We finally come to the end of our exploration of Sun Valley, ID. In fact our time here has been shortened and the end somewhat precipitated. We had originally planned to stay an extra week in the valley (leaving the RV park for a boondocking site), but we were caught by two things, one of which was great and one of which was not so great. And it completely changed our plans.
The great thing was Polly’s 8-week post TPLO check-up with the local vet. He declared Polly’s leg good to go and basically said we could “let ‘er rip”. We’re still taking it cautiously slow, mostly because Polly has some lingering pain in her hips (through this whole check-up process we’ve learned she has hip dysplasia and early-stage arthritis, unfortunately) so we’re not out of the woods yet. But we’ve started to let her off-leash again (whooo hoooo!) and we’re progressively increasing her walks and challenging her with a few small hills and uneven ground. Hopefully this will continue to build those rear leg muscles and get her back to as close to “normal” as possible. We’ve got all 12 paws crossed that she’ll continue to see progress! By the way Polly is BEYOND excited to be able to go off-leash again too. She’s never really understood why we kept her so confined these past months.
Polly’s “release” from the local clinic happened to coincide with a not so great thing.
The sunny, dry, hot summer has sparked wildfires all over the west, very much like it did last year. There’s a fairly big one burning in a remote area just NE of Boise and the smoke has started to drift over to Sun Valley on a regular basis. A few evenings ago it was so bad the air was thick with particles and we could barely see the hills across the way. Not a pleasant experience.
Wildfires are a common risk in the mountains during summer and something you always have to be aware of, not only while you’re on the road but also in camp (I will never forget the time we were evacuated in TX, and the aftermath of that experience). One of the many tools we use to keep track of stuff this like this is WunderMap, both the free interactive browser version and the app. It has a special “active fires” layer that not only shows you where the active fires are, but also the extent and density of their smoke clouds -> very handy for planning. Here in Ketchum the smoke has been coming and going (some days are OK, others are not), but it’s definitely started to affect the quality of what we can do outdoors.
These two things have encouraged us to leave earlier than planned.
We’ve decided to start our trek towards Michigan today and will be taking a northerly route (through North Dakota) to get there. Not only will this (hopefully) avoid most of the smoke in the area, but we’ll get to see some new stuff too. Once in Michigan we’ll settle down for a month to enjoy that State and then we’ll head further East where we will (hopefully) get the cat’s thyroid issues taken care of too. It’s all a very jello plan and we’ve not booked anything (which always makes me a tad nervous in summer), so we’ll just have to take it all as it comes. But we are VERY excited to see all the new stuff on our route, as well as the multitude of lighthouses and other sights in Michigan (you DO know it’s the state with the most lighthouses, right? {{Nina does a happy dance}}).
In the meantime we will leave Sun Valley with some very fond memories and a newfound appreciation of the profound beauty of Central Idaho. I honestly never even really considered this area for our RV travels and I don’t think we would have ended up here if it weren’t for Polly’s injury, so the fact that it’s so us has been a total, fabulous surprise.
This place packs everything we love about an area into one. Great outdoors, lots of hiking/biking and wonderful food and beer options. Plus it’s not overly crowded (unlike many mountain towns in Colorado, for example), temperatures are moderate in summer (80’s highs, 50’s lows) and there are zero bugs. It’s kind of a magical combination.
When we come back (because I have no doubt we will) we’ll likely skip the tight RV park and take advantage of the many forest service campground and free boondocking sites around town. Stay limits are anywhere from 3 days to 16 days (depending on where you go), but there are SO many possibilities and many are very scenic indeed. I’ll list the options we scouted (and which ones fit “beast size”) at the bottom of my upcoming campground review, so get ready to bookmark that one if you end up RVing here yourselves.
Thus ends our wonderful time in Idaho. By the time you read this we should be several hundred miles on our way East with nothing but the open road and unknown routes ahead. We’ll see you at the next stop….