A Great Week!

It has been another fine week up here in the Idaho Sawtooths! The weather, overall has been outstanding!  I was able to have a couple of fires and enjoy being up here in these beautiful mountains! I just hope I will be able to share this place in person with some of you in the coming years!

Had a neat group here.... (l to r) Bob, Joel, Karen (the b'day girl!) & Stephanie. They were a great group and always had a smile on their faces...even in the mornings...when it has been very nice and cool!

This is the 3rd or 4th van that is set up as a small camper by a company out of Utah that had this small awning mounted over the side sliding door. I had to get a pic of the company name of the awning so that I can check out their site. It is light and small and perfect for adding to Bertha. Going to check this week and see just what they have to offer. I think this will be the best solution for me to add to Bertha for additional shade.

I had a camper that his trailer wire had gotten pulled into the receiver on the trailer and it had "eaten" 4 of the wires. l broke out my electrical kit and went to work on his wires. Got it all pieced  back together and still didn't have have brake or turn signals on the trailer!?!?!?  Soooo....started looking thru the owners manual, and in today's vehicles, apparently, they have wired in a separate circuit for the trailer lights (so you don't have to add a box like I had to on the Sprinter), and it is fused right in the main fuse panel. So when it shorted out, it blew the two fuses for the signals/brakes...got new fuses and he was good to go!  They just had to do something for me....so....as you can see in the pic....I have chips to last me for the next month or so!!!  LOL!  I love my campers!!!  :-)

It is a beautiful morning here again! Clear skies and great temperatures! I couldn't ask for a better office!!!  And I am having the time of my life when you get right down to it! The only "hard" part to this "job" is keeping the toilets cleaned up and the ladies with plenty of toilet tissue!  LOL!  The rest of the time it is more play than work....and what a work place!!

If you look close at Bertha below, you will see that thin brown wire...my "FM antenna"!  I finally thought about putting one up for my classic SW radio and now I have almost crystal clear reception....even when both inverters are up and going! So I am a happy camper!!  LOL!

This is Carolina & Karre (pronounced Core) from Denmark! They are a cool couple! Had them over for dinner on their last night here. I enjoyed them here and look forward to having them back!

This about brings you up to date with Sunny Gulch and The Frog!  I've got 2 more months here, should be leaving around the 30th of September. Plan on taking 2 weeks to make it back to Texas.  Not sure just what exactly where or what I'll be doing this winter, but I will be "south" where it is warmer!

Take care and have a great week!!!

A Quiet Saturday! And Monday Too!

This has been a VERYquiet Saturday here in Sunny Gulch! In fact, it is almost as quiet as when I first got here! And I needed the break. It has been crazy for the past week!

Above is the view from behind my Day Use Pavilion at Sunny. It looks different each time I go to look at it, depending on the time of day and the "cloud" issue!!  :-)

And when you look around the campground, depending on where you stand, it is sometimes difficult to tell that you are even in a campground! It can really have the feel that you are out in the middle of the wilderness without a soul around for miles and miles...those are the times when this "job" is well worth the time here and the times I have to put on my "Daddy" hat to keep things in order with some of the "weekend warrior campers"....

....but early morning and late evening when it is basically silent....that is when it is worth it!

I just like the pine tree above...it just stands at the edge of the "gorge" down to the river....like a timeless sentinel watching over the river and keeping it in its place!!

The family below were great campers....from Costa Rica!  Heather & Andy and their son Ryder ( & Tiger!).  They were here for several days, Heather's family used to come to the Sunny Gulch area in the summers and they are carrying on the tradition.  Andy works from home (wherever that happens to be) which is why they are able to live in Costa Rica.

Meet the "re-newlyweds"....Tom and Leann...they were here this past weekend for a wedding....theirs!!  Had a great time with them, and the weather was kind and rained a lot right up to their wedding time...and cleared up for the ceremony! Congrats to them!!  :-)  

As I keep saying, I'm working steadily on Bertha! It might still look like a "mess"....but if you have/had seen the insides in months past....this is a major improvement!  I'm still getting rid of things that I don't use or need any longer...so it is starting to actually look like a "home" on the inside! 

