Reinforcements Have Arrived

Our next scheduled stop was Wallace, Idaho – a historic and storied town beside Highway 90 in the deep green hills of northern Idaho forest. (As an aside, the place is worth a quick Wikipedia search if you are at all interested. Some places are just plain bizarre.)

When I was planning the trip, I tried to balance many, sometimes competing, factors. For instance, I tried to keep us stationary for the work week so Alex could work uninterrupted. But I also thought it would be a bummer for Alex to have travel days every weekend and miss out full days of exploring. So we usually travel on weekends, but not exclusively. I also figured we would want to stay most places for 5-7 nights, so most of our stays are about that long. But occasionally I have us staying somewhere for just one night over the weekend to maximize travel distance while minimizing travel time or just to stay in a different, cool spot.

This is what I thought Wallace would be – one night in a quaint and quirky small town in between two longer stays. But we have come to learn in our 2-ish months of full timing that it is a hassle to unhook, set up the RV, and get situated both inside and out of the rig, only to turn right around the next morning pack everything back up again, and move to another spot. Add in three squirrely and rambunctious girlies to the mix and it is downright exhausting. So Alex vetoed the Wallace stop. “We” elected to skip our one-night stop-over spot and instead head straight to the place we would spend the next 6 days, in rural northern Idaho between Coeur d’Alene and Sandstone.

Only on rare occasions can we extend a stay on one end or the other. Most of the places in which we have stayed have been completely booked. It seems we aren’t the only ones feeling called to escape life as we know it, force family togetherness, and bathe in natural surroundings. I am curious to find out if this is just a summer thing and if the parks will open up somewhat this fall when families are otherwise preoccupied. More to come on that.

Anyway, we were in luck that our next stop had space for us to come early and we were welcomed a day ahead of schedule.

I had been giddily anticipating the Northern Idaho stop since the very day I booked it. The campground’s very well-designed website featured clear depictions of each site, cheeky, clever copy, and unapologetic admissions – no the internet was not great, but yes, it is lovely countryside. It described an idyllic hobby farm with you-name-it farm animals, trails for miles, beautiful scenery, and unbeatable privacy; all with full hook-ups, daily pastry deliveries, and memories for days. How great was this going to be?!

My expectations were unnervingly high as we pulled into the farm. As it turns out, the nationwide drought is also happening in Idaho as are a good chunk of the nation’s wildfires, so the first thing that did not match the website were the muted colors of the fields, forest and pastures, and the heavy dust. As you may know, we are no strangers to dust! But when you’re on a farm you expect an elevated degree of uncleanliness to begin with. Adding an extra layer of dust before you even step outside is a discouraging introduction.

The area surrounding the farm was indeed lovely. The property abutted a mountain that had trails carved through its side, an exciting possibility – maybe we could hike right from our campsite! The sites had decent privacy compared to some of the places we’ve stayed, and the view of the field out of our window was quaint and quiet.

However, without going into too much detail, the campground was not as charming as the website led me to believe. It was tired and… let’s just say, it could have used some work. Months-worth of work, perhaps. Not only that, but we soon learned that all the hiking trails were closed because the local moose (plural) had made a habit of charging the guests. It was not a great start! All in all, the place was just fine for the week and ended up being a welcomed change to a slower pace, but also a good reminder that websites can be deceiving.

It helped that there were animals, lots of animals. Animals that we could limitlessly access. The girls loved it. We got very well acquainted with the giant Flemish bunnies, goats, sheep, miniature horses, and cats. We also had a run in or two with the turkeys that Elsie and Willa fondly named Chuck and Phalily. Meanwhile, Audrey was terrified of the turkeys and insisted on being carried when they were anywhere nearby. She still thinks Chuck the Turkey is lurking around corners.

