Memorial Day Trip

The Sunday before Memorial Day Mike and I took off to Northern Idaho. After getting everything settled on Sunday morning we did a last minute grocery stop, grabbed ice at one of the fire stations, and headed towards Coeur d'Alene Idaho. We arrived around 6pm and I was amazed at what a beautiful city it was. The waterfront was packed with people for the holiday weekend. We stopped at a cute hotel, The Flamingo Hotel, and asked the nice owner about a camping spot. He suggested the Wolf Creek Campground which was about 10 minutes outside of the city. It was a great little place. In the last year or so on road trips we have discovered that we really enjoy staying at RV Parks or other established campgrounds. For us it is kind of like having a hotel, but without the price tag. We don't mind camping out, and the RV Parks have running water, showers, and bathrooms. Sometimes we get lucky enough to find one that has free coffee in the morning which is nice because you can roll out of the tent and walk straight over to the main office rather than hovering over the percolator thinking, "percolate, percolate, percolate!" Anyway.... back to the story. So we unloaded and got all situated. We got on our bikes and rode about a quarter of a mile down the road to the Wolf Lodge Inn Steakhouse (http://www.wolflodgerestaurants.com/coeurdalene.php). The atmosphere was so cool. It was VERY rustic with a ton of crazy antiques and collectibles. The food was ok, just your basic steak and potato stuff. We had a good time enjoying our surroundings and having a nice dinner. We got back to camp and had a small fire then turned in for the evening. The next morning we awoke to wonderful sunshine. The photo below shows Mike enjoying his morning coffee in our fun little campsite.

D enjoying some water and sun

After we relaxed for a bit and enjoyed the showers at the RV park we drove back into Coeur d'Alene. We parked near the library and set up for a day of biking and hiking around the city.
Just behind the library there was this moose statue, Mudgsy. Apparently there is a trail around the city with 5 or 6 of these statues. They go along with a children's book that was written by one of the members of the community.

This photo is hysterical. Our friend Spencer, who lives in Alaska, always jokes that he is going to ride the moose that show up in his yard. Well, take this Spencer! Mike tamed a Moose.

We rode around the city for a while on the Idaho Centennial Trail which took us along the waterfront. It was a beautiful day and the scenery and people watching was great. After riding for a while we went back to the car and made some lunch and decided it was time to Hike. We rode over to Tubb's Hill, locked up the bikes, and hiked for the next hour and a half. The trail was busy but fun and we were able to get a different view of the lake.

We would see these street markings all over town signifying that you were on the Mudgsy trail.

Shortly after spotting the moose track, we came across this Mudgsy statue at the base of Tubb's Hill.

After walking and riding all over Coeur d'Alene we figured it was time to get back in the car and make our way toward Wallace. Along I-90 we stopped to check out the Catalgo Mission. The mission was a cool old building on a gorgeous piece of property. There will be a new visitor's center this summer.

This photos shows Mike reading one of the signs on the surrounding property.

Wallace was our next stop. Wallace Idaho may sound familiar, well probably not, but it was where the movie Dante's Peak was filmed. Wallace is a beautiful little town with really historic architecture and amazing scenery. We stopped in town to talk with the locals about where we could camp. They basically told us we could camp wherever, but for some reason that just didn't seem like a good idea. We found out about this little RV park called "Down by the Depot" where we could camp. This place was CREEEEEPY!!! The main house looked like it came straight out of a B horror movie. It was cheap and they had HOT running water.

This was our little camp spot which was nice. We had running water and a stream running below. The RV Park was just outside of town so we were able to ride our bikes all over town.

This is me in front of one of the city signs just about a tenth of a mile from our campsite. One of our good friends, Mark, used to live near Wallace and gave us an itinerary of things we had to do while we were in Wallace. Our first stop was The Smokehouse. When we walked in the smell of the food was amazing, but we decided to grab a quick beverage and move on.

