September 2019 trip: N to Farragut State Park

Not exactly a snappy title, and reveals how the trip is fading into the past, but I shall persist because I have discovered I like going back and reading old posts about former trips.

Once descended from Hells Canyon, I set out heading north with only vague plans for the next few days. One of my half-brothers and his wife retired a few years ago and moved to Grangeville. He’s the sibling I know the least, but I’ve always enjoyed visits with them*, and was curious about their new place, so that was my first goal. I was also curious to see Grangeville; I hadn’t been there for decades. Suffice it to say it has changed enough that I didn’t recognize a single thing about it.

I eventually managed to find Mike and Debbie’s place. Neither Apple nor Google maps were of much help, directing me up an entirely wrong road, but with the help of Debbie’s directions and studying the satellite view of the map, I was able to figure it out.

Debbie was in the midst of canning peaches and couldn’t stop, but she participated whenever Mike and I were within earshot. He showed me over the house, explaining how much they’ve done since buying it–which was an impressive amount. He’s enthralled by the view from their front windows; their farm was down in a draw so they’d had no view at all for the 30? 40? or so years they lived there, while their current place has a nice vista out over the broad valley where Grangeville is located.

In addition to canning, Debbie also cleared and maintains a small truck garden, quilts, and works on the house, painting and so on. At one point I commented that it didn’t sound like she had retired at all, that she is working as much as ever, and Mike responded that the difference is that now she only works at the things she likes/wants to do.

One of the things she did was make these scarecrows for the garden.

You can see who they are modeled after.

She was at a critical point in the canning operation when I realized I hadn’t gotten a picture of them, but I think it adds authenticity to have captured her in the midst of an activity.

Mike and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum politically, or at least I assume so–we’ve never discussed things in detail, but we ventured cautiously into that territory. We both enjoyed it, or at least I so inferred from his smiling face, and even found small areas of commonality. I think we both took it as a challenge, to see if we could talk about things honestly while maintaining civility. We did enjoy twitting each other a few times in a teasing sort of way, but altogether it was kinda fun.

After a couple of hours, it was time to get back on the road. I had targeted Dworshak State Park for our stop, but the road up to it was gravel and had such bad washboards that I turned back after less than half a mile. As I said to a friend recently, no destination is worth damaging your vehicle to get there, let alone a mere overnight stay. It was getting latish for me, but Allstays came through for me once again, and we ended up at what turned out to be quite a lovely little CG on the Clearwater river, called the Pink House Recreation Area for reasons I never discovered. The only drawback was that Scamp had to be kept on leash (as is usual), but the host made a point of directing me to a beach area where he said it was OK to let her off.

She dragged that stick all the way back to our site.

Later, I went exploring the CG on my own, and she managed to get loose and come after me. She was dragging that silver chain you see above when she found me, having gotten free of this carabiner.

She did the same thing several times over the next few days. She must have been chewing on/mouthing it, and managed to open it and pull free, though I never saw her do it. Having done it once, she then got faster at it. They warned me she’d be smart, and I knew that would mean trouble at some point 😄. I’ve since taken care of things by buying some two-ended latches that she can’t operate.

In the morning, we took a walk along a path right by the river, and she fetched a stick a few times from the river. I kept them close to shore, because the current out further was swift enough to worry me. She’s game, but not a fast swimmer. This one was a challenge because of its length.

On the way back to camp, she tackled this.

She gave up on it fairly quickly, but she was doing something there I’ve seen often–trimming the stick. She’s done it so often it’s made me wonder if a toy could count as a tool–if so, we can add dogs, or some dogs anyway, to the growing list of animals who make tools.

My travel goal at that point was to meet up with my brother and his wife near Coeur d’Alene, from whence we planned to travel together a week or two. My target there was Farragut SP. I hadn’t intended to arrive there until Sunday–it’s close to Spokane, and Friday and Saturday are risky days for camping anywhere near a population center. But I decided to take a risk–it was Saturday–and headed there; nowhere along the way looked any more promising. When I got there, the sign “Campground Full” was out, but I asked a ranger if there was any chance, and he told me to go on in to the Visitor’s Center to find out. Where a woman who was efficient but who did not appear to be enjoying her job did find me a spot.

Up next: Farragut adventures.

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*I remember one visit years ago in particular. They had a farm near Emmett, and my brother and I dropped in (we may have called ahead, I’m not sure.). Debbie and Mike dropped whatever they were doing, arranged chairs in the living room, and we sat around and just talked for a couple of hours. I remember thinking/realizing we were “visiting”, something our parents and grandparents used to do, and used to call it. It’s a thing, hard to describe, and I don’t know that it much happens any more in this age of media and instant communication. The adults used to do it all the time when I was a kid, often after Sunday dinner, when dropping in to see someone who lived in a different town, on holidays. Bored the heck out of me sitting around with them listening, but at some point I grew up enough to participate.