I mentioned in my last post that Tye put us up in a spare bedroom. He also invited Ozark to stay – they have two cats in the house, Ollie and Frankie. Ozark made herself at home, exploring the place and finding favorite spots. Early Thursday morning I awoke to the sound of a cat fight. I quickly ran downstairs to see what was up. Ollie came flying past me with Ozark hot on her heels. Ollie scampered under our bed while Ozark crouched on the floor. I picked Ozark up and put her on the bed. Situation resolved, the cats didn’t get into it anymore, I guess they established their pecking order.

Donna went out for a walk in the early morning. To her surprise, she came across a couple of ponies wandering in the road. She worried about them being in the road, so she led them across the street. They wandered off down a driveway. She didn’t think they belonged there judging by the barking dogs, but at least they were off the road.

Later we went out for a ride in Tye’s Polaris side-by-side ATV. This ride is the deluxe ATV – four seats and HVAC-equipped. That’s right – it has a hard top, windshield, side windows and air conditioning! No dust in our face and we beat the heat. He drove us up on the canal path above his house. We went all the way to the Little Gem Motorcycle Park – an off-road motorcycle park with challenging hill climbs and trails.

On the way back, we stopped at a small gift shop called Grit and Grace. They had an eclectic assortment of merchandise – everything from local honey to antiques. I was interested in the end-grain cutting boards they had for sale, but didn’t buy anything. Then we drove the ATV back to Tom’s Cabin for lunch – it was the cafe we ate at the day before.

Later, Donna prepared chicken breasts which she fileted and pounded. Tye grilled them and Donna served them with a dijon sauce and garlic-smashed potatoes and French green beans with toasted almonds on the side. It was the only home-cooked meal we had at Tye’s place.

On Friday morning, Donna went out for an early walk again. This time she walked up a trail to the canal, having seen the route from the ATV the day before. She crossed the canal and climbed high on the hill. She took a couple of pictures.

She encountered a gopher snake in the path. Some people call them bull snakes and they are common in the foothills of southern Idaho. Gopher snakes are harmless, but sometimes they’re mis-identified as rattlesnakes. Their narrow, tapered tail lacks rattles though. They feed mainly on rodents and can follow them into burrows – thus the name gopher snake.

We went out for breakfast at the Blue Ribbon Cafe in town. It was a hearty meal and very good breakfast fare. After that, Tye drove us up highway 52 to Black Canyon Park. This is a public park on the Black Canyon Reservoir. It’s a beautiful setting with a nice boat ramp and ample parking. There are grassy areas and a sandy beach. The park and beach were full of people on a hot Friday. There’s no charge for day use or the boat ramp and parking. On the way back, I asked Tye to stop at Grit and Grace again. I decided to buy the end-grain maple cutting board.

Later, we went to the airport and picked up Tye’s life partner Karen. She flew in from San Diego with her 10-year old grandson, Sebastian. It was 5:30pm by the time we left the airport and we stopped at the Texas Roadhouse in Meridian for dinner. The restaurant was a zoo on Friday night and it took over an hour to get a table.

Donna and I decided it would be best if we moved on from Emmett Saturday morning. The forecast called for temperatures reaching 106 degrees over the weekend and we thought we shouldn’t leave the coach out in the direct sun – the temperature inside the coach was likely to top 110 degrees. I figured if we moved up toward McCall, we could find some relief from the heat and boondock in the shade of the forest there.

We took US52 west out of Emmett and hit US95 north. Donna found a boondocking spot east of New Meadows in the Payette National Forest. It turned out to be an adventuresome ride – I should have scoped it out on Google Earth, but Donna had detailed directions she found in the Escapees Days End directory.

I should mention that Ozark was not amused when we plucked her from Tye’s house and put her in the coach. She thought she’d found her new home where she could lounge around in comfort and rule the roost. Back in the coach, she gave us the evil-eye. When she realized we were about to hit the road, she burrowed into her new hidey-hole behind the pillows on the bed.

East of New Meadows, we found Cemetery Road and turned north past a few cabins and farm houses. Then we hit a forest service road. It was incredibly dusty – about like the forest service road back in Arizona on the first night of our current odyssey. We came to a fork in the road with a puzzling sign. We were looking for the sno-park. Sno-parks out west are typically a large gravelled lot where snowmobilers can trailer their rigs in to trailheads. The sign had two arrows for the sno-park, they seemed to be pointing on each fork. I walked a short way down the right fork and found another puzzling sign. This one was aimed at hunters and gave a few rules indicating it was private land. It also said no overnight camping. Later I realized the private land was behind the sign, adjacent to the National Forest.

So, we took the left fork. It was a mistake. This took us up a steep, narrow dirt road with a turn that had a sweeping view of the valley way below – and no guardrails. Donna said later that she was scared to look in that direction and also very worried that we would not be able to get turned around. After a couple of miles of traveling this road, I saw a gated spur road on the left. The gate was about 100 yards up the road. I stopped and considered my options. At that point, I felt it was best to pull into the spur road, disconnect the truck so I could back out and get us turned around. So that’s what we did. Coming back down the hill made it impossible to turn into the road to the sno-park. So we got out of there and backtracked to ID55 east toward McCall. We knew there was another sno-park with easy access – we stayed there with Mark and Emily Fagan in 2016 – you can read about it here.

We found two other RVs in the large sno-park lot and set up. I disconnected the truck and we drove into McCall to wash it. It was covered with grime from the dusty forest service road. I’ll need to get the coach washed soon as well. While we were in town, we went to Frenchie’s for lunch. They serve Louisiana fare such as po’ boy sandwiches and seafood chowder. We enjoyed our lunch on the balcony in the cool air.

We had a quiet night in the sno-park and got back on the road by 9am. We went back toward New Meadows and picked up US95 north again. We’ve been on this route a couple of times before, but going in the other direction. This was our first time heading north on this section of highway. We had a hard climb up White Bird Hill to the summit at 4,245 feet above sea level. We dropped a bit of elevation and rolled through the Camas Prairie with wheat fields extending far into the horizon. Our route followed the Salmon River through Hell’s Canyon. Eventually we followed the Clearwater River and dropped into Lewiston where it meets the Snake River at 700 feet above sea level.

The climb up Lewiston Hill was on my mind. It was 85 degrees outside and the hill climbs to 2,756 feet in about four or five miles. When we started the climb, I was going about 50mph and registered boost pressure of 25psi. I knew this wasn’t sustainable. At that boost pressure, the load on the Cummins ISL diesel was too high and we’d overheat. I turned on the four-way flashers, slowed to about 35mph in third gear at 1,900 rpm and maintained an engine coolant temperature of 195 degrees all the way up. Job done – we reached the Palouse and it was rolling hills with forest and wheat fields from here on.

We called it a day when we reached Moscow, Idaho. We pulled into the fairgrounds and found a 50-amp electric only site for $20/night. The 50-amp service was a welcome amenity as the afternoon heated up. We gained an hour along the way – northern Idaho is in the Pacific Time zone. We’ll rest up for two nights here before we continue north to Coeur d’Alene. We can expect daily highs in the 90s there for the next couple of weeks.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!