Off to a New Place

It was a full two weeks ago when we arrived back from our Dubois trip.  That might be the longest we've actually been home since we arrived back from Arizona April 30.  If it's not the longest, it's a tie for the longest.  We left May 14 for our first NVUM gig so the math looks similar.  It's been great to be here as long as we have been.  Looking ahead, we don't see any other summer sojourns as long as this one.  It appears the longest we might be at home from now until fall might be 3 or 4 days in a row.  However, I can't think specifically of any 4 day breaks, most will be three days or less.  Most will be just two days.  So this full two week break has been special.

We always said we wanted to live someplace where we didn't feel we had to flee the heat. Idaho Falls is definitely that place.  We could easily spend the whole summer here and leave hardly at all, it's so fun to live in this city.  Oh, well, I won't digress.

The graphic above came from an Idaho State University geology guide to the area we're visiting this weekend.  The Upper "X" marks Idaho Falls and the "X" in the lower right is our destination.  One route is 149 miles and the other route is 140 miles.  Plus, there's a slower backroad route right through the middle.  We visited that area once in 2004 on a single day drive by.  So, obviously, we don't know diddly about the region.  Heck, we don't even know how to recognize the mountains ranges!  So, it's going to be a nice excursion seeing someplace new.

We're visiting BTB, as he is often known.  I met Bryan at a tiny desert lake outside of Tucson in the first couple of months of 1980. I moved from Indiana to Arizona on Valentine's Day 1979.  Late in '79, I joined the University of Arizona club "Whitewater Explorers" and became an avid kayaker.  Bryan was also a member and we became "fast friends," as they say.  Meeting Bryan resulted in my first Grand Canyon river trip, an event that changed my life.  Meeting Bryan also led to my moving to Flagstaff from Tucson.  Through Bryan, I met many people who have remained Dear Friends for decades.

Bryan's life path took him to Salt Lake City in the early 90's and he had two sons there, Nathan and Sam.  Our life pathways crossed four years ago when Bryan and a group of mutual friends came to Bowery Guard Station for a memorable visit.  Since then we've kept in much better and frequent contact.  We've been talking about going to "Bryan's Idaho Place" for the past four years now so this weekend finally gives us the that opportunity.  It appears that Sam and Nathan have become quite the accomplished kayakers in their own right.  It's going to be a lot of fun to reconnect with that Trio.
I am sure we will have a lot to report upon our return.

We're in no hurry to head out of here in a flurry.  We might not even leave until early afternoon.  It will probably take four hours to get down to Bryan's Place because we will be stopping often along the way.  We're hoping to get in between 5-6 pm.  Weather is progged for the mid-80's with a pretty good chance of afternoon and evening thunderstorms.  We will return here no later than Happy Hour Sunday.

We'll probably post up again before we leave today.  We'll move the Twitter account back up top. I noted yesterday that it's double posting from our cell phone.  I have absolutely NO clue why that is happening.  Simply disregard the double Tweets--there's nothing I can do about it.  Sorry.

Cheers, jp

Busy day behind, busy day ahead

Yesterday was an All About Boat Day for me.  For Susun, it was all about Party Prepping.  We both managed to keep ourselves quite busy all day and didn't retire for the evening until well after 10 pm.
Susun's soiree was successful.  Her girlfriends had a great time.  Susun got some great exercise of her Social Skills.  Susun's quite the Social Butterfly, actually.  So absolutely LOVES staging a party.  She positively beams on the day before a party.  She did some Asian Chicken Thing and a lot of other party food, too.  The table was sit "just so," the girls enjoyed croquet under the Twilight Ski and lots of candlelight chatter as well.  Her friends all arrived at 5:30 pm right to the minute and didn't depart until about 9:30.

Me? I was long gone by 5:30 pm.  Looong gone!  I spent the day messing with the Yellow Submarine, as Debby D, calls it.  About 4 pm, I started putting together everything I needed to "batch it" for a few hours and I split as soon as 5 pm as possible.  Luckily, Susun left the doggie door open for me so I could slip quietly in the front of the house a little after 9 pm without disturbing the sisterhood reverie in the courtyard.

A cooked up an idea to see if an LBR could catch a screen shot of me on the city's Greenbelt webcam.  Nary an LBR  caught on to the idea and the idea flopped.  However, I didn't know it was going to be a flop so I played out my part.  I sent numerous Tweets to the Twitter account and eventually showed up down near the lip of The Falls.  I dutifully paddled back and forth, back and forth numerous times across the river hoping somebody would snag a screen shot.  Nope, nobody did.  At least it was a lot of fun.  I was right at the "No Boating" line on the river and didn't dare go below that line.  It's there for a reason, ya know?  Anyway, the current was very mellow and no danger whatsoever.  However, a lot of tourons thought something must be wrong with me and that I might be swept over The Falls at any minute--they were snapping my photo and occasionally shouting stuff I couldn't hear.  So, I had quite the audience.  It was a good thing to be that far downstream from the boat ramp.  There was a huge wake boarder speedboat making the water nutso farther upstream.  Wake board boats are specifically designed to, well... leave a VERY large wake so the wake boarder can jump the waves.  Trust me, a high dollar wake board boat makes IMPRESSIVE waves!  So, it's a good thing that I hung out in an area no speed boat would dare go.  The waves were all gone by the time the water reached my area.  I certainly did get a great workout in the process.  The little wheeled boat cart worked well.  No way would I have wanted the Nissan anywhere near the crowded boat ramp.  With a few more hours of tinkering, the boat will be just the way I want it.

After leaving the John's Hole Boat ramp, I went over to the city's indoor swimming pool, swam a few laps, got a nice hot shower and returned home. 

Well, that's about all to report for yesterday.  We will soon add some photos to this post.  Have another great day & Cheers!  jp

River finally safe enough to paddle today

Ah, what a nice surprise to see when we went for our walk on the Greenbelt this morning.  They dropped the river.  FINALLY!  Now it's safe to paddle once again.  Geeze, it's been weeks and weeks since it was a safe flow and back then it was pouring rain and that ain't safe either. They dropped it to only a little over 7,000 cfs.  (Only...HA!)  Anything over 10K is worrisome to me when paddling by myself.  Something like 7K is OK.  Meanwhile, I opened the box of one of the boat carts I bought last week for $12.50.  It works great.  I will be able to park away from the actual ramp and wheel the boat down to the ramp.  The cart folds and stows in the boat.  Off I go paddling.  Then I come back to the ramp, unfold the cart, wheel the boat back to the truck and avoid having to interface with the actual ramp's edge.  You never know, sometimes it can get real crowded there at the John's Hole Ramp, especially in the evening.  Susun's having her girlfriends over for a Girls' Night Out tonight so that automatically makes it a Boy's Night Out, too.  I plan on leaving about 5 pm, paddling most of the evening and then returning at a respectably civil twilight hour.  Sounds good, huh?

Thanks, Carrie & Jerry!

You're looking at two real Happy Campers shown at left.  We had a truly wonderful day up at Jerry & Carrie's ranch in Montana's Centennial Valley.  That gracious couple sure knew how to put and keep smiles on our faces all day.  They were Great and we want to give them a High Five and a Hearty THANK YOU!  Jerry's Dad moved to the area way back about 1920 after WWI.  Jerry grew up on the place and regaled us with stories of the Old West as it once was.  Today, Jerry and Carrie are running over 400 "pairs," which really translates to 800 animals.  A pair is a Momma Cow and her Calf. Jerry's a devotee of Alan Savory's Holistic Range Management and his six pastures are in awesome, healthy condition.  It was a cool (almost cold) brisk day under The Big Sky, as Montana calls itself.  The air was so clear that the distant mountains and ridges appeared so crisp we felt we could reach out and touch them.  Gentleman Jerry even allowed us to drive our own ATV for a tour of the ranch.  Gee, it's been 1991 since I last piloted one of them!  We enjoyed mingling with their herd and learning some of the details of their operation.  Susun, Carrie and I engaged in a spirited round of mildly extreme croquet.  Carrie won, but it was down to the last wicket for all of us.  Lunch was awesome--charcoal grilled, dry-aged, grassfed beef burgers with fresh, homemade potato salad and all the trimmings enjoyed on Adirondack chairs on the ranch house porch looking out into the vastness of the sweeping, iridescent green Valley.  The day was delightful in every way.  We left about 8 and returned about 4:30 pm.  Thanks, Carrie and Jerry for your down home hospitality, we really enjoyed ourselves.  We wish you the Best of Success and Many Happy Trails!  Cheers, J&S

Posts rewritten

Both of last night's posts have been heavily edited and read rather differently now.  I often awake in the morning and re-read the previous evening's blog posts.  Sometimes I go "Huh?" and scratch my head in wonderment.  Obviously, there was too much GEEE involved in some of that writing.  That's a nice thing about blogging--nothing's set in stone.  It can be amended, edited, moved, and even simply deleted.  Generally, a post that survives the Morning Review will remain intact in this web log's archives.  Rarely do we do additional edits after the first 12 hours of a post's existence.