Over the course of the week the girls spent hours and hours, and could have spent more, sitting in the bunny cages, feeding and tending to the goats, and following the farm cats around the property. They wised up part way through and brought buckets into the bunny cages to sit on so as to avoid the bunny poop on the bum issue, and they strategized the best ways to hold and keep the bunnies still and sitting in their laps longer. They absolutely loved it.

We soon met a family with three kids, similar ages to our girls, who is also full timing for about a year or so. The girls had a blast meeting new friends and I was excited to talk to another mom in the same circumstances.

Then it was time for reinforcements. Alex was finishing a project at work and had a few days of intense meetings where he would be working from a co-working space in Coeur d’Alene. I knew he would be working long days and need the truck, leaving us stranded on the farm all day, every day, or stuck driving him into town early and picking him up late. Coeur d’Alene was a 30-minute drive so it was not all that appealing to spend hours in the car each day with the girls, shuttling him to and from his temporary office.

At this point in our journey I was, in all honestly, becoming a little weary. It has been a huge change to be around the kids and only the kids (well, and Alex, but he’s comparatively easy) nearly constantly. Through the stressful, whiny car rides (culprit - Audrey) and in the tight confines of the RV, we're always together! At home and even throughout intense covid-era parenting when we were all home all the time, we still had opportunities for a break- working for one, and also when my parents were willing to babysit. But here there are no breaks from the children other than the stray hour or so of alone time upon request. They can be a LOT. All kids can... right?

Needless to say, there have been hugely high highs during our journey, and also some tough, exhausting lows. Such is life, am I right? I admit, I was starting to feel depleted and discouraged. What’s more, we were struggling to establish much of a routine, had barely started school work, and had been through our fair share of sibling disputes and frustrations. And then to have a week of long, solo days with no vehicle? I was at a point where I needed some encouragement and some help. Enter mom/nana to the rescue!

With a little bit of luck and a lot of spontaneity, my mom, Laurie (aka nana), arrived to surprise the girls on Monday afternoon. Were they ever surprised! They could not figure out how she got there! Her arrival was met with giddy hugs from the girls and a deep, thankful breath from me. Hugs from me too, of course. After all, I had missed my mom too!

We showed nana around the farm, introduced her to our new animal friends, and drove into Coeur d’Alene to show her some of the places we had already been, including the world’s longest floating boardwalk (so cool!) and to swim in the big lake. We went on a short evening hike alongside another huge lake that I didn’t know existed, Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced Ponderay). It was a stunning mountain lake with rocky, steep shorelines, and chilly, crystal clear water. It reminded us of Lake Chelan in Northern Washington and our family trip there in the early 2000s.

The next day, we went back to Lake Pend Oreille, but further north, to Sandstone, Idaho. The vast, sandy beach in Sandstone was nothing like the steep, forested southern shore of the lake and we could see clear across to the mountains on the other side. Those mountains also held two distinct plumes of smoke bellowing into the sky. Nana got pretty nervous! It turned out that the fires were far away but seeing evidence of fires so clearly and knowing how easily a forest fire could ignite in the nearby woods was alarming.

We just loved the town of Sandstone. It is clearly a tourist destination, but not the kind with droves of crowds and cheap t-shirt shops on every corner. It was my kind of tourist town; it had more coffee shops than chain restaurants, multiple outdoor adventure stores, and shops, restaurants and B&Bs that have been family-run for generations. It was adorable. So much so that after nana left, we brought Alex back with us to check it out.

We visited the same beach as we did the first time but witnessed an entirely different view. The smoke from the other day had engulfed the lake, making it so we could barely see past the swim buoys, let alone out into the lake. Looking back, we probably should have checked the air quality before we went (a metric that is becoming more and more relevant for us). It was probably unhealthy air and not something we should have been out in.

I am so thankful for my mom for making time and being willing to drop everything and visit when I needed it and it was convenient for us. The girls were (mostly) angels while she was there, and she brought renewed energy and focus when I needed a boost. It was a really great week and it was hard to see her go. We felt good knowing it would only be 6 more weeks until we would see her again.