Events of Monday, July 12, 2010

             Jim and I started out our marriage with several adventures on our honeymoon which included almost missing our flight to leave and walking a very long “it’s just a stone’s throw away” distance carrying too much luggage (no wheels) to catch our ferry home. Then, as now, we were able to laugh at these mishaps and dubbed ourselves “The Flexible Taylors”. That flexibility and ability to laugh at our mishaps have served us well over the years and in this trip and especially today.

                We awoke early again. Only it felt especially more so since we had just crossed into the mountain time zone and our 6:30am wake up felt like 5:30 am. My boys were looking scruffy, so I took them out to the patio of the guest house and buzzed them both with the clippers. Then they were respectable enough to join us for breakfast at the Lodge. Breakfast at the Lodge was just another added benefit of our staying at the guest house courtesy of Hugh and Mary Mitzner. We enjoyed a scrumptious buffet feast which left even Ben saying he was stuffed. (And that is a hard thing to do these days of rapid growth!)

                Then we went our separate ways. The boys, Jim, Ben and Hugh, departed for the RV repair shop to try to find out why the generator was not turning on the A/C in the coach while we drove. The kids have had to endure 85-93 degree temperatures inside the RV and have been vying to ride shotgun or sit in the seat directly by the cab which we can keep cool. The girls, Pam, Caitlin, Lindsey, Abby and Mary, departed for a walking tour of historic downtown Boise. Mary showed us the Bosque district, a cool plaza with a fountain to walk through, several neat statues and a park set apart to preserve Boise’s history. A highlight for me was the mural illustrating several aspects of Bosque culture including a piece of a Picasso painting protesting the destruction of a Bosque city during the Spanish Civil War.

                When we checked in with the boys we found that the solution to fixing our hot RV was as simple as flipping a switch and the A/C was running off the generator. Hooray! But that joy was not to last. When I suggested Jim start up the A/C as the kids were repacking the RV, the generator would not start. This led to more phone calls with the repair shop, adding oil, more calls and then nothing.

                We decided to go on with our day and try the repairs again when we get to Greeley, CO where we are scheduled to spend a few days. We headed off to Costco for lunch, restocking our milk and food supplies and for  gas. My kids got a kick out of the Mitzners who had not been in a Costco and the Mitzners got a kick out of watching shopping carts full to overflowing exit the door. Fully thankful to our gracious and generous hosts, we said goodbye and headed out. We had planned to go east to see some sights suggested by the Mitzners, but soon realized that we would arrive just before closing time. So we returned to our original plan to go north to Stanley, ID in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and visit Red Fish Lake. We’ll just postpone the other eastern Idaho highlights a few days.

                We arrived at 6pm, pulled into the last available campsite, and enjoyed a dinner of rotisserie chicken, green salad, potato salad and sourdough bread, all from Costco. The kids were surprised and disappointed that the Costco potato salad is no longer “San Francisco’s Finest” but a “Northwest Potato Salad” filled with Idaho potatoes. And the sourdough bread was not SF sourdough, but Idaho sourdough.  They didn’t think their beloved Costco brands would change as we traveled, but, being the Flexible Taylors, they’ll adjust.

                Tomorrow we have planned a day of rest. We’ll sleep in, take showers, do laundry and continue on in our study of the Gospel of Mark. Then we’ll explore Stanley Lake and maybe Red Fish Lake and just enjoy God’s amazing beauty before moving on to see what else beautiful Idaho has to offer.