RW and I don’t really believe in luxurious holidays, with the exception of our 6 year late honeymoon we took in Hawaii, which was actually a marriage present from my parents. It was nice! When we return, we’ll rent a jeep and take it places no jeep should go in order to camp on quiet stretches of beach beside a roaring surf.
We like to camp, fish, hike, build campfires, cook over our pocket rocket stove or over an open fire, filter water, blister our feet, hike too far, fish too late, spook a pair of mule deer, marvel at the size of wolf tracks, sweat, summit, swim and suffer (just a bit).
We like to camp, fish, hike, build campfires, cook over our pocket rocket stove or over an open fire, filter water, blister our feet, hike too far, fish too late, spook a pair of mule deer, marvel at the size of wolf tracks, sweat, summit, swim and suffer (just a bit).
When we realized that time was running out for a pre-fire-season holiday the obvious choice for accommodation was Talulah. We put Farley and Penelope in the slammer, loaded our sleeping bags, food and Plumbelina in the bus and took to the road. We drove her nearly 700 miles on a series of loops though some of Idaho’s biggest country.
Here’s what day one looked like:
We made a quick stop at Shoshone Falls on the mighty Snake River, just outside of Twin Falls. Idaho water is running fierce and high with snow melt and springtime rains so the falls were robust and roaring, simply spectacular. Shoshone Falls is called the Niagara of the West. It’s not nearly as broad as Niagara Falls but it boasts a larger drop and it mists you just as well!
We took a blue highway over to Buhl and stopped off at the local dairy for a bottle of milk and a pint of chocolate milk for RW.
We zoomed (which is a relative term when referring to Talulah) down through Thousand Springs where the water simply pours out of the basalt cliffs in white streams and picked our way through the twists and turns of Hagarman, delighting in all the acreages with private trout fisheries (RW wants one of his own very badly, you know, he was a fish biologist before he became a firefighter).
Then we crossed the desert.
We passed a shepherd tending a flock of at least 800 sheep with only the help of a handful of dogs. The Basque who still tend sheep in this state free range their stock on BLM land, if they have the right to. My one regret in life, at this junction in time, is that I did not photograph that shepherd. The Basque ship their sheep down to Arizona every winter to feed on alfalfa stubble and to lamb in in a warmer climate. I used to spend hours watching them in the valley we lived in when we still resided in Arizona. There is nothing like a pasture speckled with the gentle silliness of sheep, the bleating and tail wagging of wee lambs, the oceans of starling sweeping through blue sky and the careful watch of a Peruvian shepherd over his flock. Seeing this shepherd moving his flock over spring grasses really moved my heart and mind into the past lives RW and I have lived. It was pretty magical.
We popped by Little City of Rocks to run Plum.
This is a prime example of why I love this state so well. It’s empty. It’s beautiful. It’s wild.
When I find myself traveling to large city centers, I nearly always meet a handful of urbanites who are dismayed when they discover I live in Idaho. They drop their jaws and ask me, quite simply, perhaps even snottily, “Why would you ever live in Idaho?”
Here’s my answer:
Because it suits me.
Because it suits me.
Because I can find myself in a wild, lonesome space without any effort at all. For goodness sakes! Directly across the street from my home are miles and miles, acres and acres of Forest Service and BLM lands! I don’t have to fight the masses to be in a soul expanding patch of wilderness. I can run for miles without seeing anyone else. The water is still clean. The mountains are free of litter. The cougars and bears don’t try to eat me because they aren’t yet habitualized, when they see me coming, they run away! If I need to, I can be the only person on earth, and sometimes, I like to be the only person on earth…I like life to be simple, just me, creation and The Creator on the side of a mountain with immaculate winds combing their fingers through my hair.
To phrase it simply, Idaho appeals to my reclusive soul.
Her wilderness is a healing salve for my heart scrapes.
She takes me in.
She practices tough love.
Her grace is abundant.
I see God in her. Everywhere.
I am brought to my knees.
I know RW feels the same way about this state, though he’s not half so windy about it.
He is enchanted with it. I can tell.