My little nest of blue birds!!  I had tried to get a pic of them before they flew the coop....but, alas...I was a day or two late!  But I did get this shot of the nest full of fledglings!

I hope you guys don't get too tired of seeing "my mountains" here...but each day and each different light gives a different view of them.  This shot was on Sunday, a couple of hours afternoon after our morning full of good old southern style thunderstorms!! 

And my children are getting more and more attached to each other!  Keeping a hand on her buddy, Snickers and Abbiegail catch a nap between wrestling bouts!!

Everyone have a great week and stay safe! I'll have more to post as the week goes along. There is a big Arts & Crafts show this coming weekend in Stanley, and they say that it will be packed and crazy around here...we shall see!!!

Take care til later!  C'ya!!

Amazingly Quiet Week!!

It has been an amazingly quiet week here! I had expected to be full by today, and I'm not even half full and have campers leaving today. And the reason is probably the weather and the next 7 day forcast....every day is calling for "chance of storms/thunderstorms". But I'm not complaining!  It is overcast, breezy and 59* here right now. It is grand!

                     

And I've had a great bunch of campers here all week. It has been peaceful and quiet. There a a number of kids here, and they are wearing out their bikes running around here! It has been great!

I have a wedding group camping with me for the weekend. They are having their rehearsal dinner here at the pavilion this evening, getting married tomorrow, and leaving Sunday. So tonight I will be having pulled pork b-b-q for supper!  B-)  And they have been a blast!

I have thrown out some more stuff that I have no need for, so space is getting better in here. But there is still a ways to go getting myself totally settled into my rolling tiny house! And there are still things that will go out the door in the coming days! But it is getting better each day!

I'll be redoing my bed again today. One of my campers that was in here last week left me a large sheet of the egg crate type foam padding, so it will be going into my sleeping/sofa bed....should make sleeping a bit better.

Had John over for pancakes the other evening, and the mix worked very well. In fact, the pancakes came out just great. Did up one of my rice concoctions yesterday while I had the generator running. That fed me yesterday and will probably feed me today and tomorrow.

I got a suprise yesterday....a Winnebago trailer came into the camp! I had not even known that Winnebago was building trailers! The gentleman told me that they had bought a trailer company about 2-3 years ago and were turning out a small line of them now. John told me that he had seen them in red, blue, green, orange, brown, etc. The couple invited me to come over later today and have a looksey inside of it. Can't wait to see how the inside is, the craftmanship of it!

Still working on Bertha. I now have a two burner stove "mounted" on the stove in here thanks to Tom & Joy. So I'm able to cook inside now, which makes it nice. And the stove seems to use propane slower than the little one burner that I had been using!

That about covers it for today. I'll get myself back to work on a little more straightening inside Bertha for the day. And I'll have some more pics to upload in a day or two. Have a "care package" that is supposed to be here today from Josh. We'll see if the P.O. keeps up to day with "fast delivery"!!

Later!!  :-)

Survived The 4th!

I have survived the 4th of July.....just barely!!!  LOL!!  So now comes the rest of the summer! And it will get and stay busier for the next 5-6 weeks, then it will settle down for a week or so before I get hit for Labor Day Weekend!  But after that....ahhhhhh....my little piece of heaven will be returned to me!!  Heheheh! But overall, this weekend went pretty well....only had a couple of "probelm children"!  Overall there were a great bunch of campers here...and all went as well as you could expect with folks here that were not real campers and wanted to get away from the city/heat/hectic pace of the cities....and be under the stars and near a cool lake and river and nice cool nights!

I'm doing this from Bertha and the campground, and I have checked and this Blogger app really packs down the pic files, so I can sit here and do a full update without having used too much of my roaming data! Which is great!!

It was a full moon right before and during the 4th....and it was just flat beautiful!  This is a shot from my site looking down the first loop road towards the East.

