Mountain Snow to Desert Rain, Revelstoke, BC to Bruneau, Idaho

Greetings from the little public Library in Bruneau, Idaho,

Sometimes I am up, sometimes I am down.  It is life and I am going with the flow.

They have nasty thorns on the ground in the high desert of Bruneau, Idaho.  I found that out last night while walking back from the showers in my flip flops.  It had been raining.  (In the visitors' center a sign said they only get about seven inches of rain a year.  I think they got one of those inches yesterday.)  I took a step and something stuck me hard in my big toe.  It was dark and I didn't bring a flash light.  

I had read a kiosk the day before about the scorpions in the desert.  So my first thought was it could be a scorpion.  I cussed as I limped my way back to the trailer.  

When I got inside, I pulled a big thorn, like you would find on a garden rose, out of my toe.  I was relieved it wasn't poison, but at the same time, I felt grumpy.  That was the second time I had been poked by those things.  It hit me that earlier in the day I had been so ecstatic about life and the scenery and the experience.  And here I was grumpy over a thorn in my toe.  

My toe is fine.  The pain was gone as soon as I removed the thorn.  And this morning I am not feeling grumpy.  Even in a very gifted life of friendships and travel, a spirit can get out of sorts at times. 

More on our experiences in the high desert later.  First, let's fill you in on what we have been seeing, learning and doing.  I have some amazing pictures and stories to share with you.  We have seen and done a lot since I last wrote to you.  So feel free to skim.  But before I bore you too much, catch these short videos.  I caught coyotes yipping one evening in Bruneau, 

and on our way here we saw salmon spawning! 

Pretty cool!

Revelstoke, BC, Canada

The morning we left Banff, it was raining and the rough edges of the mountains around us were piled with snow.  What a delight to see the change.

We didn't plan on visiting Revelstoke this summer.  In fact, we knew nothing about the area.  But because of the fires in Jasper, Canada, our camping reservation there had been canceled.  We needed to make other plans.  Steve picked out Canyon Hot Springs Resort in Revelstoke, BC, Canada just because it looked like a decent campground and was on our way to our next destination.

I want to tell you it was very easy traveling in Canada.  The only place where we needed Canadian money was the laundromat.  Everyplace else we used our charge cards and it was easy.  And in this western part of Canada, every native spoke English.  Though we did hear a lot of different languages among the tourists.  

Canyon Hot Springs Resort is a private campground with an outdoor pool and large hot tub.  We sunk into the hot tub on our first day.  It is a 104 degrees and doesn't have jets.  It doesn't smell like a hot spring, it smelled like a regular hot tub with bleach/chlorine.  Use of the pools wasn't included in our camping fee.  We had to pay each day we used them.  No problem, the hot water temporarily helped ease the pain in Steve's sciatica.

We had no clue what was available to do in the area.   Our first morning, I went outside with my mat and I did HIIT with a Youtube video before we left to go exploring.

I was happy to find an old growth forest nearby!  We stopped there on our way to check out the town of Revelstoke.

I love the feel of an old growth forest.  The ground is covered with the debris of ancient trees that have fallen.  This is a moist place where the ground is covered in mosses and ferns and little streams.  

On our way into the boardwalk we saw a kiosk talking about the Stellar Jay or the mountain blue jay.  I said, "Wow, that is pretty.  I would love to see one of those."

On the way back to the truck, one was hunting.  We got a nice long look at him.  He was lovely with iridescent feathers on his back and tail.

We saw another park on our way into town, Swamp Cabbage.  I thought of my friend, Mark, when I took the picture of the lovely log shelter.  He loves taking pictures that capture lines and angles and patterns.

I read a kiosk about the American Dipper and then I searched the creek to see if I could see one.  Sure enough!  There was one!  How lucky is that?!

In Revelstoke we found a really nice railroad museum.  They did a great job on the displays.

I re-learned about the Chinese Nationals who worked to build the railway but had to use their pay to pay the company back for lodging and food so that they pretty much ended up working for free or even owing the company money.  Thank goodness for unions and government regulations that put an end to that practice.  

I was looking at this little cart that rode on the rails and Steve pointed out the telegraph wires.  It was used to either install or repair the wires along the railroad.  Speaking of telegraph wires.  In our travels, along the roads out here in the west, we have seen old telegraph poles, some with the glass insulators still on them.  It seems that every history museum we stop in there is a collection of the glass insulators from the telegraph poles.

After a few accidents, the railway realized they needed better watches and they needed them synced to avoid collisions.

One day we took the gondola up a ski mountain and did a short hike.  And then we sat in nice Adirondack chairs looking over the view and watching parasails launch off the mountain and float over the valley.

It was neat, they would wait for the right wind and just dash off a steep incline and be carried up and up and up.  We talked about doing it ourselves, they offer rides with an expert.  But, we decided it was best to wait until we didn't have back issues.

One day we drove up to Revelstoke mountain.  We ended up walking four miles on trails.  There was a lot to see.  We missed the peak flower season, we were on the tail end.  It was still very lovely.