His bones have become Douglas fir roots, drinking up all the land has to offer. The mountain water here is a strong libation, there’s crystal music in every drop, and we align ourselves to the way this big country flows and get carried away.
Big country.
Big dreams.
Big hopes.
We rolled on.
Up and over a high pass.
Some previous owner of Talulah welded her heating ducts shut so at about 5000 feet, we could see our breath and we couldn’t feel our hands or feet. Life was feeling positively Russian.
When ever I’m desperately cold,
I imagine I’m a poor Russian in bad times
burning any scrap of wood I can find to heat my shabby home —
tundra twigs,
the lid of a grand piano,
the knobs off the dresser drawers…
you know…so cold, it feels Russian.
We hit the snow line, we hoped we could make it over the pass. Life was uncomfortable. This fact might be our very favorite thing about camping. It isn’t easy. The effort makes us feel alive. Sometimes it’s miserable, but those awful tales of hard times often make the best stories.
We passed a blue grouse putting on a spectacular mating display.
I’m not a female grouse, but if I was, I wouldn’t have said no!
His sweet vanity must have been driving his ladies batty.
Though I don’t think their view from atop the aspens was half so fine as mine.
We poured down the other side of the pass like so many mountain rivers, streams and creeks that were blown out with springtime run off. Rushing, rushing, rushing. The mountains are deranged with water right now. The trout are hiding in the treetops. There was fresh snow on the Douglas fir and lodge pole pines. Winter still had an iron grip on the high country.
Finally, finally, we rolled into our campsite, in the Smokey Mountains of the Sawtooth Range. There was a dampness in my bones and a lightness to my verve — RW too, I could tell, was basking in the space. We were the first campers of the spring season, the mountains were only ours. We sparked up our stove and warmed up the antelope chili we made the night before, brewed a pot of tea and watched the sky slowly clear into night. A full moon rose up. The stars did their spangling. We hoped for wolf song, but they never came, or if they did, they had nothing to sing about. When we crawled into the warmth of our sleeping bags, with Plum curled up in a small doughnut at our feet, snow began to fall quietly all around and rest came easy.
Welcome home.
I hope you had a wonderful time together.
Thank you for the lovely photos.
Lovely, absolutely lovely.
And to fall asleep with the snow! Lovely.
(I was just thinking to myself the other day, while running in Chicago, just once I wish I could run and run and run and not see anyone…)
Thanks for sharing your adventure.
i feel the power.
i feel the peace.
p.s. you did WHAT with farley and penelope?? the SLAMMER??!!
next year i'll wait to take my vacation 'til you and robert want to leave the dogs behind: i'll vacation at plume gables, just me and farley and penelope. oh, and ziggy.
xo
Oh, s i g h…so much to say but words are meager. Thanks for sharing the voyage! How my Arctic girls would love to have heard wolf howls or reverberated with wolf silence, and smelled the wolf tracks. Love the heights, the mist, the water, the grouse, the rocks…
You two sure do know how to have a good time.
x
My goodness…I am too busy to read right now but loved the photos Miss Plumer…I love puffy clouds and an animal or two on the seats of my car…I hardly need much else ever except of course milk. xo
"sometimes, I like to be the only person on earth" and "her wilderness is a healing salve for my heart scrapes" made me well up inside with understanding & symmetry. Sweetness in the simple. Welcome back; it's good to read your words again!
Simply lovely. Thanks.
(too hot here)
i get it.
i love the city of rocks! love. love.
have fun on your adventure. (i get that too.)
From one Nature Girl to another, this is my kind of getaway…the BEST kind of getaway! Wide open space, no-one else in the world, Mother Nature in abundance… *le sigh* You do not need to explain to me why you love it so much…I know…I KNOW!