Wind Bag kinda day

The wind has been blowing all day, as you can see from the embedded graphic.  It actually seems like it's been picking up some speed as the day wore on.  It's a Full Force day and it's not backing down. The wind is ripping here today.  Really ripping.  We went out and mowed the lawn early before the wind became abrasive, so that was a good thing.  Susun has been in Her typical Whirling Dervish mode, doing all the things that The High Speed Susun Loves to Do.  Her late Beloved Mom had the nick-name of "Turbo Tu Tu."  Sometimes, I think Susun has inherited the title of Turbo Tu Tu. Susun waved her magic wand over our basement and it's in better shape than it's been all summer. Thanks, Honey!

All of our plans for tomorrow have changed.  We're still heading up to the Centennial Valley.  But we're not going to be hiking.  We're going to stay far out in the meadowlands to avoid any confrontation(s) with a grizzly bear.  It's is now widely known that the Idaho Dept. of Fish & Game (IDFG) is going to begin baiting and trapping the grizzly bears in the Centennial Mountains.  They use road kill elk and moose to bait the bears.  Grizzly's are said to have a sense of smell 300 times more sensitive than a dog's.  We've visited one website today that purports a grizzly's sense of smell to be 100,000 times more sensitive than a human's.  Whatever the ratio, it's vast.  Those big puppies have a sniffer that won't quit.  Anyway, we don't want to go remotely near where we might run into one of them.  We say, "Give Bears their MySpace!"  Luckily, our hosts for tomorrow's outing are very flexible and they've decided instead to show us their ranch and just generally have pleasant, relaxing day.  Since they are running a good size cattle operation, it's going to be quite educational. We're looking forward to their company. Meanwhile, none of us will have to deal with the idea of coming eye-to-eye with a grizzly bear awakening from Fish & Game's version of Bear Prozac.

You may think we're getting a little OCD about bears but if you lived here I doubt you would have that impression.  Bears rule much of the choicest backcountry and their danger there is real and ever present.  Those who fail to understand or heed this reality easily can pay a high price indeed.

We're bearanoid

We're bearanoid now.  Click here to check it out:  http://bearanoid.com  Yep, there it is on the whole worldwide web for everyone to see--we're totally Bearanoid now!  Due to a change in plans described in the above blog post, we accidentally coined what might be an entirely new word: bearanoia.  One thing led to another and, almost before we know it we wound up with a blog, Twitter, Facebook AND an internet domain name.  The primary purpose of all of this is to help educate ourselves about bears and our own Bear Country behavior.  However, we like the word "bearanoid" a lot.  People these days won't go around and be talking with each other and politely say, "Well, you know, I'm Bear Aware."  Nah.  But we'll betcha they might catch on to the phrase "I'm bearanoid."  It has a nice ring to it.

I think we mentioned we dropped off a canister of bear spray at Rachel's Place so she and her husband can design some prototype holsters.  If they come up with at least one good design, I'm hoping we can brand it with the "Bearanoid" brand--the marketing motto would be "Get Bearanoid!"  I'd like to see what a mere baseball cap could do with that brand on it, too.  Maybe the "O" in noid could be a bear track icon.  Anyway, we're having a lot of fun with the whole thing.  As I was telling Susun last night, it now costs a mere ten bucks to get an internet domain name and link it to a blog via Google's blogger platform.  It would be tough to get as much entertainment value out of ten bucks any other way I know.  Heck, ten bucks sure won't buy a box of wine--it barely buys a bottle most places.  At least ten bucks will still get two cups of coffee or a medium decent fast food lunch for one.

Gimme 5, July

The July 4th holiday will wind down today.  All the Workers Bees will be back in their hives tomorrow, merrily humming away, "Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho, it's off to work I go."  We're gearing up for a pretty normal Monday.  Mow the lawn, water the lawn, mess with camping and hiking stuff, go shopping, you know the routine.


Yesterday was a lot of fun--we're really happy all of the local festivities took place on Saturday, the day BEFORE July 4th.  A lot of people locally were bent out of shape because the festivities weren't taking place on the TRUE holiday, July 4th itself.  Having the festivities all done and out of the way allowed us to enjoy a really nice day yesterday.  We didn't have to rush off to the parade and we didn't have to spend the afternoon gawking at the vendors and crowds along the East Bank and we didn't have to prepare to hustle off to see the fireworks.  Instead, we had two Dear Friends and LBRs over for a long breakfast and a happy game of improvised extreme croquet.  Then we were able to enjoy a true leisure holiday including a two hour nap before we went off to a truly traditional July 4th backyard picnic.  The picnic gathering was as traditional as it gets.  What makes such a picnic traditional?  Ok, so here goes The Top 20:

1)  Lots of people, dogs and kids.
2) Kids playing games and chasing each other around the lawn
3) Dogs causing trouble
4) A big galvanized tub filled with ice and shiny beer cans
5) Several coolers of beer
6)A long buffet table covered with summertime pot luck dishes
7)A smoky backyard campfire
8)Kids roasting marshmallows with long forks
9)A man barbecuing burgers and hot dogs
10)Melt in your mouth slow roasted beef brisket
11)Summertime desserts of all types
12)A little kid passing around a big box of jello shooters!
13)Adults in shorts and Hawaiian shirts
14)Classic Mo Town music on an iPod playing through good speakers
15)Lots of relaxed adults chit-chatting together. Laughter and smiles all around.
16)Long rays of a late sunset filtering through leafy trees
17)Lots of blooming flowers and a good looking garden full of lettuce and snow peas
18)A charming hostess and host.
19)Heaping plates of yummy food
20)Perfect blue skies, cool temperatures and a light breeze

The brisket was the highlight of the evening for me.  Best brisket I can remember eating!  The guy who brought it cooked it ten hours so we figure his shopping, pre-prep and so forth made it an 11 hour brisket.  That's a lot of work and it sure showed in the quality of the final product.

We pointed out to the hostess that her picnic wouldn't have been happening unless July 4th fell on a Sunday.  On any other day, everyone would have been staging to go to the fireworks.  Sure, you can have a picnic on a Saturday but how often do you really get to have a genuine July 4th picnic on July 4th?  Not very danged often here in Idaho Falls--maybe once every 7 years if I understand the way the calendar works.  It was sure fun to enjoy a good old-fashioned Fourth of July Picnic.

We arrived home at 9:30 and the neighborhood was a hopping and popping with all manner of home grown fireworks displays.  Idaho only sells little popper-style fireworks.  However, Wyoming is wide open and will sell you pretty much anything up to an MX missile.  The Fort Hall Sho-Ban Rez likewise has serious heavy duty artillery.  So, local folks simply trek to Wyoming or Fort Hall and lug back some fierce firepower.  Then they let it all go up in a froth of flame, smoke and sound.  The cops look the other way and nobody cares.  It makes it sound like a shootout at the OK Corral here in the local neighborhood.  Pretty interesting, actually.

Today dawned with a complexity.  Here's the story.  Susun and I often sit around camp and, well, we talk about camping stuff.  Duh.  During the past few months, we more or less talked ourselfs into buying yet another popup camper for the pick-em-up truck.  We've had three of those models (so far) and we've been sitting 'round the campfire getting nostalgic for the Good Ol' Days of Pop Top Camping.  So, one day over in Dubois we said, "OK, let's buy a poptop camper again!"  All right.  What that does it put some energy out into the universe and the universe begins to attempt to fulfill your vision.

