Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Rodents!@#@#!! and Payette Lake, Idaho

Not only have we had to battle the mouse issue, but now we have squirrels to contend with!

We're staying here at Payette Lake in Idaho, in Ponderosa State Park. It's a nice campground, with large spaces and lots of trees, shrubs and wildflowers, and we have water and power so we can get the batteries all recharged. It was a sign of things to come however, that while we were backing into our space we got a royal chewing out.

The Douglas squirrel who lives here in space 100 does not like visitors, and he's proceeded to remind us of that every time we go out the door. I've never heard such screeching and screaming from a critter, and now he's trying to carve himself a home in the underside of the RV! There are chunks of underliner all over the place, and he's still screaming at us! Local wildlife seems to be the highlight of this campground.

This morning a young red fox (coyote?) was basking in the sun in the vacant camp site across the road. He up and left when everyone started looking at him, but he didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry. In the afternoon we drove the "scenic loop" to get a different perspective on the lake. This is a natural lake, not a man-made reservoir, and very pretty.

Other than wildlife-watching, we've been pretty busy hanging out with Dale's friends and family, who are renting a condo on the other side of the lake. The kids are all having a great time with the jet skis. Payette Lake isn't crowded at all, compared to other lakes we've been to, so it's a lot safer for the jet skis and boats towing skiers.



In the evening we enjoyed a couple of our host's super PiƱa Coladas, then went out for a leisurely boat ride just at sunset last night. The evening light reflecting off the boat's wake was lovely, as was the peach colored sunset.What an enjoyable evening!

Chris shared his recipe with us, so check it out on our recipe blog. 
His wife Maria also shared her recipe for the wonderful eggplant Parmesan she made. That's on the Cookhouse blog too.

The closest town is McCall, which is clearly a tourist town - lots of galleries, boutiques and ice cream shops.The most outstanding feature we noticed was their pedestrian safety system. There are racks of bright  red flags at each corner and pedestrians are supposed to pick one up and wave it as they cross the street.

Leave it to my rabble-rousing husband to lean out the truck window and comment to three young men carrying flags "Where I come from we get five extra points for everyone we take out who's carrying a flag!". Sheesh - I can't take him anywhere!

We woke up this morning to rain, and the above mentioned rodent attacking our rig, so dealing with that is the next challenge. There's some helpful info in this article, Tips from eHow for protecting your RV from rodents. We've looked into repellent systems that require power but not only are they not particularly effective, we don't really need another drain on the power system, so we'll try all the tips in the article and see if we can prevent future problems.
Follow this link to see more photos from the lake.

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