Fall 2012 Road Trip – Idaho

Duke and I left Reno last Thursday on a three week road trip. We are planning to do a circle north through Idaho into Canada over to Vancouver and then back south to Reno. Day one, Thursday we drove 400 miles from Reno to Jackpot, Nevada. Jackpot is on the Idaho border in the north east corner of Nevada. We stayed at a casino there called Cactus Pete's. It was much nicer than I expected it to be. Our room was stylish and comfortable, the food was good, and the people were really nice. The package deal we had included food credit and $50 free play and we won!

On Friday we drove from Jackpot to Sun Valley, Idaho. On the way we had several serendipitous experiences that reminded me why I enjoy road tripping so much.

We stopped in Twin Falls to look at the Perrine Bridge over the Snake River. It is 486 feet from the bridge to the river below. According to the Lonely Planet Guide Book people travel from all over the world to BASE jump off the bridge. We were lucky to be out on the bridge when a guy jumped. It was really cool to watch. Here is my picture of the bridge and a video I took of him jumping.

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http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=109786
 

 

After Twin Falls we stopped at a  the Silver Creek Nature Conservancy
Preserve. It is a pristine trout stream that is used
by fishermen and includes hiking trails. We took a two mile hike through the preserve. The
creek is crystal clear and we just happened to watch a fly fisherman
catch a beautiful trout.

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 After leaving Silver Creek we just happened to go through the little town of Hailey  when they were having their Fall Festival parade. We stopped to watch.

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We spent Friday night in Sun Valley. We had a great Pizza at Wise Guy Pizza Pie. Notice the tally of guys with socks and sandals. Personally I don't have a problem with men in socks and sandals.

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Saturday we drove from Sun Valley to a bed and breakfast out in the country near Cottonwood, Idaho. The Sawtooth Mountains and the Salmon River are beautiful but unfortunately there was so much smoke from forest fires that we could hardly even see the mountains. We did have a nice picnic lunch.

 
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You can really see the smoke in this picture I took when we were filling up with gas in Grangeville

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Driving through all that smoke hurt my eyes and throat so it was sure nice to wake up this morning and be able to see the wheat field beyond the yard of the B&B where we were staying. Our first stop this morning was the Nez Perce National Historic Park on the Clearwater River near Lewiston.

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Farther north we had a picnic lunch on the shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene. Tonight we are staying in Post Falls. Before dinner we took a hike in Qémiln Riverside Park along the Spokane River.

Tomorrow we head into Canada. If you would like to see all my pictures from the trip they are on Flickr here.

 

 

A Flat Tire and a Fat Lip

In the last few weeks Duke and I have taken two three day camping trips in the Nevada Outback. The first trip to Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park and Columbine Campground I described in my last post. The second trip was northeast of Reno and directly north of Winnemucca.

When we headed north from Winnemucca we were on pavement until we reached the little town of Paradise Valley, Nevada. From there we took a good dirt road north about 6 miles to a Forest Service campground called Lye Creek. I think there was only one other camp site in use. We had a wonderful steak dinner and enjoyed the evening. 

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  The next day we headed north again on more remote dirt roads. We stopped to have a look at an old mine site. The entire route must have fantastic views but unfortunately it was very smoky because of several northern Nevada wild fires.

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 When we were about 30 miles from the nearest paved road we ran over this remnant of a fence post in the road. There was a loud whoosh as the air blew out of our right front tire.

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The spare tire is stored under the bed of the pickup. You are supposed to crank it down to get it off the truck. But the secondary latch on the mechanism that holds the tire under the truck wouldn't release. The instructions include steps to take if cranking the tire down doesn't work. We went through those steps several times… jacking the spare and the release mechanism up and down again and again but nothing worked. We always carry lots of extra food and water. I was beginning to think that we might have to use it.

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Surprisingly we had enough cell phone coverage so that we were able to get through to GM OnStar. They connected us to a maintenance guy at the Chevy dealer in Reno. He had no suggestions for how to get the secondary latch to release the spare. But he asked if we had a air compressor. As I was thinking " Who carries an extra air compressor?" I was amazed to hear Duke respond "yes, why?"

The maintenance guy suggested that letting the air out of the spare might give us enough room to maneuver the spare off the mechanism holding it in place. We said we would give it a try. Duke let the air out of the spare. There was still no way to release the spare but we now had room to access the piece of metal what was holding the tire on the truck. So Duke pulled out his bolt cutters. They are about three feet long. I described them as big but he says they are small bolt cutters.