Meanwhile at 1:25 am this morning, some guy over in SW Boise puts the perfect poptop camper on Craigs List.  By a fluke of luck, I happen to spot his listing only 4.5 hours after he listed it.  Click here to see it.  It's the perfect camper, the perfect price, everything we would want in a popup camper.  OK, meanwhile, if we got a poptop, we would need to get a Suzuki Samurai.  Lo and behold, there's a tintop for sale in Mountain Home--right on the way to Boise.  Yeah, it's kind of a junker Zuki but the price is right and, as you know, I can fix those things blindfolded, especially now that a Harbor Freight is right next door.  Click here to see the junker.  Well, the universe delivered.  It did it's part.  Now the ball was in our court this morning.  Tag, you're it!  It's like the universe saying, "OK, Susun and John, if you REALLY serious about this poptop camper thing, well, here you go, what's it gonna be?"

OK, so Susun gets up and we commence to build a big dialog about the whole scene.  Are we gonna change our camping paradigm or are we gonna stand pat with the hand we've been dealt.  Is it time to hold 'em or is it time to fold 'em?  Back and forth we went in our dialog.  Ebb and flow.  Pro and con.  Ying and yang.  Walla, walla bing and bang.  Finally, we came full circle around and faced the facts as we know them.  There's no such thing as "the perfect camp rig."  We know that.  Every camp rig has its pros and cons.  When you abandon one paradigm for another, you simply inherit a new bag of issues, challenges and opportunities.
We decided at this time to play IdaHold 'Em and stand pat with the hand we have.  For what we want to do at this point in time, we have as good a camp rig as we're going to get.  This spring it really proved itself worthy of some hard core camping.  Meanwhile, as Susun said, "Just say you spent $40 on a cot and saved ourselves $1300."  (Cost of camper @ $1200 + $100 RT gas to get it here.) That cot has made ALL the difference in Susun's enthusiasm about tent camping.

So, making a short story yet ever longer, these types of things often happen to us as a test of our campfire chit-chat.  Now that we've decided to dance with the one that brung us, it's all OK again.  We won't have to talk any more about getting a poptop and a Samurai.  Nope, that speculative dialog is long gone and we can move forward once again fully enjoying all of the intricate Swiss watch complexities of our pickup truck full of camping gear.  Case closed.

(Sequel to the story posted at 10:30 am:  When we were discussing "all of the above," I told Susun that if we were going to buy a poptop, this one was THE one because it was priced a thousand dollars below fair market value.  About 10:15 am, the owner of the camper calls on my cell phone and sezx the price was wrong--it wasn't $1200--it was supposed to be $2100!  See.   So, heck, if we truly weren't interested at the "gimme" price of $1200, we KNOW we aren't interested in one of these things any more.  Case REALLY closed!)

Have a great day and Cheers!  jp

Happy July 4th

We're feeling much better this morning.  Somehow a wave of nostalgia washed ashore last night before the fireworks.  I picked up my Dad's book (published after he died) and commenced reading about Nuremberg.  I visited various online links that recount the incredible bombing from various perspectives.  I've always been very proud of my Dad but I sure was extra special proud last night!

I didn't leave home until 9:45 pm. That's cutting it pretty close.  As usual, the streets were deserted turning the city into a sort of suspended animation ghost town.  As I approached the most congested area, I had a sudden inspiration from way back in my days as an addicted football fan.  Some of you who watch a lot of football have undoubtedly heard a TV commentator talk about how any good running back needs to "follow their blockers."  Geeze, football fans, how many times have we heard that trite coaching advice?  For whatever reason, that phrase became my mantra last night:  "Follow your blockers, follow your blockers" rang incessantly in my head.  Luckily, I spotted three huge Latino gangbangers.  You've seen these types of dudes.  They are about was wide as they are tall and their weird clothes really say it all.  They are covered with tattoos and have shaved heads.  These three guys walked shoulder to shoulder and plowed forward just like an offensive middle line pushing back the defense.  Geeze, it was great, these three guys simply weren't going to alter their cruisin' style for anybody.  So, I settled back on my bicycle and "followed my blockers" tucking up right behind the wide bodies and, presto, in a wink of an eye I was delivered to my personal goal line--the John's Hole Gate.  That's as close as you can legally get to the fireworks.  My blockers helped me get into position precisely one minute before the first shell arched high above the twilight sheen of the Snake River.

The finale was even grander than the media had hyped it.  It was truly stunning and powerful and it brought tears to my eyes and a big lump in my throat.  It was easily the finest fireworks I've ever seen and may ever see--I'm not at all certain that finale could be topped.  When the spell of the finale wore off, I turned to find an escape route.  Getting TO the fireworks is only half of the equation.  Getting FROM the fireworks can be very problematic if one dilly dallies.  So, I turned to look for a route and luckily the "follow my blockers" worked once again.  Only this time is was Three Wide Women.  The three girlfriends had locked their arms together and they made this awesome flying wedge through the riptide of the departing crowd.  Their pace was brisk--perfect for a bike in low gear--and they synchronized their steps and off they went with Little Johnny behind.  The women made it easy to get to the first fairly wide open street and then I was off like a rocket and returned home a mere 15 minutes after the finale ended.  The whole start-to-finish, door-to-door episode was an hour and fifteen minutes.

 The entire day was a lot of fun.  The parade, of course, always lives up to its hype.  Afterwards we visited both Farmers Markets.  In the afternoon we enjoyed cycling through the big hoopla down along the East Bank.  We even squeezed in a couple of Honey Do projects, too.  The weather cooperated nicely, warming to just above 70 with a light breeze.  Our bicycles got a stout workout yesterday, that's for sure.

I finished the pre-fireworks evening by setting up what I am calling "The Green Brothers, a Coleman Duet."
Jeff and Suzanne are coming over for a Holiday Breakfast at 9 am this morning.  We've planned  a real nice camp-style repast and will cook most of it outdoors beside the picnic table.  It's been a real good idea to remove camp-related babbling from this blog.  Sometimes, I can't help myself and I simply have to sit down and write on and on and ON about something related to camping.  No longer will it clutter up this blog--it has a place of its own.  I think I've put up maybe 7 posts simply about Coleman stoves.  Now that's OCD if I ever heard of OCD!  All of that stuff resides at camptip.blogspot.com.  Be careful, reading that material can cause brainfreeze!  Oh, yeah, the other thing I did was buff a griddle.  Oh, nevermind.

Have a great day today--celebrate what's good and right about America.  As Bill Clinton once said, "Anything that's wrong about American can be solved by everything that's right about America!"  Freedom is a wonderfully delicious phenomena--today's the day to savor it every which way you can!  ENJOY & Cheers, jp

This one's for You, Dad!

Thanks, Dad, I love you!  God Bless America.  jp

Thinking of Nuremberg tonight

I miss my Dad. He died in August 1998. That's a long time ago. But his memories still haunt me, especially on July 4th, even if it is July 3rd. I especially remember his stories about Nuremberg. Dad was a top turret gunner on a B-17 and he was shot down. He survived numerous Nazi prison camps and somehow came home alive to father me. You can imagine what he went through. One of his most recurrent stories was about the Allied bombing of Nuremberg. By the time he got to Nuremberg, he had somehow survived several other brutal Nazi POW camps. Just even getting to Nuremberg alive was a miracle as their railroad cars had been parked on a siding and been bombed by a RAF night raid.

Somehow he got the "piss can" duty in a wooden rail car filled with terrified Americans. He enjoyed looking out the window. He said, "I was thinking how cute it was, the little area there and, my God, the bombs were getting so close and the railroad tracks near me blew up and turned like cork screws."

Somehow, when they finally got near Nuremberg, the Nazi guards ran the men to their next camp. Dad said, "The roads were just filled with rubble. Houses and buildings were just blown all to hell and we could not see the road. We were climbing over these huge pieces of buildings and finally made our way out of it, out of the bombed area."

