Our updates for all of you

Last year August 3rd was a Monday and this year a Tuesday. But exactly one year ago today at lunchtime, about 12:20 PM, the still only car dealer in town had an upstairs fire and the offices and the old dry wooden showroom burned almost to the ground in a matter of minutes. It was ultimately in the local paper as being a overheated extension cord in an office that started the fire. The top two photos were taken only minutes apart ans showed how the fire looked at its height. The last photo was taken during the same time as the fire last year, but today. You can really see that Riverside Auto Center not only rebuilt but also took advantage of the disaster to make their facility better. The old building remnants were gone in about a month and the sales and offices were moved to RV trailers on the lot. The new building was moved to the back of the property and the used cars to the front where the old building was.The new building was framed during winter. It was slowly worked on duri...

July 29th was the last day the old Safeway was open. They had a few great sales of some things, like fill up a bag of anything that fits from the produce section for $3.00. So there were a lot of bags going out and the produce section was about empty in less than an hour. Since the new store is already open and just a few miles away most could of the other stock be moved. These photos were all taken the next day, the 31st. The store was closed and people from the chain's headquarters were there to basically strip away every evidence that it was once a Safeway. The next photo shows a worker taking down the storefront lettering that has been up for several decades! The last two photos show the worker taking down the tall lighted store sign. He 'sawzalled' the plastic front to take out the 10 foot florescent bulbs then just cut up chunks small enough to handle and clear it out. The new owners of this old building from the 1950's will be remodeling inside and according t...

Top photo was taken on June 18. Stacy had planted various things just a short time before. Bottom photo was taken on our way home Wednesday the 21st. Quite the difference! We've already been enjoying fresh squash and some small carrots. There will be a lot more squash on the way as well as tomatoes too! Yesterday turned out to be very heavy thunderstorms all afternoon so our watering on Wednesday was really helped quite a bit. By Sunday, Monday the heat is supposed to be on! Predicted to be hottest few days of the summer with local temps in the upper 90's. Where Stacy will be next week it should be close or low 100's. Stacy leaves tomorrow for the drive down to be in Pocatello by Sunday afternoon. Then back by next Sunday. I've got several projects for the weekends I hope to get done, depending on the heat! Luckily we have a couple of room air conditioners for the house. Many people don't because "it doesn't that hot that often". Well, those days it DO...

Okay, last set of photos. I ran out of time last night as I was adding information to these photo sets. I took the photos on Saturday. I added all the photos and saved as drafts on Tuesday, added the words on Wednesday, and finished today, Thursday. The first two photos are a continuation of the last post and the stop on the way back down. Top photo, Stacy standing next to her favorite Honda quad. In the second photo I was trying to show how dirty the quads had gotten from the dusty trails. Even though it had rained a few days before, and there were some really nice stretches of damp and dust free trail, most of it was kicking up a lot of dust. Even trying to drift back and keep a distance between each quad, the way the wind was blowing that afternoon kept the dust clouds close to the trail and on us!Its easiest to tell on the little tail gate of the Polaris. It is supposed to be black and not tan! It was the kind of dust that you pat your leg and a small cloud would drift off! The l...

From the top of Black Mountain a long zoom with my camera shows lake Ponderay at Sandpoint, over 20 miles away. It is a big area lake! Lunch over and heading back down the mountain. Stacy leading the way back. The last few miles to get here is actually barely a road. Mostly rocks and very narrow. I wouldn't want to attempt it on anything but a ATV! They do have to service several support buildings at the antennas as well as fill a propane tank that's there to. Power comes from a line of power poles up a side of the mountain from down in our area. Don't know why they'd need propane, but I do know that there can be over 6 feet of snow at this place in winter. We noticed new security camera's all over the place now to. It just takes stuff like idiots shooting up the old outhouse and toilet and leaving trash all over to wreck it for others! Stacy's father Selby on his way to on the Yamaha. He's 88 years old and really likes the quad rides. Last photo from this...

Another set of photos from the ride. Top photo was lunch in the shade at the top of Black Mountain. A real nice lunch that Stacy put together for us! We spent about an hour up in the cool air. Stacy was upset that the area had been 'trashed' by some stupid people that had been there before. So she went around and picked up their trash and we carted it back with us to throw away at the dump. Second photo is a view of Bonners Ferry from the mountain. Third photo is looking towards the South East from the peak at the mountain peaks out in the distance. The areas that are lighter green are areas regrowing after being 'harvested' just a few years ago. Last photo of this set is of the old smoke tower lookout station. The tower can be seen from many areas of the valley. It is in pretty bad shape now as it hasn't been kept up at all and is just decaying. I don't think it has too many years left before it will fall over or have to be taken down to prevent it from takin...

Last Saturday I was able to make it to the top of the mountain as we, me, Stacy and her father, took three of our quads to the top of Black Mountain. Last weekend we'd had some problems with one of the other ATV's and I'd taken it back home while everyone else went on up. So I told Stacy I'd really like to go up again so I could see the view from the top myself. So we had some things to do in the morning while it was relatively cool outside and about 10:30 we were loading up to take the quads to the area we go to 'start' rides in that direction. In our area ATV's, and ONLY ATV's not UTV's, the ones that are more like small trucks, are legal to drive on all the county roads. So many people drive them around town and the area in the summer. UTV's and the larger ATV's for whatever reason aren't legal. You do still see them on the road though with no apparent concern from the local Sheriff's office. But out of the town area it's no...