Our Trip to McCall, Idaho

 Last week we went on a vacation to McCall, Idaho. We left the day after Everett's wedding which was a Thursday, first saying goodbye to Garrett and son and then dropping off  Lincoln's family at the airport.

McCall is built right next to the Payette Lake and most people go for the lake. We rented a condo for the time we were there. The condo was okay, not great. It doesn't usually get hot there so a lot of homes don't have AC and ours didn't either. A little AC would have been nice but it wasn't bad.

On Friday, we went to Ponderosa State Park which was very close and we went on a little hike. Then that afternoon, we went down to the lake and Camille and I sat on the shore while everyone else went diving from the dock. Camille had a cold and wasn't feeling great. I just don't really like to swim and get cold. Afterwards we went to a couple of thrift stores and looked for hats which we had forgotten to bring.

We saw so many deer in the area. There's a deer in this picture in the middle of the amphitheater. It has really big ears.

On Saturday, we rented a couple of canoes at Backwoods Adventures on the north shore of the lake and went canoeing up a river that feeds into the lake called the Upper North Fork of the Payette River. We saw some wildlife and it was scenic. That afternoon we wandered around town and got some big ice cream cones.

Sunday was Mindy's and Scott's birthday. We went to church (those who weren't feeling sick) and then drove around the lake after lunch. We enjoyed playing games in the condo and a salmon dinner.

Monday was our big adventure rafting the Salmon River. We signed up with Northwest Rafting Adventures (NRA). We met them up near Riggins, Idaho (about an hour away). They took us up the river about 12 miles and then we set out in the raft with our guide, Bob Rogers. He did a great job and it was a fun trip. We got some whitewater action and got pretty wet. It was definitely the highlight of our trip. His wife met us about halfway down with lunch on shore and then we went the rest of the way--about 5 hours total on the river.

Here are some whitewater pictures:

Near the end, we parked by a cliff and Talmage and Scott and our guide did some cliff-jumping:

It was super fun and definitely a highlight of our trip!

All the smoke from the fires in Oregon and California made the sun a blood red color when it was setting.

On Tuesday morning we headed home since school was starting and the summer was over.