As Time Goes By

I am happy to report that the lack of blogging here has been due to an extremely busy, fun-packed summer. We are actually all packed and ready to go on our next adventure right now. We are just waiting for our friends Sid and Davida to sort out the stuck egg in their chicken (no joke).

So while we wait, here's a very quick recap:

After our Middle Fork of the Salmon trip (see the previous post), Mark headed off for the Netherlands to help organize and run, as well as do the media for, the four-person raft championships. You can read all about it at internationalrafting.com. This site is also what has been keeping Mark busy this summer, as it is his job to keep it (and the IRF Facebook page) up to date and full of interesting info for boaters and nonboaters alike.

While Mark was off in the Netherlands, I hopped on a plane for a fantastic two-week trip to Connecticut, New Jersey, and North Carolina. After being pampered with mom at a local spa, we stopped off with Dad to see the Darling clan on Green Pond. Relaxing cruises on the lake, a fun night at the Seven Sisters, and always love and laughter made up for the fact that it was a much-too-short visit. Then Mom, Dad, and I headed south for the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where we met up with the Tuthills, our family friends from my earliest days of life, and the Studebaker gang. The house was right on the beach, but also had a pool. Our days were filled with more laughter, lots of swimming, and a whole bunch of relaxing (not to mention a heck of a lot of eating and drinking). Thanks so much to the Tuthills for making it all possible.

I returned to Mark here in Boise, where we have filled up our days with garden projects, more boating, lots of barbecues, the Tour de Fat, the Western Idaho Fair, a hot air balloon festival, pool parties, a bunch of mountain biking, and even a little Willie Nelson at the Botanical Gardens. In between all that, Mark took a job as a polysomnographic technologist at a sleep lab. An entirely new venture for him that he is finding incredibly interesting, even if it isn't his dream job (no pun intended).

And once the chicken and egg issue is sorted, we will be going full circle this summer, returning to Portland to pick up a bench that Mark's folks bought for us last time we were there. In addition to visiting the city again, we will also be camping on the coast for a couple nights to get in some more ocean time!

And now for your viewing pleasure, photos from our summer, in no particular order and without any labels, as the chicken problem has been solved (unfortunately without a very happy ending for either the chicken or the egg) and we are about to head out the door.

Miscellaneous Photos (more to come ... someday)

So technically today is a tomorrow, it just isn't the tomorrow I referred to in my previous post. I still don't have all the pictures from our various adventures. Most are on Mark's computer, which is the Netherlands with Mark (check out www.internationalrafting.com to see what he is up to).

But I did promise pictures (when am I not promising pictures?), so here are the few I have related to the previous post. Actually, only the first few are related to the previous post. The rest are from our wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Middle Fork of the Salmon 6-day river trip (which we just got back from on Thursday night). The river was gorgeous (it runs through the Frank Church/River of No Return Wilderness, which apparently is on the list of 1,000 places to see before you die ... so check that one off the list. Only 999 more to go.), the weather was fantastic, the food was to die for (and then to come back to life just so you could eat more and die all over again), and our group was excellent. Not a bad egg among us (or maybe I was the bad egg and no one told me).

Anyway, without further ado, a few pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Trip the First -- The No Lochsa Weekend, during which we did not raft on the Lochsa and instead enjoyed a wonderful weekend in McCall (which included rafting, skiing, rafting, which a bunch of food and laughter in between).



Trip the Most Recent -- Middle Fork of the Salmon River

So Far Behind

We are so very far behind in keeping this blog up to date. It has been a fun, hectic, busy, adventure-filled spring. But you certainly wouldn't know that, would you.

So here's the quick recap:

Trip 1: Rather than the freezing Lochsa River, we ended up in McCall, Idaho, at a friend's family's 5-bedroom "cabin." We floated down a mellow section of the Salmon, skied the last day at Brundage Mountain, eased our muscles in the hot tub overlooking the Payette River, ate a ridiculous amount of wonderful home-cooked food, and then wound up the whole weekend with a trip down the south fork of the Payette River, upon which Mark expertly guided us through some rocking and rolling class 3 rapids.

For the next two weekends we installed a sprinkler system, with the great, generous help of Heather, her Dad, and Simo.

Trip 2: We got together with a group of friends and headed to the Snake River, on the border of Idaho and Oregon. It was a wonderful trip, like no other, down Hells Canyon (mainly class 3 of a huge, huge river through North America's deepest river gorge). The days were spent on the river, and the nights were spent relaxing in a river hot tub that could easily seat 15. Not exactly the definition of roughing it!

Trip 3: For Memorial Day, we trekked back up through McCall and beyond, to the wondrous Burgdorf Hot Springs. I can't even begin to describe how relaxing this weekend was. More fantastic food and friends, all interspersed between trips to the natural hot springs that overlooked the surrounding mountains. Peace.Ful.

Trip 4: Mark's folks arrived a few days after the Burgdorf trip. We spent a few days showing them around Boise before heading off on a 10-day roadtrip through the northwest. We stopped in Sun River and Portland, Oregon; Seattle and Ritzville, Washington; and McCall. There was much eating of good food, shopping in all sorts of different shops, exploring of city nooks and crannies, and even the occasional hike into the wilderness. It was a fantastic time!

And now we are back home. My computer is just about out of juice tonight, and most of the photos from the various adventures are on Mark's computer. So, tomorrow, when the computer is all recharged, I will add photos for your viewing pleasure. Stay tuned!!