July 12, somewhere near Mt. St. Helens

Well, Monday morning we left Boulder and drove to City of Rocks in Idaho. We drove past one huge fire (55,000 acres) that was started by lightning in Southern Idaho. The fire had come all the way to the road in some spots, and you could see the flames far away in the mountains.

The camping there is so beautiful. You are in this valley with all these big rocks sticking up around you, and the sunsets every night were beautiful. It’s a nice place to relax. We did some climbing. We did a few classic 1 to 2 pitch routes from 5.6-5.10. Ashley has decided that she really doesn’t like trad climbing. She doesn’t like taking out the gear, and she thinks it takes too long. We also went for a run at sunset through a cow pasture. We would try to scare the cows off our path, but they just kept running the way we wanted to go. Cows aren’t that smart. One cow (a huge one) tried to hide behind this little bush. He acted like he was peeking his head around the bush to watch us, not knowing that we could see his ENTIRE body.

Southern Idaho is very hot. Like 100 degrees hot. While not as sticky & sweaty as the heat we encountered in Florida & Tennessee, it left us looking & longing for a pool or lake. We found a pool, but it’s only open from Wed. – Sunday. We were there Monday & Tuesday. We did find a cute little Outpost that had some great food and pies and service. We stayed there (inside) during the hottest part of the day and sipped lemonade.

For you climbers out there, Castle Rocks State Park is now open and has quite a few routes at it. The rocks & routes look very similar to the City.

Apparently this little area is becoming developed. They are widening the road to City of Rocks. This was quite a pain. As we tried to leave, we had to wait 20 minutes for a pilot car to come drive us through all the road work. We had a conversation with the lady who holds the stop sign there. I’ve always wanted to talk to one of them. This is what we learned: she works 8am – 5:30pm min. (sometimes 10pm), she can’t sit on the job or use an umbrella, she must wear pants no matter the temp. She lives in her fifth wheel so that she can relocate each summer to her new jobsite. But this sign holder is not just a rough & tough construction worker, she also works as an accountant during the winter. She is a nice lady (with 3 huge “pimping” rings on one hand) and now we have new respect for stop sign holders.

After our conversation with her, we proceeded to drive through Idaho on I-84, through more construction delays (with no real work being done), then drove along the beautiful Columbia River and watched the sunset. We knew we had a little leak of power steering fluid in our car, but it has gotten worse. We talked to a mechanic in Idaho who said it could take some time to find the leak, but that as long as we kept it full we wouldn’t damage the car. Well, the leak is getting worse, and we hope to stop soon and get it fixed.

Now, we’re camped at a little St. Park near Mt.St. Helens. We just went for a Mtn. Bike ride through th forest. It is a beautiful forest with big tall trees and ferns and moss. This afternoon, we’ll drive to the Olympic Nat’l Park and backpack for 2 nights from the Staircase trailhead.