We got back on our bikes and started exploring a little bit more. We had to stop by the Fire Department. We peeked thorough the windows and Mike gave me the rundown of the equipment.

After riding around we started to get hungry and decided we would eat at The Pizza Factory. All I have to say is YUM! We decided on a vegetarian pizza with sausage and some bread sticks. We devoured the pizza and most of our bread sticks.

After fueling up we were reading to attack the hills of the city. All of the houses are built right into the hill. There was a giant stairway that went all the way to the top of the mountain behind the city.

This shows a view of Wallace at sunset from one of the first hills.

This is the Stardust Hotel. They had a cool little cafe and there was a little spacecraft in the parking lot that you can barely see in the bottom left hand corner of this photo.
We made our way back to camp and had a restful night sleep. After our morning coffee and glorious hot showers in the creepy main house of the RV park we hit the highway making our way to towards the Hiawatha Trail head. Unfortunately when we arrived at the trail head we received confirmation that the trail was in fact closed and would be opening the following weekend. We were super bummed since the trail was the point of our trip north, but decided just to stop at the first tunnel and check things out. We contemplated poaching the trail but had heard that bears like to hibernate in the tunnels and since no one from the trail crew would have gone through that morning we didn't want to be the first ones to wake them up. Plus it was FREEZING and we didn't pack cold weather biking clothes. We plan on going back later this summer.

This is Mike posing in front of one of the first tunnels on the trail.

Can you see the fear in my face? I kept waiting to hear a bear, plus there was just a weird ju ju about this place, it was a little too quiet.

My sadness of not being able to ride the Hiawatha trail quickly waned when we decided that rather than driving back through Coeur d'Alene we would keep heading east to Missoula. I have wanted to go to Missoula for a long time for the purpose of visiting The Big Sky Brewing Company. They make delicious beer and I was able to sample one of my favorites, Moose Drool. They had a new beer that was coffee based and it was equally delicious.

After the brewery we found a parking spot down town and assembled our bikes to tour the town. The University of Montana sits along the river in Missoula. We rode all over the campus and enjoyed the city's greenbelt.
This next photo has a funny story. Mike and some of the other fire fighters were growing mustaches earlier this year and when Mike spotted this guy he tried to take a photo of him from a far, but just decided to stop him and ask him if he could take a his photo. The guy was shocked but was happy to pose. Check that mustache out!

Here's Mike standing in the center of the campus with the University's mascot who looks like he might just swoop in and get him. The hill in the background is the training site of some of the local fire fighters who placed first in the Seattle Stair Climb this year.

We couldn't not climb the hill so we rode back to the car and loaded up the bikes. The hill climb was cool! Mike and I really pushed ourselves and hustled up the hill. It was a fun workout. I jogged down and then turned around to run up the hill to meet up with Mike who walked down. I had been stuck in a car too long and had to get moving.

Here is a photo of us at the top of the hill with Missoula in the background.

After making our way down the hill we settled back into the truck to start the next leg of our journey. We drove a couple more hours to Salmon, Idaho where we stopped for dinner. We ate at the Salmon Brewery where we enjoyed some monster burgers. I ordered a bacon & blue cheese burger and Mike ordered his standard, a mushroom swiss. I couldn't even eat half of mine it was so HUGE. The locals gave us a few ideas of where to camp and we ended up camping at a cute little RV park near the river about 40 minutes outside of Salmon.

Mike spent part of the evening checking out the map planning our last leg home. The next morning we drove to Stanley Idaho home of the Sawtooth Mountain Range. I love Stanley and we spend a lot of time there throughout the year. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast in Stanley and then drove home.

Adventures in Cake Baking

My brother, Boyce, is getting married in July and I was asked to make the wedding cake. I love to bake, but have NEVER tackled such a task. I figured I better start experimenting now to make sure I have success on the actual wedding day.

