Lamp Lights

We bought a tent last year at a garage sale for $10. We decided we would become campers. Why wouldn’t we become campers at that price?  Unsurprisingly we have camped a total of…one…times this summer. But I think the “coolness” of the place makes up for the lack of quantity. Allow me to explain.

Ness and Cam introduced us to “Gold Bug”. It was a few months in the planning and I always had trouble remembering the actual name so some alternate names came in to play. Hence the title. This little trip was a few months ago but I couldn’t find where Doug saved the pictures at until now.

The day started out at Taco Time, naturally. We had our fill of fast-fresh Mexi food, got a bag of T-Time ice and off we went to Salmon. This was my maiden voyage to Salmon. I’ve never had any reason to go there, which is really a shame because it’s a charming little town. We did some thrift store shopping and had giant-greasy-dripping-fried-unhealthy hamburgers topped off with a milkshake (I’m sick thinking about it).

We were really just biding our time for one of the main events for the evening: Batman. We bought our movie tickets as soon as we arrived in fear the movie would be sold out since it was opening day. This was unnecessary as there are about 9 people in that town and I don’t think the theatre has ever sold a ticket 5 minutes prior to showtime. I forgot to mention that we stopped at a garage sale at a Catholic church on the way to Salmon where Vanessa happened upon an adult Batman costume for $1. She bought it.

Anyway, we had our dinner then watched the movie. Which is close to 3 hours. So we got out around 10PM. Filled up with gas and then drove the 30 minutes (give or take) to the trail head. Gold Bug. By the time we got our backpacks on, fought off the moths in the trunk and unleashed our flashlights it was 11PM. The perfect time to start a hike.

The last night hike I did was years ago when I lived in Hawaii. I forgot how nice and refreshing it is! I’m a bit of a complainer when I hike and when you add a hot sun beating down on me to the equation, I’m not super pleasant. But night hikes? Yeah, I like ’em. Cameron tricked us and made us think it was WAY farther than it was. Which turned out to be awesome. Best surprise ever. So we ended up at the “camping area” (I don’t actually think camping is allowed so- shhh) close to 1AM. We set up the tent (we ended up not even bringing our tent so my opening line is pretty much irrelevant) and changed into our swimsuits and went natural-hot-tubbing at 2 in the morning. The skies were unbelievably clear and somehow we ended up being the only ones there. It was surreal. Gorgeous, relaxing, majestic, serene, romantic and wonderful. There are several different pools that are all different temperatures. I can’t even describe it. We loved it.

The next morning we were greeted by a naked man. Which really was the cherry on top. I felt like I’d been shafted up to this point. We took that as our cue that it was time to head out.

We hiked out (in the blazing sun, ugh) and discussed politics and literature. A word of advice: do not discuss politics whilst hiking in the hot blazing sun. Despite the topic we are still good friends with Cam and Ness (right, guys?).  When we got back to Salmon we stopped for lunch at this delicious restaurant. They had the most exquisite Creamy Asparagus Soup I’ve ever partaken of. It tasted as good as our weekend trip was. In other words, it was divine.

All too soon it was time to head back. Tired conversations on a long car ride when everyone is a little bit punch-drunk are something I live for. The laughter that arises out of moments like those is therapeutic.

Also, I failed to get a picture in time, but we saw a man mowing his lawn/field on the way home. He was riding a 3-wheeler with a push-lawn-mower attached that was dragging behind it- so he didn’t have to push it. On a 3-wheeler! Literally mowing his lawn like that. It was so awesome and we were so tired that it was completely hysterical at the time. Got to love Idaho.