Ketchum & Boise, ID; Custer, SD; Big Horn Mtns, WY; Williams, AZ

   After visiting Colorado, I drove to Ketchum, ID to dry camp in the forest north of town, and to try their bike trail (Wood River Trail).  I spent about 12 days camped at a beautiful location off Forest Road 146, north of Ketchum.  This road runs east from the Sawtooth National Recreation Area Visitor Center, and is dusty with some slightly rough spots, and a wealth of dry camping sites along the Big Wood River.
   The spot where I camped is on a rise of about 20 feet above a roadway and feeder creek, and the site looks out over the valley I traversed coming in, and above the dust stirred up by the infrequent cars.
   I camped backed in next to an old corral (no longer used) made of weathered boards and topped with young aspens that had been limbed and barked.  While there, I was surprised to find that I was just a very short distance from a trailhead into the brand-new Hemingway/Boulders Wilderness Area, just one year old in August '16.

    One of my neighbors, a young couple and their son, about 3 y/o or so, pulled in with a very attractive home-made RV, and in talking with them, I discovered that the wife had done all the planning and construction.

   After a couple days adjusting to the elevation, I drove a few miles south to where the paved bike trail starts, at Hwy 75 and W. Sage Road, roughly a couple miles north of the northernmost traffic light in Ketchum.  From there, it extends southward for 20 miles, and it's 20 miles of the smoothest paved bike trail I think I've yet encountered, and generally very level.  And in Ketchum and the two towns south, bikes are generally afforded the right-of-way, and drivers are extremely courteous where roads must be crossed.

   The weather was extremely pleasant while I was there, and on days when the trailer became just too warm, I'd take a book, a chair and a cup of civilization and sit under the shade of a nearby Douglas fir to enjoy the views, the book and the tea.

   After 12 days, I pulled up stakes and relocated to Boise to visit with friends who had moved there from Colorado Springs.  We had a great reunion on the weekend, then I headed to Custer, SD to renew my drivers license.  It expires in January '17, but SD allows us to renew up to 6 months in advance.  So no snow season driving up there for me!

   After renewing ( a very easy process in SD), I headed for the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, to camp at altitude, and to view the Medicine Wheel/Medicine Mountain National Historic Landmark.  This is a large 80-foot diameter construct made by the Ancient Native Americans about 300 to 700 years ago, designed to line up with the summer solstice, both sun rising and sun setting, plus four or five other risings of significant stars.  It requires a 3-mile round trip hike at 9642 feet elevation, but I found it to be very moving, and worth the hike.

   After leaving the Bighorns, I had planned to visit more of Wyoming and Montana, including Yellowstone National Park, but the forest fires and attendant smoke pollution dissuaded me.  A boondocking friend reported that the temperatures outside Williams, AZ, about 30 miles west of Flagstaff, had been consistently in the 70's all summer long, so I headed south, and three days later, was in Williams where I found my friend was right!  And this was in August!

   So here I'll remain for a while, until it's time to move to my winter camping area outside Borrego Springs, CA.