RETIREMENT TRIP #7

Heading West Again
                                                                              Here we go again! We're on the road again...Willie Nelson couldn't have sung it any better!
The thought reverberated in my mind and haunted my brain yesterday, as we prepared for retirement Trip #7:  packing, watering plants, changing beds, writing checks, closing windows.
But at 3:00 a.m. when Andy's radio alarm jolted us awake and my phone alarm urged us out of bed, we weren't singing much.

We encounter the local inhabitants
in Weiser, Idaho.

Uneventful flights took us from White Plains, New York, to Chicago O'Hare to Boise, Idaho. But we almost didn't make it.  We had plenty of time in White Plains for our 6:34 a.m. departure and the plane rested at the airport overnight, but United delays of 70 minutes devastated our connection.  Luckily a combination of unsettled weather around O'Hare, kind pilots who held the next flight and a run of only about ten gates got us on the plane as the door closed.
So now we head out on another adventure in a little black Ford Fiesta through Big Sky country.  Little Red sleeps in the garage at home, and we're on the road... again.
In Weiser, Idaho, we spotted some of the local wildlife.  I guess he's been here for quite some time. In no hurry today, we gave him time to pose for us. 

In spite of the dryness, the river and roadway
cuts through picturesque hillsides.

Around Boise and along Route #84 West, the country rolled in dry brown waves.  Here and there fields of dried out corn stalks rustled and nodded in a stiff breeze.
As we headed north along Route #95 toward Cambridge, the hills greened.  Peaks rose in the distance.  "That's where we go tomorrow," explained Andy.
"A few years ago I read that Idaho had more millionaires per capita than any other state," said Andy, as we drove through the countryside around Cambridge, a town of 360 people.  Ranches dotted the rolling hillsides--mostly brown grasslands dotted with sage and small trees.

An old steam-driven contraption
decorates the park in Council.

But homes, not ostentatious, looked as though people made a decent living here.

An old steam road paver or tractor of some kind decorated the village green in Council, Idaho.
We cruised through the Payette National Forest, amazed at how dramatically the land changed as we went up a few thousand feet in elevation.  Outside of New Meadows, a lumber yard puffed away. 

Piles of cut boards line the roadway
for several blocks near the lumberyard.

Huge piles of cut boards lined the road on one side; raw logs sprayed with streams of water were stacked haphazardly on the other.

Piles of logs are kept moist and fresh
at the lumber yard with sprays of water.

We turned around in New Meadows, a town of about 533 people in the center of Idaho's Heartland.  The lumber yard was still puffing and spraying away as we headed back, and the smell of sawdust and freshly cut timber filled the air.
At Office Bar in Cambridge we ordered smoked ribs for dinner.  Max, a large black lab, met us at the door and never left our sides. 

Max tries to convince Andy that he really wants the dollar,
not all the petting, at the Office Bar in Cambridge.

He took up his station between us at the table, and then he put his head alternately in our laps the whole time we ate.  "He's trained to do that," explained the bar tender. "He's waiting for a $1.00 tip to bring to the bar."
As strangers in town, we undoubtedly attracted Max's attention.  All the locals at the bar ignored him.  Faithful to his post and duty, he only left when border collie Jack took up the position.