Snowmobiling in July???

We boated up to Ione a couple weekends ago to watch the snowmobile racing. Ione was celebrating Down River days. We had a front row seat from the boat. They were racing across the Pend Oreille River.
Jasper and Sparky also enjoyed the races.

If you sunk your snowmobile this is what came to your rescue.

After the races they jumped a few snowmobiles, look in the upper left corner.

A snowmobile being retrieved.

Dinner at the bosses small lake cabin

Here's the little cabin on their little lake.

Logan & Gregory - Logan trying out a wave runner for the first time. Looked liked he had been riding one for quite some time - must be from all the snowmobiling.

Aaron's turn

Mr. Moose hanging out in the lilly pads.

Logan's first ride.

The Jacks

Last weekend we spent the day at Boundary Dam. We stopped along the shore to cook some dinner.

The Jacks love to go boating.

I think one of Sparky's favorite things to do is Kayak. He has been kayaking for 4 years and loves it. Took him about a year to get it figured out though. He finally realized he can sit on the back or lay down and relax.

Jaspers first Kayak ride, he did pretty good, but I did not go too far with both of them as I did not know how Jasper was going to react and I didn't want to end up upside down.

A typical day for Jasper, he goes non stop, Sparky is finally begining to slow down at the age of 7. Jasper is 8 months old.

Grilled Venison Backstrap

A recipe I just had to share. This was really good.

INGREDIENTS
2 pounds venison backstrap (tenderloin), cut into 2 inch chunks
1 quart apple cider
1 1/2 pounds thick sliced bacon
2 (12 ounce) bottles barbecue sauce, your choice



DIRECTIONS
Place chunks of venison into a shallow baking dish, and pour enough apple cider in to cover them. Cover, and refrigerate for 2 hours. Remove, and pat dry. Discard apple cider, and return venison to the dish. Pour barbeque sauce over the chunks, cover, and refrigerate for 2 to 3 more hours.
Preheat an outdoor grill for high heat. Charcoal is best, but if you must, use gas. Remove meat from the refrigerator, and let stand for 30 minutes, or until no longer chilled. Wrap each chunk of venison in a slice of bacon, and secure with toothpicks.
Brush the grill grate with olive oil when hot, and place venison pieces on the grill so they are not touching. The bacon will kick up some flames, so be ready. Grill, turning occasionally, until the bacon becomes slightly burnt, 15 to 20 minutes. The slower, the better. Dig in, and prepare to want more!

I grilled this on and open fire over tamarack, it really added to the flavor. They were so tender.

Sitka

Photobucket Album

Here's a link to my Photobucket site - I am not sure how well this video will work for some of you with slower internet, you may have to load it and let it play thru the whole thing once before watching it then watch it the second time around that way it should be all loaded. Sitka was a very beautiful place, the first day there it was actually a clear day, something that doesn't happen to often in Sitka, then the next day when we went fishing it was back to normal - cloudy and drizzley.

4th of July

We spent the 4th on Lake Coeur D'Alene. It was a great day, weather was not too hot. We met up with Aunt Vicki and her family and later in the day met up with cousin Michael and his wife. We ate grilled ribs, onions, cabbage and potato salad for dinner on the boat. The fireworks were pretty awesome. The dogs and boys got to swim all day.

Sunset on Lake Coeur D'Alene

Day 17 - The final Day

Day 17 Sunday – Home At Last
Ate a quick breakfast along side the road and headed for home, took over an hour to get through the Canadian border, they only had one lane opened and finally opened another, probably the longest we had to wait to cross the Canadian US border. We pretty much boogied home from there as by this time we were all ready to be home. The weather was hot, something we were not use to - 97 degrees - and we got home just in time to enjoy it.

You can't really tell from this picture but when I stepped out in the morning it was rather God-like with sun shinning and all of the statues that were around us.

The truck is really due for a bath. You would not believe all the bugs we brought home with us. Sparky and Jasper were very happy to see us back.

Day 16 Jasper & Banff

Day 16 Saturday – CRAZY DAY Drove over 850 miles – poor planning on our part – Did not know it was Canada Day – there was not a single campsite in all of Canada to be found. Luckily we woke up early this day and were on the road by 7:00, reason being – we wanted to spend some quality time in Jasper or Banff, either fishing, hiking or kayaking, we got to the park entrance on the Jasper end and went to pay for the visit and found out there was no camping available except for a field of overflow camping, we decided that did not sound like much fun so we thought we would just drive thru it and find a spot once we got out of the park. No such luck, entered the park around 5:00 pm – left the park around 10:30 – only making a brief stop to visit some falls, and for a quick bologna sandwich. Once we got out of the park it was dark, very dark, we hadn’t experienced the darkness like that since we arrived in Sitka – driving was scary, lots of critter on the road, couldn’t find a place to camp – I wanted to stay in a motel, Matt ended up parking us in the parking lot to the visitors center in I can’t remember where – this was just after midnight. In the morning we awoke to find we were parked next to a church with all of God’s Angels watching over us. Pretty crazy it was. We were only less then 5 hours from home though.

Aaron's self portrait - again - had to take the camera away from him several times on the whole journey as I was worried about a dead battery - there are numerous "Self Portraits" of Aaron. The kids (forgot, I get corrected now when I call them that) were really awesome on the whole trip.

A picture of some lake I tried to get Matt to stop at so I could take a better picture but as you have probably noticed most of my pictures are from the cab of the truck. I was really impressed with the color of the water and how good the reflection was coming off the lake.

Mountains in Banff

I thought this was rather humorous - Banff on one side and Jasper on the other.

Athabasca Falls, one of the two stops we got to make in all of Jasper and Banff. Drive, Drive, Drive, was sort of like the Chevy Chase movie when the saw the Grand Canyon.

Day 15

Day 15 Friday The Alaskan Highway
On the road by 8:30!! Saw lots and lots of critters today. Stopped at Liard Hot Springs – Way to hot – Upper springs was 126 degrees and lower was not much cooler. Was a nice stop though to help break up the day. Destination Fort Nelson. Had to travel extra miles today to make up for yesterday. What a beautiful drive it was – great scenery and lots of wild life. Stayed at an RV park in Fort Nelson – no messing around – just eat and sleep.

Liard Hot Springs