A Walk with Surprises and a Drive to Mountain Home, Idaho - Thursday, July 30, 2020

For two days, Bob has been taking bike rides along a bike path that's just around the corner from our RV park. This morning, he invited me to walk with him to see how pretty it is.

I was excited to see more of Lakeside Storage and Museum (the storage yard next to the RV park). Come to find out, there's even more stuff across the street!

Old gas station and car-related signs at
Lakeside Storage and Museum.

Hey, I recognize Sinclair and Chevron!

Conoco is also familiar.
Check out the angry plane.

This plane looks like some kind of prototype.

Just so you know who owns all this memorabilia.

It was fun photographing these signs.

Local history. 

After crossing the Provo River Bridge, we walked 1/2 block and turned right just before Utah Lake State Park, and then turned right again into the parking lot for the Provo/Jordan River Parkway path. The path is paved and follows the river. It was about 7:30 a.m.

The Provo/Jordan River Parkway.

Magical in the morning sun.

I was telling Bob how "messy" the river looks with downed branches and some trash on the bank. Being in the city, it did not look manicured like some city rivers do. Because it's close to Utah Lake and a Waterfowl Management Area, this part of the pathway looks rather wild. 

A very large covey of quail moved across our path and into the horses' pasture. It looked like those quail had about 50 little ones. So cute!

Two adult quail on the right and three or
four babies visible on top of the left logs.

Baby quail on top of the middle log.

A downed tree in the river.

Guess what? Right about that exact moment of wild river thoughts, a long, slinky, furry black animal appeared at the base of a tree next to the river. It looked at us and skittered into the water. Could it possibly be? That looked just like a mink!!! That was the first animal that came to mind even though I've never seen one in the wild before. I wish I would have had my camera out and ready so I could "capture" it in a photo!

We discussed for a bit whether it was a mink or a weasel. It definitely was not an otter or a ferret. From every photo I can remember about an animal like that, I was 95% sure it was a mink. 

I asked some people walking on the trail if there were mink around here. The first two ladies I asked didn't speak English. They just looked perplexed. Then I asked a lady who looks like she walks this area all the time. She said she has seen the animal but hadn't seen it recently. We told her we just saw it a few minutes ago.

Continuing on our walk, we stayed on the fork in the trail that went closest to the river. I looked across the river and saw another mink walking on a rock along the opposite shore. Again, the critter was curious about us but slunk off into the brush or water. It was hard to see once it got off the grey rock. We looped back onto the main path to head back.

We asked another couple about seeing the critter and they said they had just seen one, but they thought it was an otter. Nope, I know what otters look like...they're big and fat and brown with a thick tail. I told them I was pretty sure it was a mink. I couldn't wait to get back to the 5th wheel to identify it!

Heading back.

A view of the Wasatch Range.

Me hanging out amongst the cool items on display.

Lakeside Storage has quite a collection!

Back at the 5th wheel, I immediately logged onto the computer and found what I was looking for. We definitely saw TWO mink on that two-mile walk. I am so impressed. WOW!

Today, we travel to Mountain Home, Idaho. We'll be crossing some mountains. 

Bob drove us through the traffic in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Bountiful, and the other suburbs of Salt Lake City. There was some road construction, but we went through about 10:30 a.m. There were some hairy moments, but we made it through. 

We stopped at a rest area near the border with Idaho and gave Sunnie his insulin. I took over driving for a couple of hours. We made it to Mountain Home close to 5:00 p.m.

Photos of Mountain Home RV Park, just 0.8 miles off I-84, are below. 

This is a beautiful, modern, clean, well-run RV park. As soon as we pulled up to the park's stop sign, a gentleman in a golf cart greeted us and told us to wait right there. He got our name, picked up our paperwork from the office, and led us to our campsite. He explained to Bob where all the utilities were located. The sites had plenty of space between them. The section we were in was older and had beautiful shade trees.

We loved our shady site. It was 103 degrees!

Beautifully manicured lawns. 

Our site was in the older section of the park. Two weeks ago, they opened a huge new section. You can see below that the trees aren't providing shade yet.

New section of the RV park.

The older section of the RV park. 

I did two loads of laundry this afternoon. Even though there were signs in the laundry room asking people not to wash pet beds, one of the washing machines I used had black pet hair on the top of the washer.

We settled in nicely and liked this RV Park a lot. Tomorrow, we are heading to Pendleton, Oregon. 

Originally, we wanted to stay in Boardman or Stanfield, a little farther along our route, but every park I called was full. It's hot summertime and many people boat and do watersports in the Columbia River. I finally found one last back-in campsite at the Wildhorse Casino RV Park in Pendleton. Whew! I'm glad we got it. We would not want to sleep overnight in a Rest Area with no power. The temperature in Pendleton is forecast to be 101 degrees F.!

Tomorrow we will reach our destination in Gig Harbor, Washington. The weather will be in the 80s! Yay.