But he was close enough to Nuremberg to witness the grand finale of the epic destruction of the ancient city:

"The 8th Air Force would come over in the morning. Once the British had done their bombing at night, the Americans would come over and we could look up and see the airplanes right above us. We could see the bombs come out. We would just stand there and watch those things and we wondered if we would survive the bombing, but we never got a bomb in the compound even though Nuremberg was being obliterated. The RAF bombed Nuremberg all night and the 8th Air Force bombed all day.

I remember seeing this gas storage tank, a big one, and when that blew, it all went into the air...the whole container. It was very high in the air and the flames were just everywhere. There was a lot of smoke. There was just absolute chaos and confusion. With all the noise and everything, I look back and think how many times I felt that this earth cannot take it. It has got to split open. I kept thinking that it's got to. Jesus, it would just shake the earth as thought someone were standing there shaking you. It was that bad. I know that was a juvenile thought, but nonetheless, I felt that way and I can still remember to this day how I felt at that time. I've never gotten over that."

From "Best Seat in The House," by John Robert Parsons (1922-1998)

Well, somehow, the Idaho Falls fireworks bring all this back for me. We'll see you on the other side. May we celebrate Cheers for Freedom! Many Cheers! jp

Creatures

One of the REALLY cool things about being able to prowl the staging area for the parade is the opportunity to truly check out each float and the participants and so forth. We took some real nice photos of the parade this year but the one above is definitely our fave--Susun and The Creatures!

Chilly Morning

The NWS Wonks got it right again.  They said the temp today could be 20-25 degrees cooler.  They were right.  It's 47 out right now at 7 am.  Yesterday this time it was 72 or more.  Now that's a significant drop in temps.  The July 4th parades we have attended have all been hot, literally and figuratively.  We've felt sorry for the marchers plodding away on the hot asphalt.  You could actually see some of them wearing down and wilting by the end of the parade.  Today, there's likely to be an unexpected spring in their step.  Marching smartly along the route will help keep them warm! It's cool enough and windy enough to make me wonder whether to wear some poly pro underwear.  Brrrr.

Yesterday afternoon was Honey Do time.  I helped finish 3 project that have been on Susun's list for some time.  On one project, I caught my left middle finger in the drill chuck so I can't type real well this morning.  All that mechanical mayhem with the bicycle and I didn't get knicked.  Ah, well....such is life.

I purposely went out to both WINCO and Smith's markets late yesterday to see the crowds.  Whoa!  Total chaos inside WINCO.  Pretty amazing.  All holidays are "foodie events" to some degree.  Some holidays are more "foodie" than others.  I suspect July 4th ranks higher on the foodie list that some people suspect.  It's all about fast foods.  On Thanksgiving, for example, people have to actually PLAN ahead!  Then they have to bake a turkey for sometimes hours and slave away making all sorts of complex side dishes.  The same goes for Christmas and Easter.  That's not so with July 4th.  The most complex menu item is perhaps a hamburger.
The rest of it is soda, potato chips, deli salads, hot dogs, all the usual suspects.  A third grader could put together a competent July 4th feast.  Consequently, shopping for July 4th "eats" is a grocery "grab & go."  Whoa!  You should have been the brim full junk food laden carts rolling out of WINCO.  Maybe July 4th is actually a Memorial to the Freedom to eat really bad food and think it's the American thing to do.  The Cheese Whiz people gotta really LOVE this holiday--it's probably much bigger than the Super Bowl for spray cheese in a can.  I don't think I've ever seen as much high fructose corn syrup being wheeled out of WINCO at one time as I did last evening.  Sometimes I think America lives on high fructose corn syrup and days like yesterday only seem to confirm that suspicion.

Brrr.  I just glanced out the window and the clouds are really flying by--they actually look like they might rain any minute.  I checked the weather and the wind is gusting to 30 mph.  Brrr...this is going to be one really COLD July 4th parade this morning.  With 70 percent humidity, the wind chill is running in the upper 30's to low 40's right now.  Geeze, maybe it's poly pro AND gore-tex this morning!

Not much else to report this morning as we've already discussed today's activities yesterday.  Cheers!  jp

TOUCHDOWN!

TOUCHDOWN! We did it. We won. The Bike is done. It's a fine bike and it works great. We finally had to seek professional help. (I heard voices saying, "John, you need professional help!) Danny Kelly (below) at the new 3 Peaks Outdoor Store on Lincoln really came through. He only charged me for the parts and NOTHING for the labor to push this bike across the goal line and score the TOUCHDOWN! It was so awesome. (Click here to cue a soundbite from my theme song via Tom Petty.) This has been a superb saga and a great story. Now we get the fun part--actually riding the bike tomorrow for the July 4th celebration here in Idaho Falls. WHOOPEE!

Uno de Who-lee-oh

Cornfused by the blog title? It's Spanglish for the 1st of July.  July in Spanish is spelled "Julio" but it is pronounced "Who-lee-oh."  Got that?  We started of our Who-lee-oh with some fun acquisitions.  Remember the bicycle parking lot sale?  Well, we went back and scored two boat carts for $12.50 each.  The current low retail online for them is $160 plus shipping.  Now, we can tow around our canoe or kayak with ease. 

We've realized that infamous bicycle is actually a karma gift.  Yep, as we roam around looking for stuff to restore the bicycle, we're stumbling into all sorts of unexpected gifts.  Yesterday, we were roaming thrift stores looking for dead bicycles when we happened upon a brand new Alfa 10 meat grinder for $5.50.  Then, to make matters more interesting, we quite literally stumbled on a fireplace set that included the elusive tongs we have sought for two years.  Price?  Two dollars.  When it dawned on me yesterday about the REAL role of the bicycle in our lives, I gleefully decided to cause yet more trouble with it.  I took apart the rear axle and laughed while watching all the little ball bearing BB's fall out onto the floor.  HA!  That will take FOREVER to fix!  And it will mean I have to roam hither and yon looking for esoteric stuff that will actually lead me into all sorts of important, coincidental acquisitions.  The military has this term called "collateral damage."  They drop a bomb and miss the target, oh, well, it's collateral damage.  Well, the bicycle is now causing Collateral Benefits!  It's kinda of the opposite of collateral damage.  I'm now so excited to see what goes wrong next with the bike I can hardly wait!  Who knew it would be this much fun?

We also dressed up in our nice go-to-work clothes and strapped on fire engine red suspenders and went out and visited all of the hotels and motels on the West Bank.  We checked on their supply of brochures and gave them our cell phone number and promised to keep them resupplied over the July 4th weekend.  Once the haughty front desk people realized I wasn't an itinerant huckster dressed in clown clothes but was actually a Parks Commissioner, they put on their nicey, smiley faces and a good time was had by all.

I saw one thing that made me LOL.  It was at the Super 8 motel.  They have a covered area for people to drive up to the office.  There's a HUGE sign facing oncoming traffic.  It says, "CAUTION LOW OVERHEAD."  Hum...I thought people already knew that about Super 8's.  Oh, well, I guess they need to be reminded.

Speaking of signs, I was really tempted to go act stupid at the local SHOPKO the other day.  They had this giant banner that screamed "HUGE PLANT SALE."  I was sorely tempted to stroll over with my dumb hick schtick act and ask to see the Huge Plants.  "You know, like, man, I've always wanted a Huge Plant for my apartment, man, you know what I mean?"  I mean like how often do Huge Plants go on sale, anyway, man?

Last night we fired up the new-to-us Coleman 413D and had some more sweet corn.  From igniting the stove to pulling out the succulent ears took less than 25 minutes start-to-finish--that 413D ROX!  It's HOT!

People are gearing up for all the festivities tomorrow.  People are also in a food shopping frenzy for their picnics and camping trips.  The groceries have been zoo scenes.  I saw one guy buying at least 20 large boxes of Ritz crackers PLUS at least 20 or more packages of hot dogs.  Good thing we're not invited to that picnic!

