Local Excitement

We just had an earthquake. Early reports are a 6.5 centered in the backwoods of central Idaho. It shook our house in the Boise area, and made the chandelier over the dining table rock.

We also have a bell on a stand out back and it was ringing. I immediately contacted our daughter, and she felt it in Sun Valley.

The west has many fault lines, but in nearly sixty years, I’ve never felt one. There really wasn’t any danger out here in suburbia. We aren’t near any tall buildings or anything. Honestly, I thought it was kind of cool.

Guess I can check that one off my list. I’ve been trapped in Alaska by a volcano, so I don’t need to repeat that one. I feel like I ought to make a trip to see the Northern Lights now. Either that or a tropical storm, but the Northern Lights sound like more fun.

Nature Boy takes a drive

Work sent me across the state to do a project in Idaho Falls. I went in for the morning shift, then hit the road about noon. I wanted to get here before dark and potentially rush hour.

Not that IF is such a frightening place, but I’m not overly familiar with it. I elected to cut across the desert. There is a freeway option, but it’s quite a bit longer.

I saw antelope all around Fairview, which is pretty normal. It’s also big game migration time, and I expected a few deer. The deer didn’t show. What did show was a badger out in a stubble field. He was booking along, trying to get to his burrow somewhere.

I was fairly content with seeing something unusual, but then I got near Sun Valley. My highway crosses the one up into SV. There is a stop sign, and usually quite a bit of traffic.

Drivers were starting to accordion as they approached the intersection, and I may have slowed down a bit too much. I think I irritated the guy behind me. My reasoning was the herd of six elk that just crossed the road. Five cows and a six-point bull directing where they went. I don’t think he even saw them, and they were standing in short grass as we drove by.

I wanted pictures of all this stuff, but the traffic never cooperated with me. I know how to call a badger back up from his hole, and have done it many times. I have some beautiful photos from back in my 35mm days. I just didn’t have 30 minutes to spare. This is a work trip, and I really didn’t want to get here in the dark.

Nature wasn’t finished with me, though. About two miles past the intersection, there were two raccoons grabbing for something out in a stubble field. You don’t normally see them out in broad daylight. I slowed to see if there was a parking area, but there wasn’t. I don’t know if it was grain, or some kind of bug that brought them out, but it was cool to see.

I turned back toward my drive, and a rooster pheasant stepped right in front of the car. It didn’t end well for the pheasant. I heard the thump. I never saw him in my rear-view mirror, so drove to the nearby chain-up area. Once around the car, and no sign of him. This isn’t my truck, it’s a small state vehicle, so I was a bit concerned about cracking a headlight, or damaging the grill. No damage at all.

I cruised through Craters of the Moon, and enjoyed the scenery, but the wildlife had called it a day. Other than one last herd of antelope near Arco, that was it.

It was a fun day, but I didn’t get any pictures. I may have had my best chance with the raccoons, but the pheasant threw me off my game. (Raccoons aren’t known for a rapid retreat.)

I need to surf through a couple of websites, then I may add some new words to my side project. Goodnight everyone.

A small update

I put the finishing touches to The Viral Blues this morning before dogs and family started stirring.

From my perspective, it was good enough to share with critique partners, but I have a lot to fix. They were all fast today, and I had responses before we even finished our goofing around for the day.

We decided to drive back to Donnelly, absent the trailer. My USFS maps indicate a lot of campgrounds on the back side of Cascade Reservoir. In all these years, I’ve never taken the drive around the lake, and today was the day.

The best campgrounds were near Donnelly, and after the pavement ended there wasn’t a lot to offer on that front. Beautiful, no doubt, but not quite what we were looking for in a campground. (There is a custom hat maker in Donnelly, but I resisted. This is like catnip to me, but when you’re broke all the time you have to behave.)

I was a bit disappointed in the road maintenance. The Forest Circus usually keeps the roads bladed pretty well, and while this road is big, it’s a pothole and washboard disaster.

We stopped one place to let the dogs potty. Otto was impressed that squirrels here live in the ground. He sniffed and dug at several holes. Frankie just freaks out, because she loves her own yard.

I snapped a few photos, but they all came out about the same. Here is one if you’d like to get a look at the scenery.

A more responsible photographer would have stepped off the road

There are ospreys everywhere you look, but not an eagle in sight. We also saw tons of pretty songbirds, and a few white pelicans on the water.

