Lake Cascade and McCall

Mom corrects me, it is Alexander that had the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Harold is the one with the purple crayon, which makes me wonder if Harold is now politically incorrect, trying to draw his world, might make kids want to draw on the walls.

Boise drivers may be the best in America, but outside of Boise everyone is driving a Ford F150 and on their way to a fire. The drive from Boise to McCall could not have been more beautiful, but I seemed to be the only one who wanted to drive slow enough to see it. It is 100 miles north to McCall. I stopped to take pictures so much that it took me all day and the pictures do not really do the scenery justice.

This is on the way, around Banks, I think,




Funny, that second picture is of an RV Park, pretty nice RV Park. That is part of the Payette River.

This is on the way,




This is McCall and just around McCall,








Just after I got to McCall, it started to gloom over and then rain. I don't know if it was the weather, but the town really was deserted for a Saturday afternoon. McCall is at 5,000 feet elevation and it was significantly colder in McCall than Boise. There is the usual cute, small downtown, but I only went in one store that had sheepskins. I imagined myself with a fluffy sheepskin rug and tried on some sheepskin gloves, but didn't buy anything. The gloomy weather is better for picture taking and I thought I should go out and take advantage of it.

I headed back and took a side trip over to the north end of Lake Cascade,









I had a bit of trouble making my way back to the highway from this side trip, but it was worth it. Lake Cascade divides into two on its north end and I was in between the two forks, so I had to go north in order to go back east to the highway and then south and I had water on both sides, very confusing. On this trip I stopped at a few state parks, including one on the north end of Lake Cascade, but they were all unmanned and I did not see one other person or one other car at any of them, which started to feel eerie.

And this is along the Payette River again, on my way home,



As I got closer to home, there was a forest products checkpoint, although the trooper just waved me on. I don't know if they were looking for trucks full of firewood or evidence of illegal hunting, but I guess I did not look like I had either. On my trip I also saw one forest fire off in the distance and many people burning leaves. Driving around Idaho looking at fall color on a cold day is even better with the smell of burning leaves.

It is a beautiful day in Boise today and it is hard to imagine we will get to freezing at night this week. Last chance to mow the lawn, but I don't think I will, and I can't get myself to pull up the green peppers, either. They have flowers on them, they want to have more peppers! I'm not sure which is more traumatic, pulling up green plants with flowers, or pulling up frozen, wilted plants that just a few days earlier were green with flowers. I don't think this is an issue that should bother a farm girl.