A local millionaire pays ba-zillions of dollars to stage our fireworks.  It's supposedly the largest show west of the Mississippi.  Who really knows if that's true?  Who cares?  Anyway, this year's show will have 16,000 shells.  That's sixteen thousand.  The finale will shoot off 1500 shells in a mere 70 seconds.  That's fifteen hundred just so you know I didn't make a typo or two.  The previous finales we have seen have been so truly amazing and awe-inspiring it's completely impossible to describe what it's like to see, hear and FEEL them.  This finale is supposed to be the biggest they've ever done here in Idaho Falls.  What these finales do is so surreal and so physical it defies your concept of normal July 4th reality.  They reach inside your being and shake you to your spiritual core.  The totality around you is pulsating with an explosive energy that reaches out and grabs some primal part of your being.  You are somehow transported into another dimension that can only exist in those few seconds of total mayhem and chaos of light and the fury of deafening, thunderous truly tsunamic sound waves.  When the finale ends, the tens of thousands of spectators (the crowd is usually estimated at over 50,000) stand completely transfixed for a few moments.  They are all suspended in the aftermath of the spectacular finale.  No one moves.  No one says anything. It's eerie and a tad spooky.  Then the spell is broken and normality returns.  People begin moving and chattering as they are wont to do and they go on about their lives.  I look forward to those 70 spectacular seconds when time stands still and my body vibrates with the shock waves of sound beaming down from the night sky about the Snake River.  If ever you have a chance to come to Idaho Falls for the July 4th fireworks, do it.  We've never seen anything like this show--it's as over the top as over the top can get.

The other Big Deal of July 4th here is The Parade.  It's typically called simply "The Parade," as in THE Parade.  It's the biggest parade we've ever enjoyed.  It goes on seemingly forever.  All of the participants stage near the Idaho Falls High School (Tiger Nation).  Since IFHS is a mere six blocks from our house, we simply ride our bicycles over and pedal through the midst of the gathering participants.  No one minds.  For all they know we could be IN the parade.  In this way, we get to scout out the our choices for the "best of the parade."  This usually takes us the better part of an hour.  Around 9 am or thereabouts, the parade begins to take shape. All of the "handlers" begin routing the participants onto the parade route.  The bagpipes fire up, the Colonials fire off their muskets, the sirens begin to wail, the dance groups crank up their gyrations and the parade takes on a unique life of its own.  It's as if it's a creature unto itself--kind of a holistic, organic creation that's alive only for a few hours once a year.  Untold tens of thousands of people line the long route from the IFHS to Tautphaus Park.  You really wouldn't believe the mass of humanity along the parade route.  It really helps our minds understand that term "mass of humanity."  Every other year, one of the lead floats is filled with Japanese.  They are the visitors from our Sister City program.  They live in a small city about 90 miles from Tokyo.  You should see their glee, their smiles and their waves.  Their happiness at being in that parade is tangible and a pure delight to enjoy.  We look forward to seeing them tomorrow. The various High School cheerleader groups have an informal competition going on each year to see who can create the most unique and memorable performance. Most of the floats are quite animated--there are very few "static" displays.  So what we do is "key" on our favorites and then bicycle from one vantage point to another all along the route.  We've learned how to bob and weave and thread our fat tires through the gridlocked maze of the city to sneak into the best vantage points all along the route.  In this way, we get to enjoy our favorite floats and groups several times instead of just once.  It's great.

Throughout the day, all of the East Bank area along Memorial Drive is closed off to traffic and there are all sorts of fun activities going on there.  The bicycle is the only effective way to get around during the festivities.
We've learned that's how to get the best view of the fireworks.  The show starts at 10 pm.  We wait until about 9:35-9:40 before we take off on the bikes.  By that time, the city is completely gridlocked.  All traffic is at a standstill.  Nothing moves.  With a bike, we can "thread the needle" and ride right down to the best spot for the fireworks--we're practically standing directly underneath those aerial bombs.  Meanwhile, after the buzz of the finale wears off, we dash back on our bikes, often arriving 15-20 minutes later.  We've heard people complain it takes TWO hours to get home from the fireworks--the gridlock is truly that bad.  With bikes it's no problem!  (Note: the photo shows Susun in her July 4th "getup" from last year.  We can hardly wait to see what the 2010 outfit will look like!  Click here to see 41 photos from the 2009 parade.)

Well, it's time to do something besides mess with this blog.  Have a great day and Cheers, jp

Sweet Success

June ended with a bang yesterday. The Greenbelt Brochure is alive! The reception, reactions and reviews of the brochure far exceeded my most optimistic expectations. It's a truly great product and it created a "Dear Diary Day" yesterday. Why?

Well, my interest in this brochure actually began almost FIVE YEARS ago! This hasn't been a flash-in-the-pan project. It's taken a huge amount of time and effort. It's actually one of the reasons I sought to get appointed to the City's Parks & Recreation Commission. I was appointed in January 2009 and immediately began working toward the creation of what would culminate in this brochure.

This brochure is the result of over 15 months of diligent dedication and just plain hard work on the part of many people. It's been a team effort all the way. I am very proud to see the germ of an idea almost five years old finally take flight.

In the convoluted and often confusing political climate of city government, good ideas don't always necessarily find their way to daylight. Things change, ideas get diluted, energy ebbs and some fine projects falter along the way. This brochure project could have easily succumbed to such a demise. It's fate hung by a thread several times. Looking back it's easy to see how this project could have wound up in the dust bin of good ideas. That's why it's so special to see this brochure out on the ground circulating along the Greenbelt. It's akin to watching that white baseball sail high, long and far over the centerfield fence.

Not only is this brochure good, it's REALLY good. Even though a lot of people chewed in it during the past year and even though it went through a lot of permutations, it somehow survived the "committee process" intact and worthwhile.
At one time, there was an actual, genuine full bore attack on the little brochure. A local lobbying group leveled both barrels at it an unloaded some stinging verbal buckshot. Flack also came from a local historian. The project flew in sketchy skies for awhile and somehow landed on both feet. That's the type of background that makes this success so sweet.

It would take a lot more words than this blog post to describe the daunting and devilish details of this project. We'll spare you from descriptions of all the potholes, roadblocks, odd circumstances and other dangerous detours that plagued this project. We don't have time to write a book. But trust me, it was arduous and often frustrating and perplexing and the light at the end of the tunnel never seemed to be getting any closer. There were at least two times I figured someone had turned off the light at the end of the tunnel and that the project was DOA. That's what made yesterday such a Dear Diary Day. When you have a lot of spirit invested in a project, let's face it, you get attached to that project and you want to see it fly free and live a full life. To see the brochure out on the ground yesterday was very emotional for me and it definitely showed in my EEE blog post last night (EEE= Excessive Evening Exuberance).

To hear the absolutely over-the-top verbal excitement from hotel front desk clerks about this product made the success all that sweeter. It would be hard for me to imagine comments more effusively positive than the ones I heard yesterday. Even though I had postulated that this would be a likely outcome of the brochure, I honestly had no idea whether my theory would be true. To hear and see such reactions was vindication of beliefs formed almost five years ago when I first visualized the concept of such a product. Although I am only one player on the team, I feel my "at bat" contributed to the team's success and I feel the entire team deserves credit for "knocking one out of the park." It's an awesome feeling.

Now, bear in mind here that we aren't talking about something huge and grandiose. Nope, this little brochure actually fits in your shirt pocket (assuming you have a shirt pocket). It's simply a single sheet of paper printed on both sides and cleverly folded down to something slightly larger than a credit card! It's small size belies the value of its content. That's the beauty of this gem. It's a great little diamond for one of the crown jewels of the city--The Snake River Greenbelt.

Copies of the Greenbelt brochure are flying off the front desks of the motels and hotels along the river's West Bank. I've taken it upon myself to keep those hospitality properties restocked over the July 4th weekend. to facilitate that activity, I created a blog yesterday. You can read a little more about the Team Members and who funded the project and how to download a 3.5 meg PDF file of the brochure here: http://ifgreenbelt.blogspot.com Last night's EEE Blog post has been moved off to the companion site for this blog. It's been retitled "Centerfield Fence."

Oh, and by the way, I actually have my name on the product! Look in the far lower right of the right hand map on Page 2. In a city with such a great history as Idaho Falls, it's truly humbling to have my name printed on something so unique. As I said in that EEE blog post last night--yesterday was a really special day for me. I'll remember is forever.

