Day 12 – Sun Valley, ID to Elk Bend and Salmon, ID

Day 12 – Sun Valley, ID to Elk Bend and Salmon, ID

August 7, 2013

After one more breakfast buffet at the Sun Valley Inn and filling up on eggs and bacon and breads, we managed to pack up our things at our condo and drive into Ketchum to stock up on groceries. The boys and I enjoyed the mini-Whole-Foods style of the Atkinson’s Market in town. Shopping with the boys is always fun; the only challenge is not purchasing every cool item they find. We found lovely fresh salmon and various steaks to grill later in our trip. Ricardo and Alle picked us up with the RV without hitting anything and we were back on the road.

We headed north on Idaho-75 towards the Galena Pass and Redfish Lake. About an hour on the road, one by one we each sort of melted-down. I don’t know if it was being back in the RV, being back on the road with four hours of driving ahead of us, or just being the five of us again, but Alle expressed it first. She said, “I’m feeling yucky”. Then, the boys found each other and decided that beating on each other was the right thing to do. At first, I said to Alle, “I’ll just let them jostle for a while”. Ricardo continued calmly driving.

Well, the melt-down  concluded with a pull-out stop just over the Galena Pass, Ted standing without any diapers or anything for that matter on his bottom half, screaming by the side of the road, Ricardo negotiating with Ted, Peter claiming the back bed, and me and Alle photographing wildflowers by the side of the highway. We all finally piled back into the RV and the boys were both asleep in about two minutes. Ted slept for two hours and Peter for two and a half.

We drove along the Salmon River all day and were in awe of its meandering light and the beauty of the gorges. We made a quick stop at Redfish Lake to jump off the docks there and cool off.  Here's our view of the Sawtooth Mountains from Redfish Lake.

We found our RV park in a tiny, fairly deserted, quiet curve in the road and the Salmon River called Elk Bend, Idaho. We are surrounded by mountains and rocky cliffs here.

Ricardo and the boys set up the tent and fell asleep outside talking about the stars. Tomorrow we will enter Montana and make our way to Glacier National Park.