There is an old ski jump where several jumpers broke records for the longest jump.

There was a metal suit you could lean into and experience the view that a jumper had just before take off.  Steve and I both leaned into it for pictures.  It made me nervous, I checked the thing for strength before allowing myself to lean into it.

At the top, there was a long long line of cars.  It was a weekend and lots of people were enjoying the nice weather.  We overheard one of the tourists coming down saying that there was a bear by the picnic area that we were headed to.

Steve had us each sit on opposite sides of the table so we could keep our eyes open in case the bear was interested in coming back to steal our picnic lunch.

We hiked by an old fire lookout station.  It was wide open for us to enter.  The kiosk said that there would be winters when the snow covered the building and only the pole at the top was visible.

The views were fabulous and the mushrooms delightful.

At this elevation, the growth of the trees is slow.  So even though the trees were not huge in diameter, they were old.

Steve counted the rings on this one.  The knife is at 50 rings (50 years).   He continued counting, it was over 100 years old, yet not much wider than his spread out hand.                                                                           

So our unplanned visit to Revelstoke area turned out to be a success.  We learned some things and enjoyed lots of lovely nature.

Oroville, Washington

Our next unplanned stop was just over the border in the state of Washington.

Our neighbor in the campground had a pointer dog that was obsessed with a squirrel in a tree.  He didn't bark, he just stayed and stayed and stayed and pointed and watched.

Fortunately, Steve was paying attention, and while we were in Oroville he saw that the back bumper where the spare tire and the bike rack were attached had begun to fail.   The welds were holding, but the metal around the welds was being torn by the jiggling on the road of all the extra weight.

He had beefed up the hitch with braces before we left Florida, but it wasn't enough.  So he took the time while we were in Oroville to visit the hardware store and come up with some more bracing and a solution to the extra weight.

While he worked on that, I took my trike and went grocery shopping, investigated the town.  

Oro is the word for gold in Spanish.  This town was first formed during the gold rush.   But soon, when that didn't "pan" out, they switched to growing fruit trees.  It has done well.  There was a big Gold Diggers Fruit plant in town. We saw semis loaded with big boxes of fruit.

The town is small and set amongst large fruit orchards: apples; pears; peaches; and several wineries.   

Later,I rode my trike about three miles south of town to a hiking trail.  Steve said, "Take the bear spray!"  And so I did.

The trail was part of a long NW Pacific Trail that runs from Glacier National Park in Montana to the Pacific coast.  The trailhead had a pit toilet and a charging station for those trekking through.

I saw evidence of bear on the trail.

I didn't reach my destination because the trail got overrun with vegetation and some of the vegetation was poison ivy.  Between having to tap on my thermos to make noise so I didn't scare a bear, and avoiding poison ivy, I wasn't enjoying the hike anymore.  It was lovely though when I got to an overlook.

Back at camp, I helped a bit with the hitch stuff, but not much. 

Steve moved the spare tire to the front of the trailer.  This allowed us to move the bike hitch in a bit, so there wasn't as much leverage bouncing down the road.

He added some braces.  It all seems to be working well.  The bikes don't bounce as much.

Our last night in town we ate dinner at one of the four Mexican restaurants in town.   

Leavenworth, Washington

We camped at Wenatchee State Park near Leavenworth, WA.

Steve figured out a way to get the kayaks off the truck roof with less strain on his back.  We unstrap them and pull them off the back.  I stand on the tail gate to get it started and Steve stands behind the truck.  It works nicely.

We had a perfect day for kayaking on Lake Wenatchee.

I call the picture below, Reflection and Refraction.

We were told about Leavenworth by our Florida biking buddies, Judy and Ken.  So I planned this stop to the Bavarian-style town.  Leavenworth was a railroad and lumber town that was dying, when the city made the decision to pull in tourists though styling it after a German area town.  

It is surrounded by mountains so it feels pretty authentic.  They have closed off the main street and made it a pedestrian mall.  It seemed to be working.  There were a lot of people there spending money like us.

I bought a couple gifts and Steve bought a couple insects encased in resin for Erin's 2nd grade class.

The first restaurant we checked had vegetarian brats on the menu!  Brats and beer!

The Manhattan Project National Museum in Hanford, WA.

We shifted some reservations around to take a tour of this former location of the uranium enrichment project for the first atom bombs.

It was a four hour tour that included a 35 minute bus ride to the site from the visitors' center.  It was completely free!

It was fascinating.  First the government had to find a site.  One with water, good soil and building materials, a solid foundation, and without people.  They found a site, but there were two small towns there.  They gave everyone 30 days to leave.  One former resident said it was two weeks, not 30 days.

The amount they were given for their uprooting was not enough.  The people did a class action suit.  Since this was a hush hush project, the government settled.

The huge solid buildings for the reactors were built in less than a year.  They had to bring in 51,000 people to not only build the reactor but to build housing for the workers and to feed to workers.

Solving the problem of enriching the uranium and actually doing it took less than two years.  