I just couldn't miss trying to get the shot of what I saw from the fire as I sat there at night.....a really nice little fire in the pit with the moon thru the trees!

I had dinner guests over for the evening of July 3rd. From left to right are Paul & Karen (a sweet couple that had lately been in China teaching English at a University there), then Harry & Coty (from the Netherlands, they come over every summer or so and travel the U.S. on motorcycle, which they own and keep at a friends in CO.), then it's John & Rosanna (John is our maintenance man & Rosanna comes up weekends & helps him manage the Chinook Bay campground a mile down the road). We had a great time and I so enjoyed listening to them all talk...I had a blast listening to the stories and questions and "tales" that flowed around the table!

Next is a shot showing about a third of the Chinese families that were here for 2 nights. They were actually fun, after I had a ka-nip-tion-fit!!! on the morning of the 4th when I looked out my window and say 4 of their 5 firepits with smoke coming out of them and not a single soul around!! After I calmed down and figured out that they had probably never camped, we got the fires out (John came over with his truck and water tank) I had a "camping basics/camping ethics & safety" class with most of the fathers & some of the kids....there were 10 families here. And only one of them had done any camping.....one time last year.....and it went real well. I'm looking forward to having them back later this summer....we'll see how much sunk in and stayed with them!  LOL

I was really pounding -politely pounding!- on the safety issues! Such as you don't leave a fire burning without either someone being left in the camp...or you douse it completely when you go out for the day! And adding to the fact that it a person could be cited for it and fined anywhere from $250 to $2,500....it definitely got their attention! And the fact that we are in bear and wolf and lion country and leaving food out and trash around the campsite could make for a very unpleasant upclose encounter with on of those creatures!  LOL! About 2 hours after our "class" one of my other campers came by on their evening stroll and stopped and asked "How did the class go? From the looks of it, very well....their campsites are so clean now!!"  LOL!

This is a better pic of Tom & Joy, the couple from the Keys. They came over for supper the night before they left to go home. They were a real great couple, and I look forward to seeing them in 2 years...maybe less!!  LOL... in the Keys! I plan on going that way in 2 winters and spending a month or so down there. It is one of the places that is on my list of places to go to and spend time at that I have not gotten to and really want to see! Especially the Keys Deer!

This is Bob & Betty from MO. They were a great couple and stayed with me for longer than they had planned....they liked it here and it was back when the temps in the "lowlands" were hitting 100+. I look forward to having them back one day!

Now this is just sad....I can't remember "mom & dad's" names....but the little blonde is Bailyn..."just like bailing hay!"  LOL! And the day that they had to leave, she made them come by so that she could tell Frog bye!! She was a doll!

This couple ended up being really neat folks, from Chico, CA....Buck and Janine! Their visit got off to a rocky start....someone had decided to remove some of my reservation placards...and I had 5 sites totally screwed up...and one of them was their's!!! Buck is a CalFire guy, and after about a half hour of "talking" things got better and we ended up becoming pretty good friends. They spent basically a week with me and one of these days I'm going to end up knoncking on their front door and saying hi!  Can't wait...have a valid reason to go back into CA now for a visit!!  LOL!

I know I repeat myself....but I have some really great campers...a couple and their daughter were leaving out today, and they gave me a bag of fresh fruit! How they guessed red grapes and cantalope were my favorites?!?!?!?  

This should be a pretty well full update for life up here in Sunny Gulch!! The heat wave has finally broken, the LOW pressure that has been sitting over us has finally moved away to somewhere...thanfully!!! And the temps are now getting back to where they should be in this gorgeous counttry!

Right now, outside, it is 69* here and thundering, lightening and raining! It is just glorious!!! As long as the lightening doesn't start any fires in the area. It has just gotten very pleasant! 

John was coming over later to burn hotdogs again with me, but I do believe that I will be making pancakes in the house instead and then we're probably going to watch a movie....got to relax sometime!

