~Saturday, August 15, 2020~
Day 62
It’s official. This is our favorite accommodation so far on the trip. Mountain View Motel/RV Park in Joseph, ID is quaint, charming, and has beautiful views of the Wallowa Mountains on one side, and pasture/grazeland on the other. The nightly stargazing is some of the best we’ve seen in a long time. And we’re totally digging the cow’s frequent chit chat with each other. If you are at a place in your life where you long for more quiet and serenity, this is it. The ironic thing is we had originally planned on staying at the Wallowa Campground, but they were booked solid. So what we had as a backup choice originally (the Mountain View RV park), ended up working better for us in the end.
Today didn’t quite work out the way we’d hoped. I made us a power breakfast thinking we were going on an all day, butt kicking hike which instead turned out to be only 1-½ hours long. What kept us from getting on the trail sooner was the research/planning for where our next set of accommodations would be. It really takes a big chunk of time. So now we just need to keep the momentum going with planning the end of August through the middle of September where we’ll be back in California for Jeff’s brother’s wedding. Anyway, after researching places to stay in Sandpoint, Coeur D’Alene, and Wallace (all in Idaho), we were confirmed with 4 separate places for the next 2 weeks. Relief!! We’ll be staying in Ollokot Campground (a national forest campground that is non reservable), then 2 separate Harvest Host sites (one a brew pub called Matchwood Brewing and the other a blueberry farm called Riley Creek Blueberry Farm). Then we head to Farragut State Campground. Next on the planning list: Montana, Northern Wyoming, and California. Then the plan is to head for the Centennial State of Colorado for the entire month of October (which could make the “new digs” list).
Finally, we made it to the Ice Lake Trailhead. Since we didn’t get started until 3:30, we knew we would only be going in for maybe 2 miles. We got to the west fork of the Wallowa River and it was stunning. I can’t imagine what this looks like in the Spring, with the volume of water we saw coming through here today. We ran into a few other hikers, one who actually was coming back from Ice Lake (total miles there and back is 16). The waterfall was ripping, with Sadie absolutely loving it.
Arriving back to our site, we thankfully avoided a near disaster. Jeff was backing in the truck mainly using the backup camera, but not thinking about the clearance of the top of the truck to the trailer awning. Wow, that could have been bad, likely bending the awning and scratching the top of the truck. Whew! There’s always a lesson to be learned on this trip.
The weather was warm enough for us to eat outside tonight where we enjoyed the deep orange sunset, watched geese fly overhead, and heard cows mooing nearby. Fantastic ending to a great day!