The River of No Return

Fortunately, I returned from 'The River of No Return' aka The Salmon River.  If you have never heard of it, google it or youtube it.  Because it is awesome.

I think I will just tell you how awesome it was via pictures.  That is the easiest way.

 Here I am.  Rowing a boat.  It felt good to be back on the oars.  

 This is my cousin, Matt, and his dragonfly friend.  Unfortunately, I never got a picture of his spider friend named Booger.

 View of the river 

 Costume Night (aka Dave vs Boyd in the Namby-Pamby 2012 Competition)  And yes, that is my extremely blinding stomach (not a flattering picture)

 Tyler, my cousin

 Kris, my cousin

 Kris soaking up in the hot spring

 Duckie time with Stein

 Feelin' groovy...

 Yellow Pine Bar

 Since Matt, my cousin, guided this river for let's say many years.  He knows all the ranch people.  SO these people let us come up and walk around their garden and sent us on our way with a bush of fresh basil and two heads of fresh garlic.  YUMMY on our pasta that night.

 I was salivating in their garden.  Isn't it beautiful.  They totally live off the land, what they grow, trap, catch, and shoot because they get completely snowed in in the winter.

 Cousin, Marcus, just rowin hit Cat....sitting in the bottom of it.

 We'll just say, his Father is so proud

Another view of the stillness

But really, this river is awesome.  There are constant rapids (we went in low water because high water is insane and will flip lots of boats.)  I mostly took videos and I don't know how to put those on my computer, let alone my blog.  But when I figure it out, I will put some on.  

Highlights.

Dave (uncle) flipped his boat in Bailey's Rapid.  (You should have seen how quickly my cousins were at the aide of their Mother in the water)

Lisa and I flipped our duckie in Vinegar Rapid (that was a gnarly swim, but awesome)

Stein and I had freakin awesome hits all day in a duckie.

Awesome people and awesome fun

I played volleyball.....I still don't know how I feel about that one

River boarding?  River version of wakeboarding/knee boarding?

Fun times.

It's A Jungle Out There

Yes.  This is our garden as of 2ish weeks ago.  It is even bigger now.

 Green Beans

 Herbs

 Zucchini

 Beginnings of a crookneck squash (which I have now picked)

 Tomatoes

 Tomatoes from seeds

watermelon.  (times this by 2 and that is what these vines look like now)

Granddaddy Basin

We went on a little weekend backpacking trip (nothing major) to Granddaddy Basin this week.  It was awesome.  So beautiful.  The whole time I kept thinking to myself and Derek and I would comment to each other, "This is so beautiful."  We seriously have such a beautiful state and I can't believe I have lived here 24 years and had never been up to Granddaddy Basin.

Anyway, since I worked on the 4th of July, I took my "Holiday" on Friday.  So we went boating in the morning with some friends, then headed over to the trailhead.

We did about 7 or 7.5 miles Friday  (aka from 3:45 or 4:00-7:00) and then did about 9ish Saturday (stopping at many of the lakes for Derek to fish).

Trip highlights.

Gorgeous Lakes

(Lily pad Lake)

(Pine Island Lake.  Where we camped)

Derek caught a fish on his first cast at Lost Lake but it wiggled off the hook right as he was pulling it onto shore.  Needless to say, no fresh fish for lunch.

(Just before he caught the fish at Lost Lake)

(Another view of Derek fishing at Lost Lake)

The night-time scare.  Story. Friday night we camped at Pine Island Lake (gorgeous), it is around 10 pm and we are in our tent talking and laughing when we hear this "Boom.  Boom."  It seriously sounded like how you would imagine a giant or Big Foot's footsteps sounding.  So we immediately shut up and listen.  We hear the big thumping footsteps again and these two really loud snort-like sounds.  I am thinking, 'Oh my gosh, it's a bear!  We're gonna die!'  And then we hear it walking around our camp, fairly close to our tent, and I am thinking, 'Our food isn't in here.  Just eat that and leave.'  Then the trees right next to our tent start to rain down pine needles on the tent so now I am thinking, 'It's going to push the tree over and smash the tent!' (Totally irrational, I know.  But it was scary.)  Derek was thinking similar things.  It was so scary.  But hey, his first reaction was to pull me close in a protective mode and have his knife ready (not that that knife would stand a chance against any animal other than a squirrel.  But he was ready.  I was nice to know he has protective instincts, not run away instincts.)  Anyway, we said a prayer and the animal left.  Then about 20 minutes later, we hear the two loud snort-like sounds again, and the footsteps.  But it just passed by and never returned.
In the morning, we looked for footprints, but couldn't determine anything.  We are pretty sure in was a moose.  A guy we saw fishing while Derek was fishing that morning said something big passed through their camp as well.  So my guess, Moose needed a drink from the lake and we were in his path to the lake.

Fresh air and hiking

Good conversation

Having just Derek and Katie time (we don't get much of that)

(Picture is a little dark.  Sorry)

Dinner and lunch were both pretty rockin'.  Here is a link to what we ate.

And it rained.  We didn't mind.  Just put on a rain jacket and a pack cover and you are set.  Because our Mt. Hardware pants rock and repel water.  But aren't like wearing rain pants because those just make you sweat a lot.

It was a lot of fun.  All in all, just over 16 miles.  Short, sweet, and fun.

leak

So you may all believe that when you have a leak you hear 'drip, drip, drip' or the rush of water, or at least notice the faucet right?

Wrong.

We learned the hard way.

On Sunday night, we got home from my sister's house and Derek called me into our room to show me a 6 inch by 2.5 inch bubble of what we assumed to be water beneath the paint on the wall at the base of the wall.  (Wow.  Talk about a run-on sentence).

There was a trail of water under the paint coming from the ceiling.  So we call my dad (who wasn't home) and we put down towels because the carpet is soaked.

Next day, I go to work, Derek goes to school (we switch the towels).  Dad calls a friend and I come home to a carpet fan going and this bad boy in the ceiling.

The pipe to our outside hose had broken.  But it broke inside the house, so we couldn't see it was leaking.  From the outside, all was dry.

Last night, I came home to this.

So we moved our mattress out into the main room and slept there instead.

Rope Rug

Here it is, the long awaited rope rug.  We have some old ropes and so I decided to make a rope rug.  The first few attempts were disastrous.  Nevertheless, I persevered.  And this has actually been finished for a couple months (I started in April.  Finished in May) and have been waiting to tie it off until today when I finally got that board off my floor and had Derek sear the two ends together.

It isn't perfect.  But I think it is pretty good for my first one.