by the 4th of July....It is reported that this spring in North West Washington is one of the top 5 coldest...We can attest to that, but we prefer the coolness here to the heat and humidity of the mid west and south east...! You can see that we do indeed have this facility all to ourselves! We understand this weekend there will be several campers coming in for a ham radio session. This is an excellent facility, for individual rigs, and groups, should any readers be in the Pacific Northwest and need a spot to stay a night or two while traveling through; or want to have a group get-together, or just want to spend some time enjoying the view! The covered group area is visible in this picture, as well a...

We left Valley Camp last Wednesday for the weekend of fast pitch softball games--Mike's niece's girls. Fun games, with other members of Mike's family. Weather has been a little drier (is that possible...?) than the valley rain, with rain during the night and morning, and drying up with partly cloudy skies for the afternoons. There are excellent bike riding opportunities here! We rode partway on the Centennial Trail yesterday. There is not enough time to explore all the trails so will return to do so in the future! There is the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes , and the Route of the Hiawatha . We are here too early in the season for this Rails to Trails Trail, due to winter snows in the mountains but we definitely want to ride this one, even tho' Lindy gets nervous thinking about the trestles and tunnels of this trail. We hope to ride our bikes more this afternoon although right now the clouds tell us a different story! We shall see! We will probably stay a couple of e...