Indian Creek Campground, Priest Lake

My husband Gary is a pastor, so you wouldn't think we'd get many weekends off, right? Thankfully in this district, he gets a weekend off when there are five Saturdays in a month. October is one of those months, so we headed to Priest Lake here in Northern Idaho!

Isn't Northern Idaho pretty cold in late October? What is an 8-month pregnant lady doing going camping? Don't worry, we borrowed a trailer! Heaters, lights, a real bed, a bathroom, and preparing meals indoors!

Here's our first look at the lake on Friday afternoon. We were racing to beat the sun, so we didn't linger over the views. We camped at Indian Creek Campground, and though it's only 20-30 miles from where we live as the crow flies we had to make a giant U around the mountains to get there. Still, Indian Creek is just over 2 hours away, and we will be back!

On Saturday after a questionable night's sleep despite the real bed and heaters, we ate breakfast and headed out to see what we could see. We started at Headquarters where the boys learned about different animals and their fur while Gary chatted with the rangers about hikes and kayak trips and bear safety.

Then we headed off on a hike! We walked so fast everything was blurry! Either that or my cell phone photography skills are especially lacking in low light!

There was a chance of rain, the sky was overcast, and the temperature was stuck somewhere in the 40s. We had sweatshirts and were just warm enough if we kept walking.

We chose a hike called the Viewpoint Trail and should have known it required some altitude to get a good view of the lake. I'm proud to say this winded, 40-year-old, 8-months pregnant lady did not die! I rested frequently and just kept plodding along.

It really was a beautiful view!

The boys explored the rocks and moss while we kept a lookout for bears and mountain lions. The only thing we saw was a squirrel.

Of course there was the celebratory selfie!

We hiked back down to the lake in a quarter of the time it took us to climb up. We think we walked about 2 miles total, though our apps weren't working we were so remote.

The ranger had told us about some red fish we could see from the boat dock, so we headed over to investigate.

Sure enough, there they were!

These are Kokanee salmon who come to the shallow water to spawn. They were about a foot long and swimming in groups by the shore. Very cool.

The lake looked moody and cold! This was about midday. We learned that Priest Lake has a long history of Indian settlements, Jesuit priests, and early settlers.

We took a break for lunch (and heaters!) back at the trailer, then came out to explore some more of the shore and let the boys play on the playground equipment.

Indian Creek Campground has cabins for rent, but they're just bunks and heaters, no cooking facilities or bathrooms. There are community bathrooms but all water is shut off from October-April, so you're best off in a trailer if it's cold. The campground is open year round and there are snow shoeing/cross-country skiing trails in the woods.

Gary and the boys gathered firewood and built a raging inferno that afternoon. It was cozy to sit by the fire and be warm! It would have been proper to have hot dogs roasted over the fire, but I didn't even think of that until we were there! Oh well, we enjoyed our spaghetti dinner inside the trailer, then roasted marshmallows in the fire and made s'mores. Phew--at least I remembered that!

We also got ice cream at the camp store! We MADE the boys eat it, as you can clearly see. Stinkers! This was some marshmallow-pop rock weird stuff that the lady PILED on their cones. Needless to say, Gary and I had portions that should have been shared between three people, but we did our duty and packed it away. #cleanplateclub

Our second night redeemed the first, but after a pancake breakfast we had to head home. Don't worry, Priest Lake, we'll be back!

Dawson Creek Campground

The last weekend in August found our family out camping! We went to Dawson Creek Campground that is only 12 miles from our house. Oh the perks of living in Northern Idaho!

We were right by the river in a very secluded site. There was rain in the forecast so there weren't many other campers. We slept without the tarp the first night (pictured) and could see the stars and hear the river. It was so peaceful!

Well, except for the warnings all over that we were in bear country!

Food at camp always tastes better. I prepped most of the meals at home and only had some re-heating and minimal cooking to do on our camp stove, so it wasn't too complicated.

The boys spent much of their time by the river. These pictures are from the first night and the weather was getting chilly! We had worship down there, sitting on the rocks.

The next morning after breakfast we took a hike. Northern Idaho has been very dry this summer, so the undergrowth was brown and the sky was hazy with smoke from nearby fires. (Because of the extreme fire danger, campfires were not allowed but we could use our camp stove.)

Again, being in bear country was a little nerve wracking! We tried to make lots of noise as we hiked and always kept the boys between the adults.

We got to this overlook that showed how high we'd climbed. Right after I took this picture I saw a bear on that little grassy spot down by the river! It was a brown bear (it's grizzly territory too) and was quite a way away, but now we KNEW there were bears!

We finished our hike and refreshed our feet by wading in the river. Well, except for Jonathan who tried to cross it and was wet to his waist. Talk about cold!

We seriously spent hours sitting by the river watching the kids. It was relaxing but I'm not used to that kind of downtime! Is that bad? We didn't have cell phone reception and didn't bring books to read. There was some rock stacking and lots of rock skipping and throwing!

By Saturday afternoon the rain came. We had put up the rain cover on the tent and managed to eat supper between showers, so it wasn't bad. There were light showers during the night and we opted to break camp and go home before breakfast on Sunday. It was wet and cold and dirty, but our memories of the weekend are happy, restful and peaceful. We'll be back!

Roadtrip Recap {Yellowstone}

This summer our family moved from Nebraska to Idaho. It didn't take much to realize that we would be silly to NOT stop at Yellowstone!

We started out on June 1st and only travelled as far as Ogallala due to a late start doing a walk-thru of our Nebraska rental with our landlady.

The next day we traveled north through Nebraska and stopped at Scotts Bluff National Monument.

We ate lunch, took a short walk and a few pictures, then got our National Parks Passport stamped before continuing on to Thermopiles, Wyoming.

Day three brought us through more beautiful Wyoming country and Yellowstone!

This is our second time at Yellowstone in three years. You can see pictures from our last visit here and here. Both times we've stuck to the main road and made stops to take short walks and see the big attractions. We have plans when the boys are a little older (and now that we live closer) to go back for at least a week with a trailer or tent and see the back country.

We saw herds of bison and elk and a scraggly wild sheep. We walked to a waterfall and had our picture taken with a moose. :)

We stayed in West Yellowstone, MT, where there was plenty of posing with the wildlife (statues) and headed back to the valley for Day 2.

We took a walking tour of a plethora of geysers. It was stinky and hot! We enjoyed the colorful pools and were startled by one geyser erupting right as we passed by!

We ate a picnic lunch by a river and completed our driving tour of Yellowstone. We exited at the North gate and drove to Billings, MT, that night.

Montana is beautiful! We had a hard time finding a motel that night for some reason, but made sure the boys got to swim for an hour before bed. They love swimming! We knew sleeping in motels for a week and driving all day--even with stops to take walks and see wildlife in Yellowstone--was hard on our kiddos and made sure they got that evening swim every chance we could!

As we traveled through the rest of Western Montana and into Idaho, the scenery just kept getting prettier! We kept wondering if this was really true, that we were MOVING to this beautiful area and wouldn't have to leave in a few days. And in the time since (it's been two months) we still feel the same way! We're blessed to live in an incredibly beautiful part of the country.

Just to fill in the gap, we didn't have housing lined up for our first few nights in Idaho. We thought we might be waiting up to 6 weeks for our rental and we were tired of motels! Thankfully a church member volunteered their trailer for us for as long as we needed it. They even pulled it to a place where we could stay for free and have running water and a full bathroom to use. As it turned out our rental was available in just five days! Read more about the rental here.

Have you been on any road trips lately?