[hgs_notes]

Your stories here rival the DED ones in 4 Wheel & Off Road or the Border to Border series in Four Wheeler. Several years ago my brother in law and I took a few days to get out of town. He's in Idaho Falls (my wifes home town) and had a late 80's full size Bronco. We picked up a Delorme map book and chose a route, then tried to follow it as close as possible. We headed north to the St Anthony Sand Dunes, very cool place to get side tracked, then headed west through the sage brush back country, we came across an old sheep herder, basque spanish I believe, who was living in the covered wagon out with his sheep, miles from any town. We continued, on until we hit the next paved road, at least 50 miles, and headed up to the old mining towns there. One is below Meadow Lake, the old town of Gilmore, ID. We actually camped out on the remaining floor of an old miners cabin. The walls were gone, but it was solid and flat, unlike the rest of the mountain side. We could not use the campground at the lake side because it was still buried in snow. Nevermind that it was July 6th, we had to hike our way to the lake, which was still froze over except for a ring around the shoreline about 10 ft wide. I wish I had taken pictures, but I can still see it clearly in my mind.

Our adventure still far from over, we headed south through the range, followed gullies til the end, nearly burned out the front rotors going downhill for about a full mile and a trail that may have existed several decades before, climbed buttes and followed creeks and streams nearly to the sources. It was an amazing trip that I'll never forget.

When we got home, we were visited my wifes great grandmother and telling her about the trip. She told us her dad worked the mine when she was a little girl, about 6 then, and they lived in that mine camp we stayed at. Hows that for a bit of family history?

The bro-in-law and I did another trip a few years later going west of town into the DOE site that was also an excellent adventure in his late 80's chevy truck. I have a few pics of that trip.

Once my Jimmy is road worthy again, I told my wife I want to take a road trip with our son. This is the kind of thing I really want to share with him. My wife thinks I woldn't want to leave MN, but she's wrong. I love it out west. When we plan trips out to visit her family, I look forward to it more than her. Next one is late july this year for a wedding. I can't wait, even thogh the Jimmy will stay home and the Denali will take us there in comfort. The bro-in-law now has a mid 80's Blazer. I need to start working on him now to take a day or 2 for us to hit the hills again. If not him, my other bro-in-law has a ford super duty that he is not afraid of getting dirty, and it will haul his atv also. Man I love it out there.