Our doings this summer (written by Rich)

We haven’t written or sent pictures much lately, so I just organized some and thought I’d share a few.  It has been a very busy summer, and with the fire and issues at work, it seems like I lost most of it.  The fire situation is settling out some.  Many of the homes are already leveled and some already have new foundations dug.  I participated in a couple of ‘Mormon Helping Hands’ projects.  These are organized across several stakes in the regions, so we have help coming from out of town even.  We were told that we weren’t supposed to be part of these since our stake was the ‘victim’, but our ward has shown up anyway.  It is amazing what you can accomplish when you get 20-30 people on site.  Last Saturday we cleared an entire hillside of previously cut burnt limbs.  When we started it was just two of us, but an hour later a crowd of people started showing up and then trailer after trailer came to haul to the dump, so by noon we had it all cleared.  My chain saw blade is totally ruined now.

We also took a couple of days to go camping in Montana.  This was basically a repeat of the trip Ian and I did last year to visit the ghost towns and Crystal Park.  All of the kids were excited to dig their own crystals.  It was much cooler up there, and at least one day the smoke cleared, so we had clean air to breathe for the first time in weeks.  The well at our campsite wasn’t working, however, so we had to drink water that was the exact color of apple juice.   We spent a morning digging crystals and found quite a few good ones.  The prize crystals there are the ‘scepter’ crystals, which are a crystal with a larger crystal on the end.  We dug in several places, but couldn’t find any, but Cedric had to use the bathroom and while I was sitting waiting for him, I found one right next to the trail.  It must have fallen out of someone’s bag or pocket.  Everett had a blast crawling into holes and digging around.  I made a couple of screens for us to filter the dirt, which made it pretty quick to spot the crystals.

We visited Bannack ghost town again, and also Coolidge, where we played in the beautifully clear stream.  On the drive home through Salmon, we stopped at the ghost town of Bayhorse.  This is very nicely maintained ghost town right off the main highway.  It still has the large stamp mill intact, and also a ‘Wells Fargo’ style stone building where the guide says all of the core samples from the mining days are still stored.  As we came through Challis and closer to the ghost town, the sky got darker and darker.  Apparently the fires up by Stanley were moving that way, so it was pretty smoky.  Almost to the point where it was hard to breathe.  We were the only people at the ghost town, and the guide came out and gave us a personal tour.  He said his wife had already left due to the smoke and he was leaving soon too, so I guess we lucked out to see it.