We’re getting ready for supper right now. I worked through one of the critiques, but am saving the others for later. I’m off Monday too, and that might be a good time for those.

If I get far enough, I might start the word searches on Serang.

Here is a still life from inside the camper.

I’ll probably fiddle around with Pinterest or something after supper. We thought about bringing a DVD of Captain Marvel, but blew it off.

We’ll go home at a leisurely pace tomorrow. That will give us time to wash the camper off, put our stuff away, and still have a day to accomplish things on monday.

A decent weekend

I never managed a single word of new fiction this weekend. Old What’s Her Face and I decided to go mushrooming on Saturday.

It wound up being a beautiful day in the mountains. It was sunny and warm, even though we had to drive around boulders as big as Buicks on the highway into the back country. The winter thaw rolled them onto the road. There was also a snowdrift to crash through, and part of the dirt road was underwater.

We saw a couple of deer and one turkey in the low country. The bulldogs were thoroughly worn out by the trip home. My wife bought this interesting pad for the dogs. It is supposed to cool them down when they lay down on it. It seems to work pretty well. No batteries or anything.

We wound up finding two morels. That’s it, not even enough for a decent omelette, but we tried today anyway. It looks like we’re going to have to find another hunting spot. The old forest fire in that area is about eight years old now, and maybe a more recent burn would be more productive. Pretty country and lots of fresh air to go around.

I worked on another of my “Expansion Packs” posts for Story Empire, but it isn’t where I want it yet. I have a couple of weeks to make it decent.

I also worked my way through a pile of critiques I received for The Viral Blues. It isn’t fancy, but counts as progress all the same.

After talking to my parents and finishing breakfast we made a Home Depot run. Old What’s Her Face wanted some hanging baskets for the back patio. I added a few light bulbs to the cart. Not too exciting, but it’s life for an author.

I have Wednesday off, so might manage a word or two then.

Hope all of you had good weekends too. Mine was pretty decent even if it wasn’t sexy.

Springtime in Idaho, plus a bit of luck

Yesterday was a travel day for me. This means my only job was to get to Lewiston and check into my room. I have a presentation to make for work today. I’ll go over my presentation materials in a few minutes.

While I’m waiting for the hotel to place out continental breakfast it seems like a decent time to update my blog.

Springtime in Idaho is a beautiful time. I saw animals all the way here. There were pheasants, turkeys, both mule deer and white tails. I even saw a bald eagle over the Salmon River.

Mostly though, Idaho Spring means construction. I passed through three construction zones yesterday with lengthy stops by flaggers. I even got to see one car who must have blown past the flagger at the far end, because he nearly had a head on collision with the pilot car I was following. Good times. There were two more construction zones, but they were monitored by those construction stop lights that are showing up more frequently. Only one rock hit my windshield and it didn’t chip.

Just past Grangeville, I got to watch a crop duster working. These guys always amaze me. Their acrobatic stunts are better than an air show. He was working close to the highway, and I almost ducked when he flew over my truck. I’m pretty sure I’m free of fleas and ticks now.

Since my only task was to get here, I decided to leave early. I was on the road by six am. My intent was to score some writing time if possible.

You can laugh if you want, but bald eagles have always brought me luck. Whatever my goal was, the sighting of an eagle insured success. This is what happened yesterday.

Serang and her master were still on that river. At this point in the story, they’ve been traveling a lot. There were lessons to learn along the way, and some cool creatures and scenery, but this is a novel not a travelogue.

I decided to tell a bit, jumping the story ahead by weeks and months. They sold their boat, marched back into the mountains, and met up with the only other living monk as far as they know. We made a fun stop at a blacksmith’s shop along the way. The elder monk also taught Serang an important lesson about the tigers she seems so enamored with.

Considering I haven’t been able to write any new fiction for a month now, I’m pretty happy. It came to 4010 new words I didn’t have before. Thank you Mr. Eagle.

When I called Old What’s Her Face last night, I learned that we’re going to have company again this weekend. That kills any writing time for Saturday or Sunday. I have a flex day in there, so maybe I’ll score some time then.

Or maybe, I’ll see another eagle on my way home today.

Camping, mushrooms, bulldogs

We just rolled in from our first 2017 camping trip. We left mid-day friday, because setting up in the dark sucks. Here’s Otto enjoying the sunset while dad enjoys a toddy.

