Boise National Forest and Idaho City

Are you bored of my pictures of trees yet? These were right beside camp.
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Susan says:

We left dad's place to go back down to the Idaho City area for my cousin's wedding reception. Bobbie is the youngest of Guy and Terri's three kids, and they've all chosen to have their wedding ceremonies and/or receptions up at the cabin. It's a good place for a party- lovely view and nobody cares if something gets broken.

On the way we camped on Cascade Lake in the Boise National Forest. It was the first truely forested campsite we've had- backing onto a dense wall of trees and critter territory. I tried to sleep soundly through the night but was woken up at 6am by Debbie describing what she was sure was a bear breaking sticks over its knee to frighten us. It turned out to be squirrels throwing pinecones down from above. Vicious creatures.

Brady. Holding either a potato or a rock shaped like a potato.
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The wedding reception was good fun- Debbie was introduced to another 200 members of my family and the evening included a little limbo action. It's a family tradition. Afterward we stayed in Idaho City in a hotel that had "historic character" but should have been condemned, and shared a beer with the locals. An older gent offered to buy us a beer but we thought it rude to ask for it "to go" so declined.

Next morning, off toward the Oregon Coast.

Debbie says:

The campsite in Boise National Forest looked great in the daylight..... it then turned into the stuff that nightmares are made out of when night came. Creepy, creepy, creepy. The various warning signs on the billboard of the campground gave me no cause to sleep that night.... so i didn't. What Susan forgot to mention was that the 6.00am wake up was what i thought was actually 4.00am. She'd got a bit confused about Pacific and Mountain time so we spent all day and night and most of the next day thinking it was 2 hours earlier than it really was. The bear snapping twigs over it's knees incident wasn't something to laugh about. I don't care if it turned out to be squirrels chucking pinecones. Better to be safe than sorry and i was one minute away from dragging Susan out of the tent into the safety of the Jeep.

On the road (again)
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Beaver didn't mind any of the nightmare night-time noises and slept soundly. I decided i'm never camping somewhere like this again unless we have vodka (we only had wine and beer and that just didn't cut it.)

After that trauma we decided to sleep in a proper building in Boise ("Safari Inn" - classy motel) and went to a great restaurant (pre-dinner martinis) and then the movies ("A Scanner Darkly" - weird but very cool).

Wedding reception was funny. Susan's granny introduced me to all of the 200 people as "Debbie Hamilton. She's from Scotland." Susan's granny is sweet.

Lake right next to French Creek campsite
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Went back into "town" to "Harley's Bar" (biker pub) for a pint before bed. Fairly intimidating and i'm sure even the bikers dogs were drinking Jager bombs (or something that looked very similar.)

dx