The wall in front of the people in the picture are tubes in the reactor.  In one end goes uranium rods and around each rod was rushing cold water.  It went in one end about 60 or so degrees?  And came out the other end within a few seconds at over 200 degrees.  (Sorry, I don't remember the actual numbers.)

I found it amazing the amount of food that was required to take care of the workers in this isolated location.  They had eight football-sized cafeterias.  When people first arrived to start construction of the reactors, they lived in tents.  It was a tough life.  And only 50 total people knew what they were actually trying to do there.

The picture below is the control room.  They had a lot of redundancy in case of failure.  After I left the room, Steve went in and a young couple was there with the presenter.  The young woman was sitting in the chair and the guy asked the presenter to take a video of them posing.  The girl was swirling in the chair and looking cute, when the guy got down on one knee and proposed!   Steve was right there to witness.  The presenter said, "I have done this for many years, but this is a first!"

The rods were pushed through the wall when new rods were inserted.  The radio active rods fell into a tank of "heavy water" that really reduced the distance the radiation could travel.  Then workers used long poles with grippers to move the rods into position so a robot could pack them away... or something like that.

Then with chemicals the plutonium was extracted.  A lot of rods made a tiny bit of plutonium. 

The thing is, the tour was a whole four hours, but it wasn't long enough.  I didn't watch any of the videos available, nor enter all the rooms or read all the signs.  It was very interesting though.

When the cold war ended with the SALT treaty.  Each side was to be able to enter any remaining facility to verify it wasn't still making fuel.  We were shown that the pumps all have their lids off and nothing should change from year to year because the Russians take pictures and compare it to previous pictures, just as we have done with inspections in Russia.

Google maps showed that in the town of Richland, Oregon was an interestingly named bookstore.  I wanted to check it out.  I wasn't disappointed.

Even the bathroom had interesting objects.

I bought a used book.  These little books were produced for the armed service members during the world war.  It was only $14!

Steve's son has been going to Comic-Con each year in NYC.  The film, Gamma Man was filmed in Richland and won awards.

In our campground we saw a truck with Cryogenic Services written on it.  I looked it up on Google because when I think Cryogenics, I think of people freezing their remains for a future date when they can be thawed out and cured of their terminal illness.

It turns out that the term refers to any quick freezing, not just of human beings for preservation.   We learned on the tour that the town of Richland makes a lot of French Fries.  They have a huge freezer warehouse.

Bruneau Dunes State Park

This is where we heard the coyotes howl our first night here.

There is an observatory here!  Unfortunately it is only open on Fridays and Saturdays.  We were scheduled to depart on Friday morning.

We decided to change our plans and stay another night and reduce our time at Capital Reef National Park in Utah...

This park has sand dunes.  An unexpected location!   The big dune is the biggest stationary sand dune in the United States.

We were both bummed because we knew that hiking up the dune was a big part of why we were here and Steve's sciatic was still giving him a lot of pain.

The first morning, I set off on my trike early to climb the big dune before the temperature went too high.  They were expecting 90 degrees in the afternoon.   

The trail was about four miles, I think.  It was hard to read the map mileage.

Bugs and animals and people leave tracks and within days or hours they disappear on the dune.

It was quite the challenging climb. I felt each two-foot step slid back down the hill a foot it seemed.

I was glad to be by myself.  I paused a lot and enjoyed the views.

I was pretty dang proud when I made it to the top.  I sat and caught my breath and soaked in the view.  It was amazing and 360 degrees.

The geese were flying back onto the ponds from where they spent the night.  Flock after flock flying in below me.  

Each step on the peak created a mini avalanche.

I saw coyote tracks up there.  They didn't seem to be bothered by the ascent.

My body and walking stick caste a long shadow in the morning light.  Almost all the way back down the dune.

I could have walked the ridge all the way down, but instead I decided to try to scoot down on my but.  They actually rent snow boards for sliding down.

I had been on the dune all by myself.  No crowds. 

When I got down and was walking around the lake back toward my trike I saw another person walking the ridge.  Now, wait a minute, that looks like Steve!  A look through the monocular proved it.

I texted him. "You stubborn mule," I wrote.  "Isn't it amazing?"

I was hopeful he would not suffer too much later.  As it was, he actually felt better.  Fantastic.

In the visitors center there are pictures and taxidermy of animals that reside in the park.  They have found ancient fossils on the grounds too.  Ancient horses only 16 inches tall. 

I had never seen or heard of a long- earred owl.  One ear is bigger than the other.

The big dune we hiked is a Stellate dune.  Because the winds come from different directions,  the dune doesn't move.

It got windy later in the day.  The weeds tumbled and danced over the landscape.

Then it 🌧 rained for hours.  Our poor trikes got wet.

We are liking the dark sky here.  The first night we got up after midnight when the moon had set.  The sky was crystal clear.  I saw a few satellites moving across the sky and a shooting star.  We saw the milkyway. We are looking forward to the Observatory experience and a hike up the dune at sunset.

We also enjoyed the Presidential debate and the news that Taylor Swift endorsed Harris after the debate... proud childless cat lady that she is.

Life is good.