That's the latest from Sunny Gulch Campground in Idaho....I'm hoping that one of these summers everyone will be able to come up here and spend a few days with me and see just how great this Sawtooth National Wilderness/Forest/Recreation Area is!!

Until the next update....God Bless and try to stay out of trouble!!

The 4th Is Coming!

I just had the "Inter-Mountain Owners Group" come thru for a cool down break.  B-)

I've been full 3 out of 4 nights, and starting to fill up for the weekend. About 1/3 full now.

First pic is of the bikes.  Second pic is Tom & Joy,  they're from the Florida Keys & I'm going to be there in two winters!  A great couple! Had super with them last night &having them over for super & a fire tonight. Going to get them to cook my salmon over the fire (since i want to be able to eat it! ) & take a nite off to relax since they are headed out tomorrow.   B-)

I'm trying this from my tablet to see how the data usage is. If it's low enough I'll at least get a couple of pics up each week!

C'ya!

And Summer is Here!!

It has been 5 weeks since I have arrived here in Sunny Gulch, and it appears that the rainy season is over! It has been dry now for over 10 days, and the "very" bright green grass is beginning to lighten up in color and some of the plants are starting to get that brown color that is so familiar in the high desert areas. 

The one thing here that is a little different from regular desert is that we are having almost 50 degree swings from the highs to the lows each day! It was 36 this morning, and they are calling for 84 as the high. Which is better than Boise, ID...by Sunday they are calling for the temps there to be over 100!  So I will definitely be up here in the Sawtooths for the summers for the foreseeable future!

So far I have had a very good group of campers here...overall. You always have that 10%...and here it has been about 1% of people that no matter what they will find something that they can complain about!

I'll have a bunch of pics to post the next time that I go into the library in Stanley. I've had deer in the front yard several mornings, still seeing the bald eagles circling around a couple of times each week, and of course the Sawtooths! It is amazing just how different a shot you can get depending on the light each day at the different times!

Abbie has made a pretty good transition to "camping dog" since we have gotten here. I found the 15' tie out lead finally today and have her tethered to the cook table out here. She just wanders around for a while, then lies down for a while, then wanders some more, then sits and watches the little critters...then just lies down and enjoys the outdoors! Or at least she looks like she is enjoying it!  LOL  I'm considering putting some wire between two trees over the tent pad and making it like a run for her to give her more "freedom" to run around some.

6/27/2015...a quick update on "summer"!

It is 2pm here and the high for the day is calling for 95 today and 97 tomorrow! And to think I left Texas in the belief that I would leave this kind of heat behind!!  But at least when you move into the shade it feels about 15 degrees cooler!  Even the locals call this "high desert"! We haven't had a drop of rain in 2 weeks now, and the bright green is starting to turn into brown.

And the wedding rehearsal dinner yesterday....I got to have bison summer sausage, 2 styles of grilled moose sausage and fresh grilled halibut!  It was awesome!

Then today one of my campers brought me a freshly baked loaf of sourdough bread baked by one of their neighbors!! 

Yesterday I had a vine ripe tomatoe dropped off by one of them, and another one came back and brought me a large cup of shrimp coctail (Mexican style) with grilled steak and chorizo and rice! 

They are really making my diet hard to stick by! But, oh my goodness, is it all good!!!  :-)

That does it for now...1 more campsite to go and I am full for the 4th night in a row. And it is so nice when I'm full...there is just play time and visit time and work on Bertha time!!

C'ya later!!

And The Monsoon Continues!

(I just realized that I had not published this from my phone! LOL)

I've now been in ID for almost 3 weeks and so far have had 2, count'em, TWO complete days of sunshine!  LOL!  I was awakened to the glorious sound of really good thunder about 5:15am today! And it has been raining, thundering and pouring for the better part of the day! But there is nothing like being in the middle of a forest/wilderness area and sitting listening to a storm like the ones we have had passing over today! It is grand!

