seven days in the wilderness

After seven days floating through the wilderness on the Salmon River in Idaho, the kids didn’t want to return to civilization.  Our friends drew a permit and invited us along with a few other families.  Ten adults and 8 children floated 80 miles of the Main Salmon River through Idaho.  We camped on sandy beaches, visited petro glyphs, fished, rafted, star gazed, sun-soaked, swam and played for a blissful week.  Well – mostly blissful. I could certainly have done without the zillion bug bites I got our first night after we launched – but it was totally my fault. Enthusiastically we decided to skip pitching our tents to sleep under the stars.  Everyone crashed snug in their sleeping bags on a tarp on the beach.  Everyone except me.  Insomnia kept me up wandering around and tossing outside my over-heated sleeping bag – which would not have been a big deal except for the no-seeums which came out after dark in an invisible but persistent and hungry frenzy.  While everyone sported a dozen bites or so from that night, I collected more than 100 bites on each leg with a zillion more on my back, arms, face and head.  DAMN itchy!!!  BUT – luckily the rest of our trip was bug-free.  We saw one bear, one rattlesnake, dozens of goats and eagles, a deranged overly friendly deer and lots of fish.  We had a blast.  Unplugged from civilization; recharged by Momma Nature.                                                (just click the photos if you want to view them larger)