Back into Idaho, we keep hearing about the fires but so far we haven’t seen any sign.
We are headed to Stanley Idaho because I read about it somewhere! But…. of course we find other things along the way.
We found a very nice BLM site near Salmon, ID where we got the best site and I think it was $3 a night with our Golden Age Pass. We hit the jackpot, you have to drive off the highway about 2 miles but when we get there
This is our site, and that is the river! It takes a curve right here and there are lots of boulders so the sounds are wonderful.
Paul loves this place almost as much as Teddy; big fires, cold enough to need one and Teddy can play fetch right outside my door. This is hard to beat, too bad I read about Stanley cause I got to move in 3 days!
Stanley! The drive from Salmon to Stanley was beautiful. Once we got to Stanley we finally heard about the fires and a little smoke was in the air. The Redfish Lake was what I had heard about so we headed past Stanley a couple miles and found the lake. I wasn’t impressed, the trees were sparse and we had seen a couple beautiful spots on our was to Stanley so we spent one night and headed back to the Forestry sites we had seen along the river.
Now this is more like it
Stanley is a tiny town that looks like it is focused on the winter visitors. The cell service at our site 5 miles out of town is not! so we take a drive once a day and check email and call the kids. There is an awesome restaurant that serves great coffee and beautiful pastries. One morning I needed to get online early so I headed to town, it was about 40 degrees and people were ordering breakfast and eating on the patio! I am thinking their coffee and eggs were cold before they had the second bite.
The scenery here is beautiful.
This guy sat watching me one afternoon for at least an hour; maybe he was watching the river, I don’t know.
Everyday we saw bald eagles hanging along the banks of the river. They are beautiful.
There are many hiking trails nearby. This one is right in our campground. A nice 2 mile into the forest.
Teddy taking a dip
There are a lot of hot springs in the area. This one is right along the highway about 5 miles from our campsite. I always like the natural springs. Paul likes to play.
The Sunbeam hot springs flow into the cold river but people have rigged up hoses, and rocks to contain the spring water. It was very hot in spots. I had to find a spot that was just warm to take a soak.
Paul doesn’t like the natural hot springs, he says he likes the temperature regulated but he had a great time playing with the hoses people had rigged up. He spent his time moving hoses and filling the old tubs people had moved into the area.
The view of the river with a small tub built with stones. This is the best type of hot tub in my opinion; when you get to warm just toss your arm into the river and cool right down.
Then we found this little Ghost Town, about 10 miles down a gravel road. Custer, the dredging equipment is still there from the Gold Rush days
This was in one of the broken windows of the buildings that are still standing. The dredging continued for miles along this small river leading into the Salmon river. In its day it was a bustling goldrush town.