I should probably crop this one down and save it somewhere. He almost glows in that afternoon sun. I didn’t get good pictures of the girls. They move around a lot, and brindle colors are like camouflage in the forest.

The next morning, the weather changed. It rained almost all day Saturday. Otto decided to rest his big, heavy, head on the table while I had coffee.

The plan was to hunt morels, my favorite mushroom. I really had no idea when to go after the goofy winter we had. We went a week later last year, and were almost too late.

Campgrounds have to be booked well in advance, and we reserved our site in January. I told Old What’s Her Face, we were going come Hell or high water. Turns out high water wasn’t too far off. The Payette river is always a violent white river, but the waves were as high as the pavement as we drove by this time.

My wife was cold all day, and decided to stay at camp. It turned out later that she must have gotten some kind of bug. She was thrilled to get some down time for reading though, so that’s a win for her.

I headed out on my own, and went directly to my best spot. I admit, I was starting to have some doubts about my chances about halfway there.

Landmark summit was white with snow. My spot is down the other side, so I went there anyway. I got lucky, because it was well below the snow line.

This isn’t to say the hunting was any good. I managed very few, but in true form; find one and there is always more than one. I gathered six big ones at one point.

When you hunt morels, you walk very slowly and look down. They aren’t colorful like Easter eggs, and I’ve even found them between my feet before. This method of hunting is why I nearly stepped on an elk calf hiding in the deadfall.

Let me tell you, when you’re all alone, in bear country, and something the size of a small pony jumps up under your feet, it wakes you right up.

False, or snow morels were out in abundance. These look almost brainlike, and vary from tennis ball to softball in size. You don’t eat this kind. There are at least three in this photo, and even they are hard to spot.

I’ve had times when I could fill coolers with good morels, but it’s been a few years. This year, I managed about half of one net bag. I have enough for a couple of nice steak toppings, or a couple of outstanding omelettes, but that’s it.

I heard they were finding them by the truckload out of Idaho City. That’s where the big fires were last summer. I just like the area we went. I like camping there, I like the mountains. I can always find a few this time of year, but I may have to make a day trip to Idaho City to keep my supply up.

Mushrooms are really a mycelium that lives underground. Remember these are a fungus, and not a vegetable. The mycelium looks like a giant cobweb. To keep things simple, I’m going to call them roots.

The edible part of any mushroom is it’s reproduction attempt. It’s not a lot different than an apple in that regard. Morels have one strange habit that a hunter can take advantage of. They invest a lot of time growing in a particular piece of ground. When that ground is damaged somehow, they panic and send up more mushrooms in an attempt to reproduce as their last act on earth. I think they’re drama queens, because the underground system can be huge, and there is one honey mushroom in Oregon that’s documented as covering several counties. Still, their strange habit is a bonus for a hunter.

Fire is the big one that everyone knows about. Deadfall trees do the same thing, and that’s where I look. I’ve found them down in the root balls before, but they’re usually ten plus feet from there. Remember this root system is pretty big. Someone blades a dirt road, I look there too. A woodcutter gets stuck, or leaves deep tire ruts in the woods, same thing. I spotted this little beauty at a deadfall.

This one appears to be a yellow morel. I also found black ones, and few of the little grey fire morels. They’re all good eating, and I wasn’t picky. I mentioned my stretchy net bag a few paragraphs ago. This is me attempting to be a good steward of the resource. Mushrooms don’t have seeds, they have spores, and distributing them is the goal of the fruit. I carry a net bag in hopes that if they are dropping spores, I will leave those spores on the forest floor.

Otto and I went on a couple of big walks through the campground when I got home. He did his “bulldog ambassador to the world” routine, and met quite a few people and dogs. He absolutely loves everyone. It was fun meeting another bulldog in camp. She was white, and had on a cute little raincoat. It was raining, so I didn’t get a picture of them.

I don’t want the girls to get left out, but I didn’t get a good photo. Here is some kind of bulldog version of tug-o-war using a stick. They might call it push-o-war, since they’re backwards.

I hope all of you had a great weekend.

Leku Ona in Boise, Idaho

This is one of those posts that simply has to get made. Date night wasn’t exactly fun tonight.

Neither one of us was excited to go out, but we did anyway. We enjoy each other’s company, that’s probably why we got married.

Since we hit one Boise institution for breakfast, we decided to try another. I grew up in Elko, Nevada, and it’s full of Basque people. It has traditionally been home of some fabulous Basque restaurants too.