Take a deep breath of that beautiful clean mountain air for me, will you 🙂
Belinda
-xo-
Welcome home my dears. I had to wipe the tears from my fat little cheeks reading this as it brought back so many memories to my heart. I lived many moons ago just across the Perine Memorial Bridge. There is a shopping center right where my home was and I could look down into the canyon from my front yard. I spent many memorable days enjoying Shoshone Falls and all of her beauty. My, oh my, do I miss my homeland. I didn't realize how much until you posted it on my screen. So happy you enjoyed such a beautiful vacation and I certainly understand why you live and love in Idaho!! Hugs to you both and I will someday come to visit good ole Pokey again and I hope that you are still there. Sal
This post makes me feel alive.
Too much, gorgeous! I was waiting for this post so much. Next time someone asks you "how can you live there" you should send them this link. I love your hermit ways and I'm a bit jealous of it, too. Thanks for sharing your beautiful adventures with us, the deprived in the city, fighting for a patch of grass. xx.
Me thinks I'd like to move to Idaho. What beautiful land.
Lovely Dream Idaho is.
Some gorgeous shots, Jillian! The one of RW and the not-so-Thumbelina Plumbelina is terrific!
I grew up in the lush greens of the Waikato, but did always love the wilder, more rugged west coast, so your love of the wild, rugged, and isolated makes perfect sense.
And you know, it's like we're twins! I was just saying to hubby the other day that we needed to add a bit more adventure into our lives. So half an hour later he was browsing the DVD rental stacks at Hastings for some classic action flick, and I was at the store buying groceries…which included milk AND chocolate milk!!
(What…oh, you thought I was talking about the 'going on an adventurous vacation' bit?!? Hah…the most adventurous thing I do each day in my nonfiction life is poke my head out the door and check the mail, imagining there'll be no bills. Thank goodness I get Sundays off…it's all really rather exhausting!!!)
xx
Thanks for all these lovely comments, you wild things!
Heidi: Oh….there's nothing half so lovely…
Fox: THe SLAMMER!!!!!! HA HA!!!!
Tea & CHicks: It's good to be writing again! 🙂
Sub: Ugh!
Life Among Rocks: Well I love City of Rocks too……but this was the LITTLE City of Rocks — a totally different place! If you want some directions sometime, I'll be glad to give them. Not much in the way of trad out there, zero bolted routes…but some awesome bouldering on good basalt — lots of highball problems!
Belinda: INHALEEEEEEeeEEeeEeEE!!!!!
Sal: Idaho misses you! x
Snail: HA HA!!! Well. That made me a bit sad for the city folk! But….you have GREAT coffee shops!!! 🙂
Ash: Did you know that Robert and I met in the Waikato??? 🙂 We know all about the lush green of that place and spent lots of time kissin' in those fields! HA HA!!! We're more twinny than you could imagine! x
xxoo. brilliant.
Wow, really??? How very cool.
Did quite a bit of kissing in a few fields, myself, once I got over the 'all boys are idiots' stage. (Now I quite like them, as a species.)
Not with dear hubby, alas. His first trips to the Waikato, he just sneezed and sneezed and sneezed until he thought his head would explode, and I had to put him on a plane back home.
Ah, the green green grass of home. (Glad I'm not there to mow it!!)
xx
Phew! My heart is swooning and there are simply not enough, or perhaps too many, words. xx
By the way, I think Talulah is FABULOUS!! (Miss Plum looks entirely at home!) My father had a bug in the exact same color when we were kids. He'd tell us if we pushed this 'special' button (it was probably the cigarette lighter) the car would fly!
I was too chicken, but my older sister wasn't. When she pushed it, he planted his foot on the accelerator, and the bug sped off (as fast as bugs can speed of course)!
And for just a split second, we had wings………………..
xx
Amazing.
unbeknown, it would be as if I was turning the pages of some glorious tale… le sigh.
stunning adventures.
much love!
-lu
"so cold it feels Russian"- you are amazing.
What an adventure I've had just reading this post of yours… needless to say, I just love what you do.
p.s. I spent the weekend working with a team of Saskatonians and it made me feel close to you, somehow xx
Just totally WOW!
Love this new format; the pics are SO BIG… feels like I was there between all the beautiful storytelling and beautiful photos.
Totally enraptured with it all.
You're crazy, wild at heart and loveable pair!
word verif: smissess. That means a bundle of smooches and kisses