Nostalgic Road Trip...Sept. 1

Today I had the alarm set for 6:30, however I had not changed it since entering the mountain time zone… so we got up at 5:30 instead…heard about that all day. Today was a nostalgic day for me…from mid ’63 till mid ’65, I was stationed at Mountain Home AF Base here in Idaho. I wanted to revisit a couple of my old stomping grounds I used to roam with my friends.


The first is now Bruneau Dunes State Park. It was just a bunch of huge sand dunes with a cool lake in the middle those 40+ years ago. We used to swim in the lake to escape the summer heat and surf the sand dunes on chow hall trays right into the water…build a fire and have a few beers. Today you have to pay to get in and there are campers everywhere…only the memories remain the same.


Next we tried but failed to find an old hot spring “Indian Bathtub”where we would swim and party in the winter. It was located in a shallow canyon fed by several small hot springs that poured over a ledge into a large crevice, “the bathtub”, with a sandy bottom. Since the canyon protected it from the endless winter wind …we could strip and swim (soak) in the warm water for hours. Above the pool of water were ancient Indian signs pecked into the rock wall. I stopped to inquire at a local station and learned the springs had all gone dry several years ago…the memories remain.


Driving farther on one of my less traveled roads we headed for Bruneau Canyon. It is hard for me to believe that my friends and I actually climbed to the bottom of this canyon and survived…


Back to the present, we headed back to I-84 and our next destination…Bend, OR. The rest of the drive was uneventful except for road construction which slowed us only slightly. We arrived in Bend at 4:00.

Tomorrow we head south to Crater Lake and then on to Grants Pass to meet Jeni.