Showering Like a Dinosaur

 It is only the first day of July and I fear I have used an entire month’s worth of Kitness:  At the recommendation of the camp host at Murdock Campground in the delightful Sawtooth NRA, I stopped at Alturas Lake on my way to the Stanley area.  When telling me about the different camping options along my route, he mentioned this lake as well as Lake Pettit as having quiet, small campgrounds as opposed to near Redfish (often crowded, noisy) where my one-night reservation across the highway at Sunny Gulch was waiting.

Yes, that’s right, I was approaching the holiday weekend with a single night’s reservation and a long list of First Come First Served options.  Living on the edge.

The host thought Pettit was probably more to my liking but that conversation went like this:

              “The road in to Pettit can be a bit rough.”

              “How rough?”

              “Well, how did you feel driving in here?” 

              “Like crying.”

              “Try Alturas, it’s paved all the way to the campgrounds.”

I contend that the tire companies of Idaho manage the gravel roads; I have never seen so many sharp pointy rocks in my life—and they are large!  Almost the size of my fist.  These (plentiful) gravel roads are designed for Jeeps with giant knobby fat tires and not low-profile high-speed Porsche tires.  You know me and flat tires; it has been a bit stressful.

The drive up Highway 75 from Ketchum is lovely, across vast meadows and up the windy, scenic Galena Summit before dropping back down into (yet another) beautiful valley.  I have enjoyed all the hills along my travels, particularly those I mentioned in Wyoming with their layers of blue-green something, but this valley dazzled with tall, jagged, snow dotted mountains on the left and a wide, swift river on the right.  I tell you, I am falling in love with Idaho.  I think it must be how California was one-hundred years ago:  Wild, free, relatively uninhabited, full of farmers, fishermen and people who care about nature’s gifts.  I haven’t seen a piece of trash in many weeks.

That is, except for Ketchum which is California, and the worst of it, right now.  Wow, what pretentious people!  And you can tell they are Californians:  They wear masks in the stores, and are frantic, and pushy, and sit at tables in café’s and only say, “I”, never “you”, as in “I just blah blah blah and then I blah blah blah” and never, “How are you?  What have you been up to?”  I haven’t heard so many self-centered conversations since I ate lunch at The Ivy in West Hollywood.  I took my sandwich to go and raced back to the delightfully private and peaceful campground.   

I had only two nights at Murdock Campground and, as my fellow campers will appreciate, I had the joy of that first night with a full tank of fresh water and an empty black tank followed by the assurance that I will still have plenty of both water, and space, by the time I headed out two days later.  So I lived it up! 

Now, as some of you remember from the Salt & Pepper Aventura, there came a day when, after nine-months together in a 19’ trailer, sitting in a lovely ocean-view pitch in Portugal, sipping wine with dinner, that Alan looked at me and said, “You are eating like a dinosaur.”

That time I couldn’t even get mad before he made me laugh.

Ever since then, we used that phrase to describe anything that was excessive:  Speed, “You are driving like a dinosaur”; Scotch, “You are drinking like a dinosaur”; you get the idea. 

So this is what I was thinking when I took my second, yes second, shower in one day: “You are showering like a dinosaur.”  And I loved every minute of it.

Sparkling clean, I hit the road early today.  Not too early, I needed to let the people who were leaving pitches leave, but wanted to be ready to pounce at eleven should the Kitness prevail.  And so it did!  I drove up to Alturas Lake, noting the plentiful boondocking spots along the road in case I needed one, passed by one full campground, pulled into North Shore Campground, found an open spot and immediately booked it for five nights.  I can see the lake through the trees and when the thunder, lightning and rain stop, I’ll be jumping in.   Probably tomorrow.

As soon as I set up Beagle, I drove into Stanley for lunch and supplies; it’s a funky little town, maybe six blocks worth of commercial activity.  First stop was for a hiking map—I like nothing better than laying out a good map of any kind and a hiking one makes my soul sing—the proprietor mentioned that I had picked out his favorite hiking map and socks so, seeing as we had so much in common, I asked if he could recommend a sandwich spot.

Which he did:  My Philly Cheesesteak was phenomenal. 

-K

PS:  I had to drive back into town to post this, there is no cell service out where I am camping.  So a bonus picture!  Here was my "office":