Brisk Trip to Boise & Bruneau

Josh and I went to see our favorite band The Jeff Crosby Band perform in Boise the third weekend in November. They play a series of 3 shows in a row every fall in Boise called their "Annual Homecoming Run", and we were able to watch them on both Friday and Saturday nights. We took the camper van on Friday afternoon and got to Boise after 8pm. We headed straight to their venue, and after the show, we just slept inside the van in a hotel parking lot downtown. That was a first! We didn't sleep too great, though, due to a fight between some homeless people that woke us up in the middle of the night!

We had a great view of the moon as we drove into Boise

On Saturday, we drove to the Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park outside of Mountain Home. We had never been there and found it to be very unimpressive.  The Visitor's Center was closed because it's the off season.  The park consisted of a couple of campgrounds with no trees, and one singular large sand dune amongst the sagebrush hills. The St. Anthony Sand Dunes are much more impressive and are much larger in size, so it's weird that the Bruneau dunes are a State Park when the St. Anthony ones aren't. We did take a selfie by the entrance sign so we can claim we went, we saw, but we probably won't ever go back. We drove back to Boise that afternoon, and shopped at Barnes and Noble bookstore, ate at a Chinese Buffet restaurant, and napped in the back of the van. We went to the Saturday night concert at a different venue in a different part of the city; it was at an open art gallery--the venue itself was cool, but the seating and dance floor were not really ideal. After the Saturday night concert, we drove about an hour out of Boise past Garden Valley to a campground that ended up being closed.  As it was nearly 1am at that point, we just pulled off in a roadside pullout and spent the night. Even though we were right by the highway, we slept better than we had the previous night! 

The only "dune" at the state park!

We woke up Sunday morning to rain, wind, and snow. We had plans to hit up some hot springs on the way home, but we didn't do as many as we'd originally planned due to the weather. We stopped at Kirkham Hot Springs and had it mostly to ourselves which was awesome (it's always busy whenever we drive by), but the water wasn't overly warm and the wind was howling, so we didn't stay for very long.  We were going to hike into the waterfall pool at Pine Flats, but due to the weather, and a campground full of little Boy Scouts, we changed our mind on that one. We encountered snowfall over Banner Summit and it continued to snow on our drive until Clayton.  We stopped for a break at our favorite little hot spring in Cronk's Canyon, and watched a Bighorn ram on the cliffs across from us.  It ended up being a fairly successful trip! This was our longest trip in the van so far and it ran really well with no breakdowns. It was also the latest point in the season we've taken it, and we stayed fairly warm huddled together inside both nights in the late fall weather! 

a very hot springs birthday

Josh wrote this in an email he sent to our boys on Sunday, November 12:

"It has been a pretty superb birthday week for me.  I had Monday and Tuesday off work while mom treated me to a b-day retreat at Quinn's Hot Springs, I worked for only 2 days on Wed. and Thurs. then had Friday off for the observation of Veteran's Day which was actually on Saturday. So since mom was working Friday and Saturday, I took off on a little camping/motorbike excursion back up the East Fork. But the VERY best part of my week was Tuesday night when all of you called at the same time.  It was so nice to have our family all together again, even if it was only virtually! I loved that you all took time out of your busy schedule to make a grumpy old man feel not so bad about getting older.  That was better than any physical gift I could have received, although Kanyon did come through with some pretty tasty beef jerky for my gift. But seriously, I felt so loved and appreciated, and it makes my heart happy to see what fine and successful young men you all are despite the failings of your parents. I truly enjoy seeing how you all use your talents in different ways to make a difference in the world around you!"

We drove up to Quinn's on Sunday and stayed at the River Lodge again.

We love these private suites, and the use of these
plush bath robes while at the hot springs!

Soaking on Sunday night.

Soaking on Monday morning--thankfully it wasn't very busy!

We had dinner reservations at the
Harwood House Restaurant on Monday night.

Josh got their prime rib, and I ordered the buffalo meatloaf.

The views were so pretty on our drive home on Tuesday!
We pulled over at one spot to take photos of the low clouds
and the changing colors in the trees, and right after we stopped,
a train came driving by. It was such a cool moment!

We ate lunch on Josh's birthday at the Naps Grill
in Hamilton, Montana on the way home from Quinn's.

Seeing all our kids at the same
time on the night of Josh's birthday
was the absolute BEST part of the day!!

In a Van down by the Creek

The second weekend of September, Josh and I went on another hot springs trip. This time, we went camping in our van overnight. We left on Saturday afternoon, and headed to Horse Creek Hot Springs--one of our favorites! It took over 3 hours to get there. We approached it from the Idaho side (it's right on the border between Idaho and Montana): from Salmon, you go to North Fork and turn down the river road, then turn off at Spring Creek and go 20+ miles on super bumpy and rough roads to reach it. We stopped at Blue Nose Lookout on the way, so Josh could look around (even though he's been to this one before). He just loves going to Lookout towers! 

When we got to Horse Creek, the dispersed camping area surrounding the hot springs was busy, so we picked a spot to park the van overnight at a designated campground down the road that was more isolated and further from the springs. We were the only ones at that campground. People were soaking in the hot springs all evening and night, so we waited to soak until Sunday morning. Instead, we read (Josh finished another book!) and relaxed and made dinner at our campsite. 

On Sunday morning, we finally soaked in the hot springs. Thankfully, we had it to ourselves for quite a while. There had been a large group that had stayed late in it the night before, and they'd left a lot of garbage behind, which ticked me off. However, having the place to ourselves and soaking in the relaxing natural springs was really lovely and we enjoyed the early morning soak. We soaked in the deeper pool in the building first, and then moved to the more shallow pools outside. We cleaned up the hot springs, packed up, and drove back home from the Montana side on Sunday afternoon. The roads were better (only 15 miles of gravel road and the rest were paved) so the return trip didn't take near as long. We'd been to Horse Creek Hot Springs twice before, and both times we went to it in the middle of the week and it was a LOT less busy. This was the first time we went to it on the weekend, and it was WAY more busy and crowded. We decided that when we go to it again in the future, we'll stick to going to it mid-week.