Happy, Happy and Sad

The last weekend at Bell Bay was shared with our friends, Darren and Marcy. We had two of the best spots in the campground and spent most of our time over at our spot gazing out over the lake watching the boats, birds and weather patterns. Friday night we got set up and at about 7:30 pm a huge storm hit. The wind and rain was amazing. Darren and Marcy were in their tent trailer and we were snug in our camper watching Jim, the camp host, cruise the park watching for damage and danger. Linda and I had cooked chicken enchiladas for our dinner and the meal was finished as the storm came in. We watched the lightning and heard the thunder as it approached, it was a great show. With the rain and all we turned in early and read our books.

Linda woke early and went our for a six mile run. I stayed around camp and drank my coffee. Finishing her workout with a quick swim Linda cleaned off and joined everyone at the overlook. We had breakfast and got our shoes on so that we could hike up and find the Bell Bay cache. This cache has eluded us before and now we brought reinforcements. Darren gathered his GPS and we set out up the road. Above the cabin owned by Larry and Mary Wright, we stopped and yelled “On On” down to them. Larry sprang out of the place and hiked up to the road to greet us, Mary jogged the road up and they both joined us on our GEO quest. At the top of the hill we started our GPS’s and zeroed in on the location. Darren had problems getting his to work so we were using only my GPS for acquiring our cache. We looked for about a half hour but came up empty. Darren tried everything but could not get his to work, he thought it might be a battery problem. We gave up and hiked back down and as soon as we hit camp Darren hit the right combination of buttons and reset the GPS and it worked fine the rest of the weekend.

About 4:00 pm John and Loretta Sutherland arrived by boat, they came down to visit and planned to stay the night if all worked out. They had their food down at the boat so we ate a meal that Darren and Marcy prepared in their Dutch oven. Later everyone gathered up at camp where we talked and drank while sitting around the fire. At about 9:30 pm we all turned in, John and Loretta walked down to the boat and built their nests for the night.

The next morning we had coffee and the Sutherlands came up to visit for a bit. John wanted to fish while they returned to Cd’A so they left about 12:00 pm. We loaded up in Darren’s truck and drove to Harrison where we ate lunch at One Shot Charlie’s. We then walked the Trail of the Coeur d’Alene’s upriver to a cache. Linda found it and we signed in. We then marched back to the trail info area and discretely found a micro cache. With all this under our belts we went up to the Creamery and bought ice cream before we returned to camp. On the drive back we spotted a little bear. He was eating apples off a tree and as soon as we stopped he took off across the road.Back home we lounged around and enjoyed the afternoon. Linda and I cooked dinner and we all enjoyed the sunset.

This trip was both a happy and sad trip for us. We loved the friends who visited and camped with us and staying at the campground, which made the last weekend at Bell Bay special. It was sad because the camp was closing for the year and in that we would not be able to visit our friend Jim Valentine, the camp host, any longer. Jim has made a decision to not return to Ball Bay next year. He plans to camp with his wife, take care of his farm and enjoy his time with family and friends. It is sad, because in our short time of knowing him we felt a real connection to him and enjoyed our nightly chats at his camp. We hope to see him someday camping and hope he stays well and has a great life.We also were sad because this park was such a special place for Linda, myself and our best friend Baka. It is hard not to tear up when you remember all the fun times we had this season with Baka swimming, chasing squirrels & deer, and just sitting at our feet enjoying the evenings. We miss him every day.Linda and I cried when we left Bell Bay, we didn’t know why, we felt it was silly, but we will return next season and start new memories. It won’t be our last campout of the season so we have a lot to look forward to this fall.