Lynn & Sandy Watson

We spend some time last week at the cabin. It’s a beautiful place to be almost anytime of the year. We had a great time and if you check out the titles on the pictures you’ll see who got awards for what.

One last award. The GQ cabin award goes to Jeff! Yes JEFF and not Greg. Doesn’t he look magazine worthy!?! Who would have thought. LOL!

It really was a blast. Thanks Bob and Barbara!

A couple of days ago, I got a TXT from Sandy saying that the famous Anheiser Busch Clydesdales were downtown, 5 minutes from my meeting.  I walked over to see them:

AB Clydesdales at BoDo

Budweiser Damaltion is actually in charge

They were spectacular, I was sad Sandy didn’t get to see them.   That changed, however, when we found out that the team was staying in Boise for a few days, and were going to be on display at Meridian’s Dairy Days and the Idaho Center.  We opted for the latter.

These are the largest and best kept horses I’ve seen.  I’m sure the cost to maintain and show them is exorbitant (read: a lot of beer sales). One of the groomers said that they are on the road from Feb. thru Nov. City after city, across the U.S., no plane flights.  She had no problem braiding the manes with ribbons and roses without watching her hands — they must do it everyday, maybe more than once.

As spectacular as they are, they are still horses, however:

Horseplay

Here are a few more pictures:

I’m not sure we would ever own horses (or mules — see previous posts), even if we had the space.  Even Rex seems to be too much work!  There is, however, an greater appreciation and wonder for God’s creations with increasing age.

Friday morning we got up and hiked around a bit. We were sort of surprised to be the only ones around but it was beautiful and peaceful. There was a beautiful creek (more like a river) and lots of wildflowers. We headed to town to find food, wi-fi and Mule Days. These people brought their mules and donkeys from several states to compete. There were a couple hundred things to compete in. We watched the end of the donkey competition, part of the trail competition and the English riding competition. That last one totally cracked me up. To watch people dressed in full English riding clothes with English saddles riding on mules. I’m sure they’d be offended if they heard me say that.

Here are the pictures of Day 3. Enjoy!

Thursday we got left from Red Fish Lake about 10:30 am. Unfortunately I left my pillow there. (I just put that in so people can laugh at my old and feeble mind!) We drove along the beautiful Salmon River past Clayton, Challis and Salmon before hitting the Montana border. We soon reached the Bitterroot River and drove north past Conner, Darby and into Hilton Montana. It was just amazing scenery the whole way. We stayed at a resort called the Lost Creek Horse Ranch. It was up a canyon and extremely quiet and pretty. In fact we were the only ones there that night, so when the bar and restaurant closed and the workers went home there wasn’t another soul on site. Here are the pictures and be sure and look for the next entry–you’ll actually see pictures of the mules and donkeys competing and I KNOW you’re all super excited to see those!

Just as a nice scenic get-a-way, Lynn and I decided to head to Montana Mule Days. Mostly we wanted a scenic road trip and this seemed like a fun destination. We left last Wednesday and headed to Red Fish Lake via Banks, Garden Valley and Grandjean. I’m not sure if it’s all the rain, or just the time of year, but it was all so green and gorgeous. We love Red Fish Lake and think we should take all our kids, along with spouses and grandkids, there next year for a week! Here are the pictures from the first day. Stay tuned for each additional day and the AMAZING scenery!