Hell’s Canyon in Idaho

19.08.2017
Dace writing:

We woke up in little town Weiser Idaho at Colonial motel. We ate breakfast in Senior center for 6$. Here was a breakfast “party” in honor of Solar eclipse with live music. One old man played piano, others were singing. All this was very kind and lovely.

After we were in market in honor of eclipse. Our team played a local game against American guys who were working there. Our players Gļebs and Niks Jānis got a T shirt as a gift for good playing. Then all cars went to a little hot springs swimming pool in a campground. Here was a group meeting. Madara told her strong opinion about driving speed on the road. After that our course we went to Hell’s canyon.

A boat trip was great. We saw a young bear on cost area. This was a wonderful adventure in the wild nature. Snake river, as in other places as well, was diverse, beautiful and wild. The captain of the ship did his job great. He knows the river perfectly, reads the current and leads the ship through serious rapids. The canyon which the river flows through has high cliffs which highlights the natural flow of the river. During the trip we stopped on a small sandy beach where we were offered water or lemonade. Some of us went swimming. Gļebs built a mini dam which he lowered after. When getting back on the boat, we had to wash our feet in a bowl to not bring sand in the boat. This trip was very inspiring, exciting and fun.

In the evening we went to a campsite where we prepared supper and build tents. This was a nice day.

To the ocean!

06.08.2017
Atis Edvards un Niks Jānis raksta:

It was morning of August 6. We got up shortly before 6 o’clock a.m. and heated a water for the morning porridge. Today it was planned to travel a great and long distance. At 6:45 a.m. there was our group meeting. It was said that it would be possible to take and use swimsuits. Once again, we filled up our cars with our stuff to the top and we went on a long journey.
On the sidewalk, we tasted some figs that just grove green and fresh in trees. I should admit that it was my first time eating green completely fresh sweet figs. Then I fell to a little sleep, as I woke up, we drove through a green beautiful forest, and the next time I opened my eyes we had reached the Pacific Ocean that loudly rocked and waved, finally we could really look at it. Let’s go further and see it from a different point of view. It was early morning, so people were not there yet, and the weather was mildly warm but ocean’s cold winds made it pleasant and cool.

When we found a nice-looking place, it turned out to be some kind of a cow beach. Wow, the private cow beach possibly is a place for a milk with fish aroma – was noticed by someone in our radio. A few moments later we drove off the main road to the beach, where some of us did swimming. Salvis was the first who run in the Pacific Ocean with his arms wide open. The water was quite cold and unpleasant, but the sensation of embarking and soaking legs was already an adventure. After the beach we ate some bananas and went further. We drove for a long time and tried to stay at least a couple of minutes from each other, we traveled through traffic jams, either lost or separated for a moment but we could hear each other on our walkie talkie channel 11.

We were separated because some stopped on another beach to cool down and I’m sure they were swimming. But we continued our journey and later stopped for a moment at the rest area. Somebody told that Kristaps had said that he had seen a rattlesnake, and that he was asking others if they have seen it. The rumors spread quickly and everyone remained obscure, some went to look. But in fact, Kristaps had only seen the sign, written about the rattlesnakes, and that they usually go out at night. We stopped by self-service machines, someone took a lemonade, someone – coffee, but we with brother found an ice cream machine for a dollar. We inserted one-dollar bill into machine and the refrigerator what was in the machine opened its lid and a robot hand miraculously swept our order from the freezer – it was lifted, moved a little towards the glass and dropped at our feet. You do not see anything like that every day (if you do not live next door by the ice-cream vending machine, of course). The ice-cream at this hot day was good and the price for such a pleasure for a dollar was excellent.

We went on and I was listening to music again, eventually we scanned throw radio stations. Some of the stations stumbled among the mountains, but it was ok. Suddenly one station had a program about the upcoming Solar eclipse, and all of us started listening very carefully right away.

We were still divided into two parts, and again we were looking for a place to dock. At this part of our road everything was full of trailers with American, Californian (just in case you don’t know, its main symbol is a grizzly bear) and pirate-type flags. The beach was nice and this time almost everyone went for a swim in the ocean, we made wonderful pictures, we wet pants and went to our previously booked motel. We had to do laundry and make a soup for dinner. The laundry room was hidden on the second floor, and there was no detergent there, but it turned out to be able to buy it from vending machine at the motel reception, the Tide was hidden between different chocolates and other snacks, very cleverly invented! Others cooked sausages, rice and more for dinner. We put a pile of ice in our cold bags with food supplies, since there was only one small refrigerator located at the reception, then we washed ourselves and went to bed.