And We're off and Running...

Once I got all the of the end of year silliness at school done I was ready for the Wildhorse Retreat.

 Last year Celiac and I had a lovely time there, 

walking, reading, photo shooting,lazing about and 

we were anxious to repeat our experience again this year.

Celiac got back from a cold fusion trip late on Friday evening and I came up Saturday.

We loaded all our stuff into the BEAST- aka motorhome and headed out.

The first night we were unable to get one of our favorite spots. 

But on Sunday we watched and quickly moved into the best spot in the campground.

The one by the creek with loads of trees and a nice long entryway- the gramma V site.

We had massive amounts of fruits and veggies to last us the week.

Roberta was going to join us but wasn't able to make it.

We had invited our Mackay siblings and spouses to come up 

and join us for dinner on an evening of their choosing.

After securing our desired location we spent much of the day washing, 

and chopping veggies for the rest of the week's use so we could relax and enjoy the week.

That night Gordon and Peggy came up and we had broiled steak,
roasted veggies, chopped veggie salad and fruit with coconut milk for dessert.
It all tasted pretty good and we had a really nice visit.

 That night I had a really hard time sleeping and had a very uncomfortable stomach. 

I got up early and thought I'd just walk a bit to shake it off.

Not so much.

I'll spare you the details (be glad about that), but "something", 

very likely the rotten egg smelling water from the BEAST, made us VERY sick.

Jan and Kindra came up in the early afternoon and told us that Gordon and Peggy were sick as well.

Jan wanted us to leave but we decided if we had to be sick we couldn't be in a prettier locale.

So we stayed. 

We didn't get a lot of walking done - other than a LOT of trips to the outhouse.

We did do some reading and visiting and LOTS of laying around feeling awful.

We felt very fortunate that we had coconut milk that helped us get through the first three days.

One side effect of the illness was that we couldn't sleep.
It was bizarre. 

We were exhausted but when night came - no sleep.

By Friday we had started to see some slight improvement
and we ventured out to take a few photos.

I should say Celiac took photos. 

I had managed to forget to move my camera into the BEAST when we transferred things.

So, other than a few sketchy photos I took with her camera all the images are courtesy of her.

 It really was incredibly beautiful up there. 

The willows were just turning the bright spring green, 

there was a heavy frost that morning and Celiac got some wonderful shots

 We did manage to make it up to big falls and man the water was roaring.

Earlier in the week it was the highest water level we had ever seen at the campsite.

 There were some new logs at the falls which created a really different look to some of the areas.

Randy and Ann came up to check on us on Wed. night to make sure we were still alive.
Which was very kind of them.

We didn't feed them any dinner.

Pretty sure Gordon and Peggy will never eat anything I prepare again.

Can't say that I blame them. 

It really was bad.

We were feeling almost human again by Saturday when we had to leave.

I had a stupid- I mean, "highly important" summer conference I had to go to on Sunday in Boise.

We decided to stay as late as we could and enjoy our last day.

We finally packed up and prepared to leave. 

When I turned over the key to the BEAST- it was dead.

Sweet.

Once again, I won't go into all the details, let's just say it was not a "quick fix".

With the help of Zane and Jan we did finally get out of there and finish our "restful" week.

In spite of it all I value the time I got to spend with family. 

There is something restful about being surrounded by running water 

and the beautiful outdoors even when you are sick

I still plan to try it again next year and hopefully we will have better luck.

Not sure if anyone will ever trust us to feed them,
but visitors will always be welcome.