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Duke and I laid on our backs under the truck for over an hour while I held the piece of metal with channel lock pliers and he used the bolt cutters to  little by little cut through the metal and bend it enough to get it off the truck. At one point the bolt cutters slipped and slammed into Duke's lip just under his nose. Although it must have hurt like hell and the swelling gave him a very fat lip he was very lucky not to break his nose or lose a tooth.

 
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 During this whole process the jack was holding the spare up out of the way. We were finally able to get the spare released and lower the jack. But the jack no longer worked. It wouldn't go up or down. Duke also carries a spare jack!! He used the air compressor to refill the spare tire. He used the spare jack to jack up the front right side of the truck and then he replaced the blown tire with the spare.

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The whole process took us over 5 hours but thanks to the patience, preparedness and ingenuity of my wonderful husband we were exhausted but on our way again. 

We camped for the night along the Quinn River and made it home to Reno the next day.

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All our pictures from this adventure are on Flickr here.

Camping – Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park and Columbine Campground

Last week Duke and I did a two night camping trip in central Nevada. From Reno we headed east on Highway 50. Just past Fallon Naval Air Station there is sign which points south to earthquake faults. We have been wanting to explore that road so we headed south. There are some signs along the road explaining that in 1954 a big earthquake in this area uplifted the ground as much as 20 feet. Although the uplift is covered by vegetation now you can still see it. We got out and looked at the fault up close and then drove along it for a ways. In this picture the wavy line in the hills is the uplift along the  fault.

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Heading east the map showed a dirt road across the Paradise Range through Germany Canyon. We found the road  and started up it in four wheel drive but it got very steep and there were some land slides across the road. We thought we were near the top but after getting out to survey the road ahead we decided to turn around. In the picture below you can see where we stopped the truck.

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We went south a bit and took the paved road across the Paradise Range. We camped for the night at Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park in the next mountain range to the east. It was a beautiful night and there was only one other camper in the whole campground.

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During the Triassic period 200 million years ago the park was under a shallow ocean. The ichthyosaur was a giant marine reptile that resembled a dolphin. Some of the ichthyosaur fossils found here were left in place and covered with a barn like structure. Last time we were at this park we just looked in the windows. It was difficult to know what we were looking at. This time the building was open and we took a tour. The giant ichthyosaur fossils are pretty amazing. The round rocks you see in the picture are vertebrae.

 
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After the tour we headed east. Our second night was spent at the National Forest Service Columbine Campground at the edge of the Arc Dome Wilderness. The campground is set beside Stewart Creek in a big aspen grove. We had a few rain showers but they didn’t last long. Columbine campground is one of my favorite places to camp.

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Before heading home we hiked up the Stewart Creek Trail towards Arc Dome for a couple of hours. Some day I would like to do the whole hike. It would be an all day adventure. According to the book 50 Classic Hikes in Nevada the Stewart Creek Loop Trail is 8 miles long and has 2500 feet of elevation gain, The hike to the top of Arc Dome is 3 miles out and back from the loop trail.

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 On the way home we found another impassable road, turned around and found a wonderful four wheel drive road across the ridge top of the Shoshone Mountains. The first picture is the road in Bonita Canyon where we decided to turn around. The second picture is from the road at the top of the Shoshone Mountains.

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If you would like to see all the pictures from this trip they are on Flickr here.

Zachary Taylor by John S. D. Eisenhower

I have a long term goal to read a biography of each American President. My list of the books I have read so far is here.

Reading biographies is giving me a more focused feel for American History. During our recent road trip I finished reading about President number twelve, Zachary Taylor. The biography was written by John S. D. Eisenhower, a retired brigadear general, historian and the son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

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Eisenhower’s biography of Taylor is short, only 140 pages. “His presidency was also short. He was sworn in March 5 1849 and he died of an infection on July 9, 1850.” Taylor’s personal papers were destroyed during the Civil War when Union soldiers destroyed the home of Taylor’s son, Richard, at Baton Rouge. As a result not a lot is known about Taylor’s view of his presidency.

Taylor was best known as Old Rough and Ready, the general who led the U.S. to victory in the Mexican American War. Reading about the significant battles in that war and about Taylor’s leadership was the highlight of the book.

If you are looking for a book to read about Taylor I would recommend the Eisenhower book. It is a well written easy read.

Next I will be reading about Millard Fillmore, Taylor’s Vice President, who took over when Taylor died. He is considered one of our worst presidents so this should be interesting.

 

 

Now is the time to sign up for the H&R Block Tax Class

If you have ever thought about taking the H&R Block Tax Class now is the time to sign up. I took the class last year and reviewed it on the blog here.

Even if you don't want to work for H&R Block I highly recommend the class. It is interesting, challenging and I thought it was a lot of fun. To sign up for the class got to www.hrblock.com/class. Levae a comment if you have any questions about my experience taking the class.