Day 4: Wallace to Osburn -- eerm, Kellogg: Pool and Hot Tub!

July 6, 2015

Answering a Guestbook question specially put to Avi and Violet

We set off at last on the main part of this tour

Most days of this tour are planned to range from easy to super easy. Wallace to Plummer seemed rather far two years ago, but it must have drawn closer! Today's plan was just to hop to the next town down the line, Osburn, to establish our camp there at the Blue Anchor RV Park and drop off our tent and gear, and then to push west just a bit to the Gold Mine tour. Then we would return to Osburn and leave from there the next day.

Naturally, since we are responsible for smallish children, we have preplanned and reserved each step of the way. But when we got to the Blue Anchor we were greeted by no one in the office, and a giant watch dog. No problem, we went over to the obvious tenting area (the one small but not populated by giant RVs) and set up our stuff. I went to back to the office, to find the door open, but only the giant dog behind the counter. I tried to have a discussion with him, but no luck. Eventually, the owner did show up, but he denied any knowledge of us and claimed he had no room - something about 40 girls expected. I tried out a response like one that has worked before, when it was just me and Dodie: "Do you mean you want to throw two seven year olds and two seniors out on the road with no place to stay??" "Yes", was the reply.

I hauled out my most withering stare and stated "There is absolutely zero chance that we do not have a reservation". "Well, hmm, I'll see to these RVs here and then think about it", was the best reply I got. So we got on the phone and made a reservation in the next town again - Kellogg - where we had already planned to stay tomorrow. That was at the Guesthouse Suites - swimming pool, free breakfast! They were only too glad to find us the same room for two nights, and to upgrade to larger beds as well. So we broke camp - took about an hour of wasted time - and headed out. As we were leaving the Blue Anchor guy said "Oh, I guess I do have your reservation". I had been thinking about what mean things I would say to this fellow if the opportunity arose, but had decided to play it cool. So I just stared at him. And of course, here I am squealing on the internet: CYCLISTS, TENT CAMPERS - AVOID THE BLUE ANCHOR IN OSBURN!

Setting up (or taking down) at Blue Anchor, amid the RVs.

With the sharp decline of the mining industry, the Silver Valley has turned heavily to tourism. Nowhere do you see this more than in the former mining centre of Kellogg. There, the Silver Mountain ski resort, gondola, bike park, and water park displays not just a token, desperate effort to get something going (like the apparently abortive bowling alley in Mullan)ut a full on no kidding big thing. A really big part of this big thing is the gondola toward the top of Kellogg Peak. This is billed as the longest gondola in the US.

The Guesthouse Suites is just beside the gondola, putting us in perfect position for the ride. Even "pushing on" from Osburn to Kellogg just made our total distance 21km (we are maybe wishing we had found a tougher tour route), so we had lots of time for further fun in the day. The gondola really is amazing. From Kellogg it appears just top ascend a nearby mountain, but it does lots more. It travels over that mountain and one or two more, descending into at least one deep valley on the way, then climbing really steeply. The trip takes 25 minutes.

At the top there is a restaurant with sort of acceptable fare and prices, plus a kids' play area that includes a bouncy castle. This is an amazing machine that in principle can suck all the bounce out of an active kid. However, after an hour or two of bouncing, Avi and Violet showed no sign of weakening! Maybe we should not have fed them in between.

From the end of the gondola there is a network of mountain bike descents, from easy to very tough, just as with skiing. But for us the interest was a hiking trail long a ridge to the east, for 5 km. We just sauntered down this a bit, finding the main attraction to be the huckleberries. Huckleberries are famous in this region, and most restauants offer huckleberry pancakes and huckleberry shakes. They really are yummy - actually better than blueberries, which otherwise are the best thing going! For the kids, picking wild berries was a major thrill. Fortunately there were no bears trying out the same activity - they only come later in the season when they need to fatten up for Winter.

On a very steep and long gondola like this, you do develop an interest in the quality of the cable. Ours came from Romanshorn in Switzerland - presumably they know what they are doing! On the way down the kids noticed that the gondolas coming up have numbers, so they tried to photograph one with the lowest and highest number so far seen. There are well over 100 gondolas on the line. Their cameras must have a record of at least half of them!

Next we could reap the benefit of being thrown out of the Blue Anchor - the pool at the Guesthouse Suites. We had it to ourselves, together with the hot tub, lots of towels, and windows providing refreshing cross breeze. The kids displayed the results of their winter of swimming lessons, showing that they could swimming easily shore to shore, even underwater.

Final thrill for the day - the TV! There is a cartoon channel. We watched the (actually very humourous) Teen Titans as a warmup for the Ninjago Special.

Tomorrow (after the free breakfast) it's back toward Osburn for the Gold Mine tour. Is this fun, or what!