Cheers, jp

Weather wonks got it right

They said there would be thunderstorms and this time they got it right. There was one kick anatomy t-storm last night about 7-8 pm. Sheets of rain, strong winds, lightning, thunder, all the stuff that makes t-storms so great. We loved it! The lawn loved it, too. There was almost a quarter inch of rain in a real short time period. The Wonks say we might get more today. Bring it on. Life is good.

Now that the Bike Seat Saga has stabilized, it's time to move on to some other project. Me thinks it's time to clean out Ye Ol' Cook Shack. Afterall, the Big Summer Holiday looms this weekend. It's UnAmerican not to grill on July 4th. Majorly unAmerican! The cook shack is a mess due to general inactivity and a human proclivity to make any unused space a storage area. It will probably take all day to get it back in shape. One of the summer's "to do" projects is to put a better roof on the small structure. That's "iffy." Heck, all I wanna do is grill sumthin.

It's also time to unlimber a boat and go paddling. Today we will mount up the kayak and take it down for a spin at John's Hole.

Susun made amazing progress whipping the basement back into shape. Our helter-skelter schedule since mid-May left the basement looking like a hurricane swept through. "Out of sight, out of mind!" Now it's back in presentable condition.

Heck, maybe I will get motivated and change oil in the vehicles today, too. Oh, yeah, and I finally get to mow our neighbor's weeds. There was this young slacker dude living there and his solution to lawn maintenance was to get a tractor and totally destroy ALL the grass front and back. Of course, the disturbed soil became the perfect breeding grounds for all sorts of major weeds. We offered to knock them down for him but he was too proud to take our offer. Now he has renters in there and we finally learned the renter woman would love to have us make the place look better. It's the neighborhood eyesore! Quite literally.

That's about it for this morning. We trust you will all have another wonderful day and Many Cheers! jp

Have a seat

A Saga? Absolutely! Sensible? No. Safe? Maybe. Smart? Definitely not. Stubborn? Yes. Strenuous? Yes. Stupid? Probably. Smart? Probably not. So have a seat and lemme tell ya a story.

It all started at the June 19th Methodist Church rummage sale. (See photo below) We bought this Trojan Horse for a mere $5. Little did we know the black hole vortex lurking within its colorful frame. The next day I casually attempted to free the frozen seat post. It wouldn't budge. I used a large pipe wrench. No luck. I put a 3 foot cheater bar on the wrench. No luck. Meanwhile, we had to pack for the Dubois trip so I called off a full frontal assault on the post, making a mental note to take up where I left off upon our return.

After getting back into the Idaho Falls routine Saturday and enjoying a leisurely Sunday morning, I decided it was time to throw down the gauntlet with the bicycle seat post. I spent 3 hours on it Sunday. It was quite a ridiculous episode. I tried silicone. No luck. I huffed and puffed over various wrench schemes. I wailed on the post with two sledge hammers. I read up on the topic online. One tip involved using ammonia so I got some of that smelly stuff. All I succeeded in doing was getting ammonia all over the place and making a mess. The other online advice described the nuclear option. This involves cutting the top of the seat post and filing away at the innards with a hack saw blade in the same manner inmates escape from jail cells. This plan did not work. Meanwhile, I decided to poke a 4.5 amp sawzall down in the tube. This is not a safe plan. So I suited up like some gladiator. I wore three layers of clothing including a flannel shirt and a big quilted wintertime hoodie. I put on the hard hat, wore two layers of eye protection and two layers of gloves. Meanwhile, I blazed away with the sawzall like some mad inventor. No luck. It only made matters worse. Finally, I decided to drop back ten and punt to Harbor Freight. I figured I could find something there to ease my frustrations. Sure enough, I came home with a titanium step drill. I suited back up in the safety clothing and poked the whirling drill into the seat post. The only thing this did was make the situation even more helpless.
Finally, I grew tired of the whole thing and Happy Hour arrived. Clearly, it was time to call it quits.

The next day I was drawn back to the fruitless project like a moth to the candle flame. I spent a few more hours on the project on Monday. Each of the two bike shops told me it was useless and the frame was trash and to throw it in the dumpster as it wasn't worth anything anyway. I should have probably heeded their advice but I was hooked and couldn't stop investing time and money in the project.
There are some projects like that. Mentally and rationally, you know they are pointless. They start nowhere and go nowhere. How could anyone in their right mind justify spending so much time on a $5 bike frame? It's not logical and it makes no sense. I have no justification for this project whatsoever. It's just one of those projects which reach out and grab my psyche and won't let go. I became determined to WIN--to smite that seat post at all costs no matter how long it took. I won't back down and I won't blink. I will WIN--that was my mindset and psychology. (Click here for a snippet of the famous Tom Petty song.)

Tuesday dawned yet another beautiful day ripe for all the wonderful things one could do besides fight a titanic tussle with a frozen bicycle seat post that's now ground down far below the level of the top of the tube--so far, in fact, it couldn't be reached with needle nose pliers!

I called some rental companies inquiring about renting large drill bits. No luck. Finally, in desperation, I called the Idaho Falls Machine Shop. It's on Northgate Mile. It's as Old School as Old School gets. You can't get any more Old School than this machine shop. It looks, smells and feels like something out of the 19th Century. The employees are mostly biker dudes with scraggly hair and wallets on chains. Every one is covered in grease and their hands are black. The place is filled with gigantic, antique, noisy, whirling milling machines, the kind that once made America great. It's not a foo-foo place. So this biker dude takes a look at the bike and simply grabs it out of my hands and heads to the back shop. He calls two other burly bubba dudes to come and help him wrassle the bike under a drill press that's about as big as our Suzuki. Then these guys proceed to spend FORTY FIVE minutes wrassling with my bicycle. I can peek between machines and see huge drill bits going in and out of the tube, sometimes even getting STUCK in the tube. I hear muffled cussing and see frowning faces. Finally, the biker dude comes and hands me the bike and said they failed and it can't be extracted. Meanwhile, I am expecting him to tell me the bill would be $100 and I would faint there right on the spot. But he says, "Gimme five bucks and go!" Well, that almost caused me to faint.

So I got the heck out of there and then took the bike over to the parking lot warehouse sale at Bill's Bike Shop. (Note: Our house is a mere 3 blocks from TWO bicycle shops! How good is that?) Sure enough I find a seat post that "might" fit the new hole. I ask if I can take the $6 post home to see if I can get it to work and they say "yes." So, the next chapter begins. This chapter only took another 3 hours. I pounded, I wailed. I pried. I drilled. Pry bars got totally stuck in the tube. Only by minor miracles were they extracted. Finally, I knew if I could find a drill extender I might have a chance. So I went back to Harbor Freight. They told me they didn't sell such a tool. Well, I didn't believe them so I roamed around the store until I found the exact tool I was looking for. And then, just to be snooty, I called over the Staff and gave them a lecture and said next time somebody comes into this store and asks how to find an extender--HERE IT IS--don't tell them you don't sell it, OK? And I took my tool and headed back to the bicycle battlefield where tools of all descriptions lay strewn in disarray. I commenced to drill away some of the final detritus and, much to my distress, I realize I was drilling right through the freaking bicycle frame! OUCH! So, we stopped that plan right away. Then, I took the $6 seat post and put it into the vice and cut it in half. Then I wailed on the seat tube opening with a ball peen hammer and put in a shim and proceeded to get the NEW seat post frozen and stuck in place. Wholly Molely, what next? By this time, I was at my wits end. I had come full circle, getting a frozen seat post drilled and broken out only to get another post stuck in its place. How bad can this black hole get? So, I huffed and puffed and was so happy when the new seat post finally came loose. I removed the shim, whacked away with the ball peen hammer and FINALLY was able to get the new seat post properly mounted and securely fastened. I threw the frame over my shoulder and rang our doorbells to show Susun. She admits she had totally given up any hope of success on this pointless project. I don't blame her--any right minded person would agree that the whole thing was pointless and doomed. But somehow I succeeded. Go figure. She took my picture.
It sure made me happy. I took the bike frame over to the bike shop to show it off and then to the machine shop to show the greasy biker dudes. A five dollar bike never had so much fun!

