Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Scenery

We decided to take another day to explore the area and be off campus for a bit.  When we are on campus there is always work to do taking care of the property or buildings and striving to get them all in working condition.  We are also beginning to work through some "paperwork" that needs to be taken care of.  It will all be helpful in the near future when we apply for grants and plow head first into corporate fundraising.

It was so nice to take a day yesterday and explore.  We headed over the Thompson Pass which is a beautiful drive.  At the top you cross into Idaho.  There is a restaurant at the bottom of the mountain in Idaho that is well know around here called Spragpole.  Unfortunately when we got there is was closed for the day so we will try to eat there again sometime.  The little (emphasis on little) town there is called Wallace and is partly a ghost town, having been "booming" years ago as a gold mining town.  No actual ghost as I think the boys were hoping to see, but we did see a man roaming the streets in his underwear and barefeet and the locals didn't seem to even notice.  Let me just say that Austin may be "weird" but we have seen some VERY weird things since moving out here!  We ate at another restaurant called bedroom mine which had horrible food but some very neat memorabilia and an interesting history.  In the last century, while the town was still being mined, there was a man who decided that instead of mining in the cold and snow, he would prefer to mine in the warmth of his own cabin.  He cut a hole in the floor of his bedroom and began to mine there, digging a shaft around 30 feet below and finding a good amount of gold.  You can still see the room and the mine which is located at the back of the restaurant.  We ate then headed back up the pass to hike Blossom Lake Trail.  What a beautiful hike that led to a glacier lake.  There were large boulders all around and the terrain was pretty intense with thick forest and about 1.5 miles of the hike being all uphill.  We arrived at the most beautiful glacier lake.  We couldn't spend a lot of time there since a thunderstorm was coming in, but it was worth all the effort to be so far in the back country and to see something that is so tucked away.  On the drive we also saw our first moose and her little baby that she had hidden among the weeds nearby.  We have decided to try to take a family hike once a week and find new places to explore.


(View on drive into town)

(View on drive into town)
(Saw our first moose!)


(At Blossom Lake)
(We finally got a big and much needed rain after being here for 5 weeks)

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