Travels with Bentley: Monday-Wednesday, August 2-4, 2021 - Visiting with Family, Waterfalls and Relaxing.

Monday-Wednesday, August 2-4, 2021 - Visiting with Family, Waterfalls and Relaxing.

Monday, August 2, 2021

Brett and Jameson stopped by to see us Monday morning before we left. Jameson was so sweet. He just laid on Papa and hugged him, then I got my hugs, but someone forgot to take a picture of us....

Jameson can have a red headed temper; but he can also be as sweet as sugar, and fortunately he is sweet more often than not.

Tucker came over an hour or so before we left. It was good to get to spend the week with Tucker as well. He stayed and visited us for awhile and went out to help Papa prepare for our move. He is such a kind and helpful young man!

Papa and Tucker

Nana and Tucker

We left New Frontier RV Park in Winnemucca, NV at 10:09am headed north to Idaho. Even though there was only a few small towns between Winnemucca and Homedale, ID the scenery was beautiful. Some people may find it boring, but from the pictures you can see below, I found lots of beauty as we drove along.

Reminder: you can click on any of the pictures below to enlarge them.

Winnemucca Mountain as we leave town.

I had no idea it would be such a long, lonely highway.

Warning signs on the fence about shooting guns into fields that can cause wildfires.

We about choked at the price of gas in this little town.

Welcome to Oregon, an interesting sign with all of the stickers on it.

Just pictures I enjoyed as we rode along:

A really long and lonely highway - but it's not Hwy 50 across California - it is Hwy 95 to Idaho.

It sure was nice to see some green grass for a change.

Jordan Valley - I love the old neon signs.

Neat old building in Jordan Valley.

We made it to Idaho! I'm sorry the picture is so blurry.

I love old buildings - it would be interesting to know the story behind each one.

We pulled over to look at this sign and for the scenic picture below.

This was the scenic view we stopped for.

Then the scenery began to change into beautiful fields as we neared Homedale, ID, which was definitely an agricultural community.

After spending three days trying to determine what this crop was, I finally discovered today (August 5) that it is hops, used to make beer. We were just sure it was some kind of decorative vine. They sure fooled us.

Upon arrival at the City of Homedale RV Park, we stopped at the parks' host site to ask what site we would be in. She directed us to Site 3. We have 50 amp electric and water hookups. In addition there is a dump station on site, and both men and women's bathrooms/showers. The price was $25 nite + tax. It is not a very big park which is fine with us. We prefer small, quiet parks. The Snake River is located just across the road.

We originally had several reasons for visiting Idaho, with three of them being family related, and the final one was Bentley had not spent the night in Idaho before. We have a US Map on the side of our rig. Each time we spend a night in a new state, we add it's state sticker to the map. We will add three new states this trip - Utah, Nevada and Idaho. Dean has two nieces in the upper Idaho/Washington area that we have been wanting to visit for quite sometime. Unfortunately, we had to scrap that plan due to the wildfires that were somewhat close to them. We were just not comfortable trying to figure out what was a safe area and what wasn't.

Dean has a cousin who lives near the Boise area, although we weren't sure exactly where until Dean sent him a text message a few days ago. Come to find out they actually live in Middleton, which isn't that far from where we are staying. We are visiting them tomorrow.

The last family member is my Great Aunt Edith (Stapleton) Gates. I have not seen her since I was just a young girl when they visited with my Grandpa (Lawrence) Stapleton, her older brother. I recently discovered my mom's first cousin, Lorene talks with her regularly. Lorene has given me her phone number, so I'm hoping to get the chance to visit with her later this week.

Once we were finished setting up, we turned the air conditioners on, then left for a short ride, allowing time for the AC to work it's magic and cool Bentley down.

I noticed a lake nearby when searching Google Maps---Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge. We enjoyed the ride to the lake. There were several people fishing, both in boats and on the banks.

Several boats were on the water, some coming in, and others getting ready to go out fishing.

Another area with a beach.

By the time we returned to Bentley, he was feeling much cooler, and so were we. We are so thankful for air conditioners! As I mentioned we are parked along side the Snake River. Here is our view, as we took a walk after dinner.