I have to start this post with a HUGE thank you to one of my favorite blogs, http://smittenkitchen.com/. I found this blog while searching for wedding cake recipes, and decided to give one of the recipes listed on the site a try. The cake was a basic yellow cake with strawberry filling and topped with Swiss Butter cream Frosting. The dry ingredients

The layers hit the oven

One of three layers

First layer topped with strawberry preserves

All three layers

What are the dogs doing? They were no help, just look at Cassius he could care less about the cake. Since no frosting was offered up, he stayed put on the carpet.
The Swiss Butter Cream

The finished product

I took the cake to work the following day to put it to the test of the nurses. I received some good comments and can't wait to try the next cake.....coconut cake with either chocolate or pineapple filling with butter cream frosting. Wish me LUCK!

New Hair Doo & The Famous Potato Half Marathon

Last summer when I got my braces off I had said that I wanted to chop my hair off to not only have new teeth but new hair. For some reason when the braces came off I couldn't bring myself to cut my hair. Last Thursday as I was putting on my belt, my hair was getting caught in my belt loops and I decided it was time to get some scissors. My friend Christina was gracious enough to give me a wonderful new look.

Before

After

When I finished at the salon I decided to visit Mike at work so he could see what I looked like with short hair. He must have been confused about who I was donating my hair to. Apparently he thought I was donating my hair to Locks for Bald Fire Fighters instead of Locks of Love.

His Captain said he looked like a young Willie Nelson, kind of a resemblance I guess.

Saturday was the Famous Potato Marathon, Half Marathon, 10K, & 5K Race. I have been training for a couple of months to run the half marathon. It was a BEAUTIFUL day for the race and I couldn't have asked for better weather. The starting line was chilly, but once the sun came over the foothills it was perfect. I ran the race in 1 hour 50 minutes. I really wanted to run in it 1 hour 45 minutes, but in the last mile I was really struggling. But hey, I ran a half marathon and I did it in under 2 hours. I guess I can be proud of that :) Here are some photos of Angie, Laura and I at the finish line.

After the race there wasn't a lot of down time. We had to get ready to this guys graduation celebration. Congratulations to our good friend Mark who graduated from BSU with a degree in Illustration. We are proud of him and so grateful to have him as a friend. Mark was nice enough to draw our beautiful wedding invitations for us.

We celebrated at Municipal Park in Boise. The park is located close to the river and our spot was perfectly shaded and had just enough sun. It was really fun to catch up with everyone and as always the kids had us laughing.

Who uses croquet mallets to play croquet. Why not beat the crap out of a tree? Too funny.

Meet Loti

Meet the newest member of the pack, Loti (Low-tee). I was so excited to finally get a new cruiser. I bought my first cruiser bike way back in the Summer of 2001. I got more than my fair share of use out of my "Target Special" Huffy with big baskets. It was time for an upgrade, and I look forward to many summer cruises with Loti. She will be getting a basket in the next week or so as the store didn't have any in stock that matched with her decor :) Don't worry about my old Huffy, she has a new home with an 11 year old, and I know she will be happy.



Being that Mike and I are the babies in our families I think we have this unwritten thing about competition, he went out and out did my new bike. Meet his newest love.




This one does not have a name yet, but I am working on it. Does anyone else name everything?
Anyway, we had been looking/thinking about getting a truck for the last little while and Mike came across this truck and the deal was too good to pass up. This sets us up great for camping this season! The dogs LOVE riding in the back, and I am sure they will enjoy camping in it this summer as well.
The dogs are doing well. I recently found out that the AKC will be letting mixed breed compete in obedience trials. Finally I will be able to show Beck! She will be able to get an AKC number in October and compete next April unless the AKC allows it sooner. I am really excited now, but we will see how school plays out next year and how studying for the looming NCLEX comes along. I am sorry I have been so lazy about posting, but not much is going on. Pretty much it goes something like this: training for my race, school, work, sleep, repeat. Stay tuned for photo's of my race on the 16th!