Just met the owner of the company, Wade..he's here putting signs on my board. Nice guy! When I told him about all the tech stuff and photo stuff I have with me he says "I just might need to get you with my daughter and see if we can get shots of all the reservable sites, supposed to have pics of them online"...and I said sure!  Heheheh!  This might turn into a longer than just summer job! BREAK MY HEART!!!!  B-)

Since I only have one site occupied today, I have decided that it is a good day to cook up a double batch of cornbread muffins, finish straightening out/up my desk and table areas, and work on the front area of Bertha where I keep all my tools and equipment!  I have most of the rest of her straight, a little cluttered at times, but give me a break...I am a "committed celibate bachelor"!!!  Heheheh! And it is so dark outside that I'm running the generator t give the batteries a good hard charging.

Oh, and I found out from one of my campers that in August (I think) of 2017 there will be a full solar eclipse...and Stanley, ID will be directly in the path of the best areas to see it. So make plans to come up here and camp with me and let's all watch the eclipse together!!!  It should be awesome!!  And maybe it will stop raining by then!!!  :-D

Can't believe it! The rain has stopped!!  LOL  For a little while, anyway. Sun trying to shine thru the haze, and I'm hoping that it will for a little while. The generator makes every thing feel like it is vibrating after a few hours!!  But looks like I might get a couple of hours of sun to help charge batteries.

As of right now I only have one campsite  occupied....one of these days this will turn into a real job...but until then....I am going to enjoy the quiet and peace!  But in the next 10 days, there are 12 reservations coming onsite, with a total of 72 folks!  School's out!! So if there are that many reservations, then the FCFS traffic will be as much or more.

That about covers this update. There is just not much happening...and enjoying it as long as it lasts!  More to come in a couple of days!  :-)

6/5/'15 - Just finished my morning rounds & have 3 campers onsite! Beautiful day! Not a cloud in the sky! It is truly amazing how peaceful it is up here. The sound of the river, the birds with their morning songs, the fog is hanging on the Mtn peaks! I truly wish everyone could take the time to sit back & look/listen to what we have had to bypass for so many years. I must admit that this life style makes the hard truth of "the tyranny of the urgent" sink in & the meaningless of that tyranny so feeble! (That's the best I can describe it for right now! )

May your day end in peace! O:-)

A Day In Stanley Library!!

Well I made it into town and to the library at 0845 this morning...and found out the library opened at 12noon!  LOL  So I rode around with John and delivered water to 3 camps, then to me, and then he dropped me off here, @ 1130. Did most of my tablet updates sitting on the bench in front of the library.

It's a tough job but somebody's gotta do it!!

And a nice little library it is!  And it is also new, clean, well lit, has several computer stations for public, and workroom type area with setup for tech stuff, a cute children's corner, a kitchen area (and what seems like a local regular that came in, made a cup of coffee, brought a frozen pizza in with him, and is now looking at the paper and drinking his coffee!!  :-D  )

I have had it easy from the start of getting here. I only had the 16 campers over Memorial Day weekend, and as of right now I have no campers onsite at all!  But that seems to  be about to change!  So I am enjoying this quiet week and weekend and preparing for the onslaught!  

And NOW...for some pics for you to see my life now!!!  LOL!!  And Loving It!!

My main entrance, plain but beautiful!!

And for the money you just can't beat the views that I have from my site!!








A couple of my neighbors..they are pleasant to deal with!!

And boy does Abbie have a ball trying to catch them at times!!

My wood pile keeps growing. I collect it from the sites after the campers leave, and they almost always leave wood behind. Which makes it good for me and my fires!!

And, as I said before...it's a hell of a tough job, but it's gotta be done!!!

And of course I have my little Bessie (the golf cart) all setup now...to include a little skull I found mounted to the front grill!!!  LOL!

It is looking better on the inside...but you have to remember I'm a confirmed bachelor!!!   But I'm getting there!!!

It's about time to get ready to head back to the camp, so I guess I'll close for now. I'll get a few more pics up in a couple of weeks. Should have some different things to take pics of when all my campers start hitting next week!

So long for now from my own little piece of heaven!!!

Stormy Weather - Peace For Me!!!

