We are in Idaho. IDAHO! The state where Dennis has spent the last two summers, the place he's been telling me about since we first started talking. All our travel plans were made with this state in mind. It's very exciting to have crossed the state lines! We have a very few (double digits!!!!) more miles to go before we pull into our summer home area, a 25-mile long town of not-quite 300 named Island Park.
We arrived in Montpelier, ID Thursday evening and traveled up highway 89 to Elbow Recreation Area. The campground driveway was still buried in several inches of snow; we didn't want to try that, even if we do have a winch! Thankfully, the large pull-off area across the road had plenty of room and room to spare. We set up for a brief overnight stay.
The view out our dinette window was just amazing:
We'd experienced awesome sights all day, traveling from Rock Springs, WY to Montpelier via US 30. We even got to drive through falling snow flurries for 45 minutes or so in the mountains around Opal and Kemmerer and Fossil Butte National Monument. Snow-dusted mountainsides are amazing to see!
The campground is below Montpelier Resevoir, and a trout stream runs along it. Across the road, right beside our parking spot, is a beautiful little trout pond. It didn't take us long....
Though it was cold, there was little to no wind. We took turns fishing and getting warm in the camper. Soon we had our limit, and a homemade stringer to take them back to the camper.
These were hatchery-raised trout, and we caught them on sweet corn. Spinners and salmon eggs got no hits. Since we only planned to stay one night here, we cleaned and froze our catch.
We're extremely excited to be so close to Island Park. We love that we have a means of heating the camper while we wait for spring to blossom. We may be stacking straw around the camper for a few weeks! But we'll be settled for a little while, and able to catch you up on our journeys.