Ketchum and the SNRA!

First, thanks all for replying to my previouse post! It looks like the cluster map is working now.

Warning! This is a long posting since I haven’t had Internet for a while.

On Monday I arrived in Boise at the Meridian-Boise RV Park. I was quite tired after my long and boring drive through northern Nevada and southeast Oregon. I missed my turn for the RV Park and found myself in a traffic jam! In Boise, Idaho of all places. Anyhow after settling in I needed to go grocery shopping. I had asked the lady at the RV Park front desk if there was grocery store nearby and she said very nearby, just turn at the Starbucks and you’ll see Winn-Co foods. I did as she said, but I didn’t see any Winn-Co foods and I ended up in Boise rush hour; traffic wasn’t moving! I started to take side streets to avoid the traffic and eventually after a few right and wrong turns, I ended up at the back loading docks of Winn-Co. I was saved. Now all I had to do was shop on an empty stomach. I ended up buying a bunch of junk food that I could have done without.

The next day was calling for rain all day, so I decided to take a drive north up state road 55 to Cascade Lake state park. I had thought of camping there instead of Boise, but I am glad I didn’t; it wasn’t that great. After eating lunch at a parking lot for the boat launch and talking to Aimee about her plans of meeting me at Yellowstone and our camping plans, I headed back towards Boise. On the way back I took a detour through Garden Valley and down state road 21. It was a beautiful and very windy route back to Boise.

On Wednesday I took the RV to Lithia Ford for its 15K mile service. Barley got to hang out with me for 2.5 hours in the customer waiting area. It was a very nice waiting area; I think the best one I have ever been in. Barley enjoyed it quite a bit, because many people stopped to say hello to her. After getting the RV service I had to decide if I was going to stay another night in the hopping (sic) city of Boise or risk driving to Sun Valley in a high wind warning. I decided to take the risk and if it got too bad I would just pull off and find a place to stay. Luckily the wind was at my back most of the way and I made it to Sun Valley by 4:00 pm.

My home for the next 4 nights would be a Forest Service camping spot just 8 miles north of Ketchum (Sun Valley). It has no hookups, so I would have to live without any connection to the world for the next 4 days; other than my trips into Ketchum, which is a very nice resort town. I really like the spot, it’s just off the road and each camping spot is secluded by groves of Aspen trees!

On Thursday morning I drove into town to check it out and get information from the Visitor Center. It was very quiet for a resort town. On the way back to the RV I stopped at the Forest Service Visitor center to get some information on Mountain Biking. They were very helpful; Ketchum and the Sawtooth Recreation are has many mountain biking trails to explore. I took a ride after lunch on the Chocolate Gulch and Fox Creek trails. I found out how out of shape I have become. Fox Creek had a very sweet downhill! It reminded me of the Colorado trail ride I did two summers ago just outside of Breckenridge, Colorado. I think that this place is turning out to be the best spot for Mountain Biking on the trip! Plus I am enjoying the seclusion of my camping spot. It’ll probably get a little less secluded this weekend, when all the other campers arrive.

Today – Friday was an excellent day. Barley and I took a hike to the top of a Mountain in the Sawtooth National Recreation Are that I can’t recall the name of. It was a 2800 foot climb to the peak. It was an awesome view from the top! A 360 degree view of many of the mountains in the Sawtooth Range. On the way up the trail we kept coming across an animal track that I figured was a small Mountain Lion, since it’s paw print was much smaller than Barley’s. After finishing the hike we took a ride further north into the Sawtooth, stopped by Redfish lake which was beautiful and had several campsites you could stay at. Right now I am composing the remainder of this blog on the curb outside Starbucks, since they closed and my minutes with T-Mobile haven’t run out. Okay, so that didn’t happen, I lost my connection.

Well I have a free connection now outside another coffee store in Ketchum. Its Saturday evening and I am headed to dinner. Today was another good day! I woke up late since I stayed out late last night in Ketchum to listen to a band. I ran out of steam at 11pm and headed home. For some reason I decided to check my car tires for chalk marks and low and behold both passenger wheels where marked. That has never happened to me! So I went into a bar and asked for a glass of water to go! I washed the marks off and drove home, safely. After rolling out of bed and taking Barley for a short walk, I got my bike stuff together and drove back into the Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA) to ride a trail a guy at the bar told me about. It was sweet! The ride started on higway 75 and then turned onto a gravel road that I climbed for 1700 feet over an hour or so. At the top it turned to single track and basically headed back down hill through the burned out forest. The downhill was a lot of fun, but it ended quickly and I thought that sucked to do all that climbing and only get a short downhill! But, wait after a short climb I was greeted with even sweeter downhill. It was great, as good as if not better than Douthat in Virginia. When I thought I was done, the trail started climbing again and then some more sweet downhill. What a great ride!

Hope to post some pictures when I get to Yellowstone, where I’ll have free wi-fi.