Camping on the St. Joe

On Thursday sweet hubby and I packed up the trailer and went camping. We have not camped on the St. Joe river before, so it was a new adventure. We drove down to the Huckleberry campground, which is about 30 miles up the river from St. Maries, pulled in, and got a premo spot.

The park is beautiful. The weather was perfect the whole weekend. We got a spot with a gorgeous view of the river and surrounding mountains, and a nice gentle walk down to the rivers edge. There are lots of cottonwood trees and cedars. Some of the trees were already starting to put on their autumn colors. The water was clear and cold and the fish were jumpin' like crazy.

There's an advantage to camping after Labor Day. Not many people camp. We had a large part of the park all to ourselves. In addition, this park normally has power and water hookups. A couple days before we got there they'd had a big thunderstorm that knocked out the power to all but 9 of the spots. Everyone was down in those 9 spots. We have batteries and a generator. We don't need power hook up. So we got a premo spot all to ourselves. It was great!

Besides being our first camping trip on the St. Joe, this was also our first trip without our kids, and our first trip with just us--no other family. Usually we go camping with hubby's twin brother and family-which we did this time, but we left a day earlier than them so we got a bit of 'alone' time. They showed up Friday evening.

I had a wonderful time. I got some knitting done, took the dogs on several nice walks, fished, kayaked, and relaxed. We even played cards and got drunk one evening. We ate good food too. In fact, we had such a nice time sweet hubby and I didn't want to come home. However, I was out of clean clothes, so home it was.

Sunday we packed up and headed for home. Hubby wanted to take the long way home. The drive to Huckleberry camp ground took us 2.5 hours. We went by way of hwy 95 to Plummer, then the hwy through St. Maries to the river and up. Coming home, we went by way of St. Regis. The road follows the St. Joe up river for several miles before splitting off toward St. Regis. It was a 7 hour drive. Of course, we stopped a lot along the way to look at scenery and whatnot. It was a beautiful drive.

Yesterday J, C, and I went on our usual Monday walk. This time we walked along the shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene around North Idaho Community College. We did almost 4 miles. I was already kind of tired from the camping trip, so after lunch I conked out and slept for 3 hours! Unwillingly! I had a lot to do yesterday and I got none of it done.

This morning I went to bead group. I worked on a bracelet project I've been trying to figure out. Basically I'm doing a Cellini spiral, but I'm putting a diamond pattern in it at the same time. It's taken me awhile to figure it out. Cindy has been helping me. We'd think we had it, I'd take the idea home, and it wouldn't work. I finally sat down and drew the design out on paper, bead by bead. Today I started beading it and darn if it doesn't work! Hurray!!! I'm using black opaque and silver lined light topaz beads--basically black and gold--in 4 different sizes. It's going to take awhile to get the bracelet done, but it's gonna be gorgeous.

I'm also working on a 3-bead netted strap for one of the cabs I finished beading last week.

I need to unpack the rest of the stuff from the trailer, and start doing the piles of laundry we brought home with us. so I better get busy.

Have a good day.