I've been open officially  now since last Friday, and even being Memorial Weekend....it was just very peaceful!  I only have a max day of 18 campers here! The weather is keeping them away. And, granted, it has rained every evening since I arrived except for 1! But you can set you watch by it. I starts to blow in around 3pm, rain for 30-45 min between then and 5pm, clears up for supper time, then starts again sometime after 8pm.  So, in actuality, it is not an issue...for diehard campers!  LOL

I've only had 2 campers in here since Monday evening. And one of them will be departing today. The other came in Saturday and will be here for a total of 10 days....that is the max time you can stay in this campground.

Keith is still bringing me gas at least 2 times a week for my generator. There has just not been enough sun to charge the solar battery array. Yesterday I actually had sun for the better part of the middle of the day...and yet the batteries never got above mid-charge (yellow). I've gone easy on them, not really using them much to save them wear and tear, but today and tomorrow I will just charge up by generator.  I've even gotten it down to running the frig on max while charging, and it gets cold enough that it will keep everything in there cold for 10-14 hours with no power. So I have been turning off the inverter (1K) and using my 350W to run my tv, dvd player and charge my electronics. And it is working like a charm.

It has been so peaceful, in fact, that the past two evenings I have had a fire going by 5:30pm and get to enjoy it for  couple of hours before I let it burn out and head in for the evening (and to get out of the evening shower!).  :-)  And the nice thing is that even with the minor number of campers I had onsite, I gathered up enough leftover wood from their sites that I have enough for probably 4 or 5 more fires, easily, and that's makes me figure that I should be able to go for the entire summer with one or two fires each week, minimum, and still not have to worry about buying any wood!  WooHoo!!  In fact my first fire was done with wood that I had taken from firepits that had not been totally burned, and that fire lasted me 4 hours with the big pieces...so it is going to be a good summer!!  :-)   This is a Federal Forest, so they are quite strick on burning and what/how/where/when it can be done. They also like to try to keep folks from picking up fallen wood because they are trying to let it rot in place like it would in nature to replenish the soil.

This summer is also getting me prepared for after next year for when I plan on taking extended runs to the 4-Corners area. This gives me time to get all the kinks out of Bertha, make the improvements and fixes that I need to do to her, AND to have some serious practice on "energy conservation" with my items that need power so that I willl be able to live with a very small footprint when I get out in the middle of nowhere.

There is one other thing about being up here for the summer....the elevation here is 6,258 ft above sea level....I had forgotten how thin air gets after spending so much time in Texas!!  It has cut my smoking down and I get to do enough each day to give myself a little bit of a workout!!  LOL!!  :-D   Tiffany had fed me too well while I was there, and I had gained a bit (well, maybe just a bit more than a bit!!), but I'm already back to within 10 lbs of where I was a few months ago and will keep heading in the down direction on the scale. The altitude here is also good on my "self-inflicted" exercise I'm doing. My BP has been holding steady and a lot lower than a year ago, and keeps going lower, so that makes me happy!

Keith just brought my Daily Activity Report (DAR) by, and I don't have any reservations coming in until 6/5, so the peacefulness continues! There are only 10 reserved spots here out of 44 available sites, most are FCFS, so we will see what happens this weekend.

I guess that about brings things up to date for now. I'll finish getting ready for the day and go make my rounds. I'm headed to the "services" are for us around noon. Going to wash clothes, take a LONG hot shower, and see part of the other campgrounds....I have not seen any of them since getting here. Bertha and I found my campground, pulled in, set up and I have not been out of here since!! Kind of nice, actually!!

Oh, and the pic of me...in a sweater and knit cap!?!?!  Almost at the end of May!?!?!?  That tells you just how cool it has been here! The mountains still have a pretty good amount of snow on them, and this past Sunday afternoon, at 3:30pm, when our daily shower was rolling in, the first 30 minutes of it was all sleet and hail! Yes, it does stay quite cool in the Rockies!!!

Have a good week an more to come in a couple of days!  :-D