Boise is another hotbed of Basque people. There is an entire part of town called the Basque Block. That’s where Leku Ona is situated. It’s always been considered an upscale local place.

It appears they closed for a little over a month for a remodel, and tonight was the grand re-opening. I made the mistake of going into the bar and they seated us. When they brought a bar menu, we asked what the deal was. It turns out the restaurant is upstairs, and the bar waitress walked us up.

The hostess complained that there were a lot of reservations, and she didn’t know where to place us. The bar waitress wasn’t having any of that nonsense, and took us up anyway. Kudos to the bar waitress, who actually deserved a tip she never got.

Turns out there was only one other table occupied. There was another one with a reserved card on it. The remodel looked really nice. Two wine glasses each, gobs of silverware, bread and salad plates, plus soup bowl. Have you got the image of the kind of place?

Basque restaurants traditionally have some stuff most people would find strange. Examples are sweetbreads, tongue, tripe, and ink fish. (These are squid, but not the calamari you might be familiar with.) Remember, I grew up on this stuff so it isn’t bizarre to me. I’m a big believer in embracing the culture when I go to an ethnic restaurant. I ordered the tongue. (Which I’ve always liked.)

“We don’t have that tonight.”

“Okay, I’ll have the lamb chops.”

“We don’t have those either.”

Now lamb is very traditional at a Basque restaurant. I was a little bit disappointed.

“Why don’t I give you a minute to look at the menu.”

About a half-hour later the waitress came back. I don’t know about you, but that seems like a long time to me.

“I’ll have the sirloin.”

Wait for it… Tension here… “We don’t have that either. I’ll come back in a moment.”

I stopped her. I took this approach instead, “What do you actually have?”

“We have the ribeye.”

Now the ribeye was $13 more than the sirloin. I could have bought three ribeyes for what they were asking, and by this time, I wasn’t about to be upgraded. Did they offer me the ribeye for the same price as the sirloin? Of course not.

She went down the menu and there were at least two additional items they did not have. I settled for a lamb meatloaf.

All in all, it was edible. My wife had chicken, and it was edible. On the way home my wife said she could make a better meal than that. That isn’t idle boasting, because my wife is a fabulous cook, but she was right.

Visits from the waitress were about half an hour apart. We were there for about 2.5 hours, for a meal that should have taken an hour.

When the folks for the reserved table arrived, I listened to a similar scenario. Their waitress told them the place had been crazy busy and they sold out of the items they wanted. (Still only about one-third full by now.)

So there you have it. Overpriced restaurant, putting on airs they could not live up to, limited menu with mediocre food, and lousy service. I half expected someone to offer me free flan or something, but they did not.

If you ever come to Boise, that’s a yes for Merrit’s Country Cafe, and a big no for Leku Ona. I’m posting this so any unsuspecting diner might find it before they go there. Don’t believe me, check the tags I put on this post.

The whole thing reminded me of this, but it wasn’t funny:

A good holiday

I have a large international following. In case you missed it on all the social media, today is a holiday in the USA.

Old What’s Her Face* took the grandkids to the water park. At some point, a man decides what isn’t a good time and bows out. That’s what I did today. There was a time when such things were fun, but I’m just not into it any more.

I decided to budget my alone time on three projects. I need to keep moving forward on getting Arson edited. I could probably get close to finished this weekend, but I’m being sociable despite bowing out of the water park.

I also want to spend some time on act one of my next story. I’m still trying out names and have changed one about five times. Nothing seems to fit for this character — yet. I’ve added a bunch of photos to my story board.

I’m also spending some time with Conor Kelly and the Four Treasures of Eirean. I’m just getting started, but I’m really enjoying it so far. Check out this book by Ali Isaac. She’s a fun blogger too, and posts about some really interesting topics.

This afternoon is going to be a big barbecue, followed by setting off all our illegal fireworks. Idaho is one of those places where it’s perfectly legal to sell all kinds of fireworks, and legal to buy and own them. It’s just illegal to set them off. I suppose the Legislature thought we were all collectors.

I don’t feel too bad. Our entire neighborhood sounds like a war zone every night for a week before the fourth and two weeks after. Of course the holiday gets the most action. This is going to be a good time with a large chunk of our family in attendance.

Whatever you’re up to, I hope you’re having a great time. For the rest of you Americans out there happy Independence Day.

* Not my wife’s actual name.