The view of the park as we are standing near the river.

Bentley, our Heartland Big Horn, with a nice sunset in the background. Bentley is the white RV with brown trim on the front, sitting behind our Chevy truck.

The lake was pretty with the sun and trees reflecting on the water..

Last picture of the sunset tonight as we walked back to the campground.

The entrance to the park as we returned to our site for the evening.

It's a small park, maybe 15-20 sites. There were only two sites available after we pulled in.

Tuesday, August 4, 2021

After a short walk this morning along the Snake River, we returned to Bentley and spent the morning relaxing, having breakfast and taking care of normal morning chores.

We left Homedale around 12:30 headed towards Dean's cousins' house. We were stuck in a bit of traffic on I-84 due to work on the Interstate. We managed to find a place we could exit, then made our way to Gary and Chris' house.

The last time Dean saw his cousin Gary was in 2008. Prior to that it had been many years since they had seen each other. We really enjoyed our visit with them today. It was nice to hear the two of them reminiscing about things from their childhood. Dean's mother and Gary's dad were siblings. Gary's family, who lived in Texas as a youth, traveled to Kansas regularly to see their grandmother, so they spent quite a bit of time with each other during those years. While Dean introduced me to them back in 2008, they were leaving to make their way home, so we didn't have much time to visit then. Today was really nice and we spent nearly 2.5 hours, and we thoroughly enjoyed their company. We hope to be back in this area again in two years, and we'll certainly make time to see them again. In the meantime, Facebook is a good way to keep in touch as well, and in addition they are now following the blog.

While we were walking this morning, this plane came in for a landing at the nearby Homedale Airport.

After we left, we took a different route back to Homedale. It sure looked as if there might be some rain in the distance from these pictures I took.

We drove some of the country roads around Homedale when we returned just enjoying the scenery and some of the small nearby towns.

When we returned I made meatloaf for dinner. Since I had prepped it before we left, it just needed to go in the convection oven for an hour. By the time it was done I had a couple of vegetables ready to with it. Yum!

I wanted to mention, a couple of days ago, while I was reading RV Travel, an RV blog I follow, I noticed Verizon was offering more high-speed data for their hotspot plans. I looked into this and was able to add 25GB to our MiFi for only $10 more a month, as compared to 15GB for $20/month before. We now have 40 GB/month. Unfortunately, we did not have a good consistent connection while at Homedale Park, and even though we didn't use must data, I was unable to work on the blog while we were there.

Wednesday, August 4

When Dean texted Gary, he suggested they could meet us and visit Jump Creek Falls not too far from us. Dean told him we were both pretty tired from being on the go while with Brett and family, and were hoping for a bit of time to sit down and visit. So that's what we did.

Dean happened to think about the falls this morning, so he searched online and it wasn't very far from us at all. So thank you Gary for sharing about this wonderful area. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

A few pictures of the countryside as we drove toward the Falls.

Jump Creek Recreation Area

We are getting closer

Headed out in our sun hats and walking sticks. I'm sure glad we brought the walking sticks along.

Isn't that beautiful. Three young girls were with their mother and grandmother. Grandma was watching the two older girls swim below the falls, and Mom was helping the youngest daughter catch crawdads. They had found two good sized ones in the bucket they were carrying along with them. We had a nice visit with them.

The rest is scenery. It was such a beautiful place.

I didn't know if we could squeeze through or not, so we didn't try. Lol!!

Is someone watching us? It kind of looks like a dog's head - see the nose sniffing at the ground.

One last picture of the falls before we started making our way back up the way we came down.

Others watching the falls.

Notice the concrete circles. Someone brought those in and laid them down so you could walk across this stream. I still managed to get one shoe wet though!

Two big eyes looking out the side of this rock.

This little brook was so pretty. I loved the sound of the water trickling through it.

As we left I noticed this rock in front and it reminded me of praying hands. Yes, I am one of those people who like to find shapes of something in the sky, in the rocks, etc.

Dean and I got a chuckle out of this sign at the entrance to someone's land - I think several people may have visited his place in the past, what do you think?