A Labor Day Trip and Panic Attack....

Labor Day here in N. Idaho dawned cold, wet and gray. Of course this didn't stop us from heading out on an adventure. It was a bit drizzly and the thermometer hovered around 50 degrees. We donned sweatshirts and hot drinks, the dog and we were off. This time to a digging site that Jim likes. It is an old mining area, as long as you take care..there is no real threat. As we were doing more rock picking up and not any digging.


We were headed to the Silver Valley area..this unfortunate sign welcomes you to one small town entrances. At first this seems funny. But if you know the history of the area..not so much. This 21 Sq. mile area is a Superfund Cleanup site. Huge amounts of work and money have been invested here to clean up old mining areas of heavy metal toxins left over from a century of silver mining. In the 1980's the children in the area in tested higher for lead content than any other area in the country. So..seeing these items on the same sign seemed unfortunate to Jim and I.

As you can see it is a stunning area! We are thrilled it has become available to tootle about in again. But as parents..remain careful.So..Jim decides to take the loooooooogggg way to the mine. Uhmmmmm..ok it all started fine..nice logging road..pretty scenery..but then....OMG..not so much.. The farther along this logging road we went the more treacherous the road became...no way to turn around...and the drop offs were getting worse with every hairpin turn. These pictures do not do this horrid ride justice. To be completely honest I was to terrified to look to the left and take pictures!!

It was a very narrow, old, edge crumbling, bolder blocking terrifying ride. I am not a chicken really I am not...I can handle lots of things, bugs, spiders, snakes, rats...almost anything but this. Putting my children in a car and tootling around terrifyingly close 1000 foot drop offs no guard rails, for an hour. To say I was an absolute wreck when we finally got there & completely pissed off at my husband...would be the understatement of the century. I kept 90% of it to myself as not to freak out the children.....he owes me in a huge way for this one!!!!!


So..we are almost there and Jim said,"Gee I hope this turn up here is not washed out this time." WTF are you serious(sorry that's how upset I was)....it was somewhat - but by the skin of our teeth we made it across without getting stuck. So when I exited the car, the evil "you are a dead man looks" were flying his way. After a few minutes..I was OK and we got to a bit of fun rock collecting. I was breathing again. The kids - had a blast the whole time! Go figure!

So....where did the kids and I go while he drove back? We walked the rest of the short way (yeah..there was a short way - really short way with a gate..we could have walked up) to the main road and played in the river as he drove around. He loves me..he really does..knew I would never make it going back down that road!!! Of course he would not have survived my wrath had I been forced to return that way.

This river is stunning! One of the things that was done for the cleanup...this whole river bed was scooped out down to the bedrock and replaced with river rock from Montana.






They had fun - they really did. I managed to start breathing again & catch a few fun pictures. Jim was quickly forgiven as nothing horrid happened - lucky boy. But uhmmm the next time we head up that way...I will not be taking any logging roads!!! Have a wonderful weekend all!! Namaste, Sarah