Well, there's lots more to do to restore this Old Beater Bike. it needs a chain. The two tires are rotted out. I suppose there will be other stuff, too. I don't care. I'm "all in" on this one. It doesn't matter what this bike throws at me--I will WIN and one day I will ride that bike happily down the pathway.

So what's the cost of all of this, so far? We're into the bike for $16.36 so far. I've spent another $20 on tools. I've sprained a wrist and have a real sore left thumb. Luckily, I haven't been lost any blood--no cuts or nicks. I haven't smashed any fingers either. That's remarkable. Timewise, we're nearing a 10 hours investment. That's truly ridiculous but it's a fact. I'm not counting the gasoline for all the running around. The saga has only really just begun. The Seat Story has its own series of chapters but I'm sure the rest of the bike will produce some memorable stories as well. Cheers, jp

Warming up

We're finally warming up here.  Yesterday's high was 89 and it could eek above 90 today.  July 4th weekend will see temps drop back into the 70's for near perfect early summer weather.  It generally gets hot in late June and the warm temps can easily late until late September.  Believe it or not, the Idaho Falls climate data shows a record high of 102 on June 25, 1988.  The earliest day above 90 was May 16, 1964, and the latest day above 90 was September 30, 1957. Also, believe it or not, that early 102 reading stands as the city's highest record high temp ever logged.  There are numerous 100 and 101 degree days on the record books but nothing higher than 102.  The latest 100 degree day on record is August 7, 1983.  Based solely on odds, temps here can be expected to be in the upper 80's and mid-90's most of July and August.  That's why the potato growers love this place.  Hot days, cool nights and very little rainfall--it's perfect for growing fat spuds.

Hey, we might as well use this phrase often in this post!  Believe it or not, Idaho is experiencing Monsoonal Moisture today.  Yes-sirree, it sez so right in this morning's 2:32 am AFD- "MONSOONAL MOISTURE FROM THE SOUTH IS EXPECTED TO ARRIVE TODAY."

Supposedly, we're going to have typical monsoon thunderstorms.  Novel idea, eh?

Moving right along, we also checked into various other weather and water websites this morning.  The Snake through the city is running over 11,000 cfs and crystal clear over The Falls.  Great "pretty water" as the local folks call it.  The Henry's Fork below Island Park Dam is running only 500 cfs so there's no point in taking the Lynx up there.  That's too low of a flow.  The Salmon is running about 3000 at Yankee Fork; over 6000 at Salmon City and over 9000 near Shoup.  That's higher than we'd prefer to mess with right now.  Hopefully, it will continue a steady seasonal decline.

The Middle Fork is about 4 feet at the Lodge.  That translates to a flow around 3,000 cfs.  It appears that the August 7th flow might be adequate to think about a possible river trip then.  I haven't put any thought lately into whether I'm going to use that permit.  I'm leaning against it right now but one never knows.

It was great feeling the heat yesterday.  I even hung around on some black asphalt during the hottest part of the day to soak up some of the radiant rays.  When we were up at Bowery, we thought it got mighty hot and told one of the ranchers our feelings.  He said he loved the hot weather because the winters are so long and cold.  He said the hot phase was too short and that the local folks savored every one of those hot days.  We now understand where that guy was coming from with his comment.  It's not like the Arizona heat where it gets hot early, stays hot forever and finally cools off in late fall.  The nights are always cool here and the summer heat is very short-lived.

OK, why was I standing around on asphalt late in the afternoon?  Good question.  It's a long story--way too long for this blog post.  However, we will try to keep it short.  We bought that old clunker mountain bike June 19 for $5.  The seat post was stuck.  I got stubborn and hacksawed off the post and spent hours attempting to free the remnant stub inside the seat tube.  It's beyond hope now.  I took it to Bill's Bicycle Shop and their ACE Mechanic said there was nothing he could do--he told me to wave "bye-bye" to the frame.  It's toast.  Well, lo and behold, Bill's had just opened up their annual parking lot warehouse sale when I arrived!  I made several trips back and forth to that hot parking lot all day, buying various items and improving Susun's bicycle.  She now has a really nice new seat and a spiffy back rack above the rear tire.  Well, that's about all for now, we want to get onto the Greenbelt before it gets too hot today.

Thanks Marti B. for emailing from Croatia--it's great to hear from a European LBR!  Have a great day & Cheers, jp

Dubois Retrospective

'Twas a mere week ago this morning when the truck was all packed and ready to go.  'Twas a mighty fine trip!

We were pleased to find such a nice library in Dubois that enabled us to post up a synopsis of each day's activities.  That helped us get ahead of the curve and not face a huge backlog of writing upon our return.  The challenge now is to frame a few words putting last week's trip into perspective.  Here's the short of it:

We really enjoyed Dubois and the Togwotee and Union Pass areas.  It's definitely a "come back" spot.  It has everything we now look for in a destination.  We hope to return there at least once a year and possibly twice.

Here's a list of the Top 20 "pros" of Dubois.  (There are no "cons" that we can think of.)

1) Close to home--less than four hours away including three stops.
2) Great campground that's reservable online. Big waterfalls within walking distance.
3) Campground has electricity which means no annoying RV generators are heard.
4) Campground is a mere 25 minutes from "civilization."
5) Campground is centrally located and surrounded by cool stuff to do.  (Cool is both literal & figurative.)
6) Dubois is in the Wyoming desert--the geology reminds us of the Southwest.
7) Dubois is a hopping little town of 962 people.  Lots to do there.
8) The grocery store is a great little store.  Prices are high but they have everything one could want.  Ice is cheap.
9) The library is wonderful and the free WIFI is top notch.
10) Dubois has a great city park with a great riverfront pathway.  Nice hang out spot.
11) Union Pass Road holds great allure.  The Green River Lakes beckon!
12) The National Big Horn Sheep Interpretive Center is well worth several repeat visits.
13) The Dubois Museum was a big surprise.  It's going to take several visits to digest all that place has to offer. (See additional comments below.)
14) We get to drive along the Upper Snake River and in front of the Teton Mtn. range both going and coming.
15) The view of the Tetons from Togwotee Pass is epic.
16) We can stop at Dornan's going and coming, too.
17) There's a Wendy's in Jackson.
18) The Absaroka Mountain Range awaits exploration. Trails every which way everywhere.
19) Three giant watersheds head up nearby: The Columbia, the Colorado, and the Missouri.
20) There's water everywhere and the forests are beautiful.

We  were both quite smitten by Dubois itself.  The downtown has a lot of great shops.  Susun really enjoyed herself during the short times she had to prowl those streets.  Any small town worth its salt oughta to have a great thrift shop and The Opportunity Store in Dubois fits the bill.  There will always be something waiting for us in that store.  The Dubois Museum was the real sleeper of the trip.  We had very low expectations and we were both amazed at the caliber of the facility.  It's far in excess of what one would expect out of a town of 962 people.  It's much better than cities of 10,000 have to offer!  Point of fact: Mountain Home's museum falls far short of the Dubois facility by every measure.  Mountain Home has population over 12,000 with a major Air Force base nearby.  The Mountain Home museum is virtually nothing compared to the Dubois museum.  How did Dubois manage to muster up such a great facility?  Who knows?  For whatever reason(s), the Dubois Museum is a home run ball with the bases loaded.  I could easily spend hours there and then come back for more.  Their exhibits about geology and Native Americans are really professional and genuinely educational.  We'd really like to learn more about both topics so having such displays really floats our boat.  Meanwhile, as you know, we wanted to learn about the Tie Hacks.  The museum delivered Big Time with its Tie Hack interpretive material.  In fact, they devoted an entire separate cabin to the topic.  You walk into this cabin with no knowledge of Tie Hacks. You walk out feeling like you got a Master's Degree in the subject.  That's a tough act for a small museum but the Dubois Museum delivered like a Big City Pro!  The Museum's bookshop is also a gem.  There's a book addressing just about everything you can imagine about Wyoming and Fremont County in particular.

Well, that about wraps it up for Dubois.  I doubt we will be able to return there again this year.  We are already looking forward to next year's trip.  Susun wants to make it a Summer Solstice Tradition.  We'll have to monitor the snowpack, the mosquitoes and the black flies before we commit to that plan.  It's a good idea, though, and at least for now it's penciled on our 2011 calendar.

One of these days this week (hopefully) we will put together all of our photos and gin up an online slideshow.

Cheers, J&S

Sidewalks

As you know, we dearly love to ride our bicycles around the city.  Believe it or not, two years ago our awesome City Council actually legalized riding bicycles on city sidewalks.  What this did is make this city hugely more "bicycle-friendly."  With one fell swoop, it made it possible (AND legal) to ride the wrong way on one-way streets while separating your bicycle from dangerous high speed vehicles driven by distracted texters.  Suddenly, the entire Heart of The City became one giant maze of newly designated bicycle-legal paved pathways!  What it also did was bring a new delight into my bicycle life--low hanging leaves.  There's ba-zillions of thousands of trees in Idaho Falls.  Many of them have their branches hanging low over the sidewalks.  As a result, a cyclist has the distinct pleasure of riding through these bowers while feeling the soft leaves brush against their face and helmet.  Once in awhile a leaf will actually get stuck in my glasses and I look like a one-eyed pirate riding along with a green eye patch plastered to my face.  I can't begin to describe how much simple fun it is to enjoy these sidewalks and leafy limbs.  To say I feel like a kid again is a vast understatement.  It's just wonderfully delightful and one of the joys of a River City Summer (RCS).

Sun Day

Blue Bird Morning--classic Summer Sun Day. Yesterday's high of 83 will probably be repeated again today.  This weather's like a big, fat ear of delicious sweet corn--grab it with both hands and enjoy!

Yesterday went pretty much true to the morning's predicted agenda.  Breakfast on the Bank was great, the yard sales were fun and Bluegrass on the Greenbelt was a fine way to end the day.  In between, we each found a "new project."  Susun now has a spiffy table to serve summer buffets in her courtyard.  Me?  I found a 1952 Coleman 413D campstove for $10 at the LDS Deseret Industries mega-thrift store.  We did our first post on the Camp Tip blog about this stove. Click here to see it.

Not much else going on here--no real news to report.  Below are some thumbnails of various activities yesterday--as usual, click on the small picture to see the larger versions.

Home Sweet Home

We don't often put up a picture of our house.  The last one might have been when we returned from Arizona in late April.  The one before that showed a LOT of snow.  I guess this is the "Summer House" photo.  The next one will probably be when the trees have all turned their fall colors.  Susun's Famous Courtyard is in the deep shade of that giant maple tree on the west side of the house. 

Another "Last Saturday"

How quickly do these months seem to pass?  FAR too quickly!  That cliche phrase "it's seems only yesterday" rings once again in my brain.  Ah, June 1st, we remember it well at The Mystic Canyon Ranch near Mountain Home and, gee, wasn't it REALLY only yesterday?  All my life I've heard old people say, "Time passes faster when you get older."   I am finally beginning to understand what the heck they were talking about.  They were telling the truth!  Who knew?  Heck, at this rate, I can blink six times and it will be Christmas.  (Even though this is the 26th of the month, it's actually 182 days until Christmas.)

It's great to be back home.  Both Susun and I dearly love camping.  We're lucky that we both love is as much as we do.  If either one of us didn't love camping so much, well, one of us would have a Big Problem!  So, we're lucky.  You can flip those words to "We're SO Lucky."  Either way, it works.  Our camping lives have ebbed and flowed and taken us through many incarnations and permutations.  LBRs have a pretty good idea of our current "State of Camping."  One thing that hasn't been explained is an evolving idea of the "duration" of camping.  We're into weekday camping now--leave on a Monday and return mid-day Friday.  We want to enjoy all the stuff Idaho Falls has to offer on the weekends.

Idaho Falls is a "working city."  Pretty much every family that isn't retired has at least one family member who's tied to a Monday through Friday job.  Unemployment is much lower here than almost any place in America because practically everybody works.  This reality creates a "Weekend Warrior" mentality and the region's recreational resources are maxed out on Friday-Saturday and Sunday.  Meanwhile, there's tons of fun stuff to do each weekend INSIDE the city of Idaho Falls.  Every weekend is jam packed with stuff to entertain the "stay-at-home" families who don't have ATV's, dirt bikes, fishing gear, boats, toy haulers, 5th wheels, or whatever.  We love Idaho Falls for many reasons.  One such reason is the weekly summertime smorgasbord of things to do here.  It's great to be back home with a full weekend ahead.

Today is the annual Bluegrass on The Greenbelt event from noon to 9 pm.  There's quite a story behind the scenes of that totally FREE event. (Click here to visit the event's website and be sure to check out the websites of the various bluegrass bands.  Pretty awesome lineup.) There's another nice event going on at Snake River Landing.  It's called Breakfast on The Bank.  Click here to check it out.  Of course, the two Farmers Markets are well worth a visit.  If that's not enough, there's 106 yard and garage sales in this morning's paper, too.

This past week was our first true opportunity to test out the Monday thru Friday Camping Plan.  We were sorely tempted to stay near Dubois, WY for another 2-3 days.  We actually talked ourselves into staying there during Thursday night's Happy Hour.  Luckily, we awoke yesterday and decided to pack it up and head over the hill and down the river back to Grand Ma's little bungalow on 12th Street.  We're danged glad we did.

Speaking of camping, LBRs know I have a proclivity to devote entire blog posts to arcane descriptions of various camping techniques.  Well, progress happens.  I'm taking all of those types of posts away from this blog and putting them on a new blog I created this morning.  The new blog is entitled "Camping Tips" and it's actual address is camptip.blogspot.com.  It's a newborn blog. (We posted the first post on Sunday.)

I know some LBRs roll their eyes and hold their noses when a I start rambling on and on and ON about some arcane camping technique.  Now, I will get to write ad infinitum about everything I'd like to discuss about camping.  Meanwhile, I will spare the bulk of this blog's readership from terminal boredom.  It's a win-win situation.

Hey, Magic Happens!  Remember that great soon-to-be-bumper-sticker-phrase?  OK, this one goes way back in the WAAY BAACK time machine.  Only a few LBRs have been reading this blog long enough to remember this episode.  Way back not long after the birth of this blog, I agonized over whether to go to Coeur D'Alene for a late February conference.  Much angst was aired on this blog.  I finally decided to go and it was the final event of my position as RSVP Director since I retired precisely five work days after my return from the conference.  OK, the State of Idaho promised to pay transportation and lodging expenses.  Lodging was no problem but I had to pay upfront for four flights to get there and back.  State Staff said reimbursement would be no problem.  WRONG!  I turned in all the required paperwork--that in itself was quite a chore--before departing from the job March 5.  Well, the check never showed up.  The check got vaporized by the Post Office.  The check was actually cut on March 11, the day after we arrived in Arizona.  But it simply disappeared.  Poof, gone, never to be seen again.  Now, folks, we're talking real money here--it ain't cheap to fly from Idaho Falls to Coeur D'Alene!  Loss of this check was a serious "owie."  I contacted my State contact and she then contacted some obscure finance dept. deep within the bowels of state gubmint.  Eventually, I rec'd a form to fill out.  It had to be notarized and it took a long time to finally get all the eyes dotted and the tees crossed.  That whole process started in early April.  Well, I sent in the form maybe sometime in early May, I've forgotten.  No check.  Not only no check, no word whatsoever.  This was very discouraging, as you might understand.  Finally, on this camping trip, I mentally came to terms with the fact I would never see the check and would have to eat the high costs of travel to and from Coeur D'Alene.  I actually finally "let go" of the process and decided it was simply a footnote in the 2.5 year history of that RSVP position.  No problem.

So, imagine my delight to return yesterday find the check in the mail!  HA!  Give it up and here it comes.  It's several hundred dollars that will come in real handy for paying off the credit card upon which I charged the flights in the first place!  That's a real nice bonus for the last Friday in June, eh?

Don't worry, we have forgotten about writing up a summary of our Dubois trip.  We'll get 'round to that sometime soon.  This week, as you noted, we posted in the afternoons.  We will now be going back to a morning schedule.

Have a great day and Many Cheers!  jp