A couple months ago my wife gave me the dates for her weekend away to quilt camp with the gals. This means that I was going to be home with our three kids, ages 8,6 and 3 unless I find something for us to do. I looked around for different locations that the kids and I could go for our October Overland Trip while she was away relaxing.
Option 1: The first choice was a “Least Pavement” circumnavigation of the Blue Mountains in North Eastern Oregon and South Eastern Washington. The issue I ran into with this was the Grizzly Bear Complex Fire that was burning in the wilderness and had closed the section of the loop that I really want to take.
Option 2: I found out that my Brother-In-Law and family were going to be camping along the North Fork of the Clearwater River. So the trip that I took last year would work perfect except we would do it in reverse. This way we could spend the first day alone and then relax with family on the second day.
The days leading up to the trip I began getting everything in order, packing, precooking food, making ice, etc. On the day of the trip the 3 year old and I finished up getting everything packed in the pickup and then picked up the the other two kids from school. I had a large project for work that had me in and out of phone calls while I was packing and I was worried that I may end up forgetting something. I was just leaving town when I realized that i'd forgotten all the brats and hotdogs in the freezer. So we had to make a quick detour to the grocery store to buy food (Again) for the trip.
Seeing I was traveling a long distance in a very remote area by myself, I made arrangements to get a sattelite phone from a communcations business in town but decided not to tell my wife. I figured I would just surprise her with a phone call in the evening from camp letting her know everything was alright. We picked up the phone and left Lewiston about 3:30 PM.
We made our way up to Deary, ID, this is the last place to reliably fuel up for the trip. I topped off the tank and filled up my Jerry can. We continued North to Clarkia, ID and we left the highway and took the gravel road up Merry's Creek and down Marble Creek to the St. Joe River and arrived about dark. After a quick break at a picnic area we continued east on the St. Joe River Road.
After about 40 miles we found a campground, and were lucky enough that we had the whole thing to ourselves. We checked out each campsite until we found the perfect one. The kids helped me get camp setup and we started making some dinner. I enjoyed a frosty malt beverage while the kids played around the campsite.
After we finished eating and getting everything cleaned up we decided to call my wife. The tight timber at the campsite made it difficult to get the sattelite phone to work. My wife answered and I said “Hey” and the phone call dropped. It took several minutes before I could get the connection to work again. She was worried because she saw a strange number and then heard my voice say “Hey” and then the call dropped. She was very relieved to hear that everything was ok and told the kids goodnight. The two youngest kids climbed in the canopy to warm up and watch a movie while the oldest son and I sat out and enjoyed the evening whittling on a stick and talking until to cool evening forced us to bed ourselves.
The next morning the 3 year old daughter woke up at about 5:30 am because she needed to use the restroom. It was now 1.5 hours until daylight and was 32 degrees. We made hot chocolate and warmed up breakfast burritos until daylight. We broke camp early seeing today was going to be the longest of the three days. We worked our way up the St. Joe river and stopped several times to get out and throw rocks in the river and play around. We reached the top of the divide between the St. Joe river and the North Fork of the Clearwater River and stopped for lunch. Afterwards we descended down to the North Fork of the Clearwater River and continued down river about 20 miles until we found where the Brother-In-Law and family were at.
The kids were excited to get out of the pickup seeing it had taken us 6 hours to travel 83 miles that day. They played near the river until they managed to fall in and get wet. After a change of clothes, they had fun playing with sticks near the fire. We had dinner and then got the kids to bed and relaxed around the fire and had fun visiting.
The next morning it was lightly sprinkling and I packed up camp and then we had breakfast. We helped my Brother-In-Law get his camper packed up and we all left about the same time. It rained a little on the way home but other than that it was uneventful. We spent a couple hours getting everything put away shortly before my wife arrived home. All in all it was a great weekend and the kids had fun even if we spent a lot of time in the pickup. The total mileage for the trip was 413 miles and almost 13 hours of moving time. I have some changes that i'd like to make to my setup and I blew a CV boot on my front axle so there is lots of grease to clean up and get taken care of before the next trip.
Now it's time to fix the pickup and then begin building my expedition trailer so that it's ready for the spring trip. Thanks for reading my trip report.
Justin
Option 1: The first choice was a “Least Pavement” circumnavigation of the Blue Mountains in North Eastern Oregon and South Eastern Washington. The issue I ran into with this was the Grizzly Bear Complex Fire that was burning in the wilderness and had closed the section of the loop that I really want to take.
Option 2: I found out that my Brother-In-Law and family were going to be camping along the North Fork of the Clearwater River. So the trip that I took last year would work perfect except we would do it in reverse. This way we could spend the first day alone and then relax with family on the second day.
The days leading up to the trip I began getting everything in order, packing, precooking food, making ice, etc. On the day of the trip the 3 year old and I finished up getting everything packed in the pickup and then picked up the the other two kids from school. I had a large project for work that had me in and out of phone calls while I was packing and I was worried that I may end up forgetting something. I was just leaving town when I realized that i'd forgotten all the brats and hotdogs in the freezer. So we had to make a quick detour to the grocery store to buy food (Again) for the trip.
Seeing I was traveling a long distance in a very remote area by myself, I made arrangements to get a sattelite phone from a communcations business in town but decided not to tell my wife. I figured I would just surprise her with a phone call in the evening from camp letting her know everything was alright. We picked up the phone and left Lewiston about 3:30 PM.
We made our way up to Deary, ID, this is the last place to reliably fuel up for the trip. I topped off the tank and filled up my Jerry can. We continued North to Clarkia, ID and we left the highway and took the gravel road up Merry's Creek and down Marble Creek to the St. Joe River and arrived about dark. After a quick break at a picnic area we continued east on the St. Joe River Road.
After about 40 miles we found a campground, and were lucky enough that we had the whole thing to ourselves. We checked out each campsite until we found the perfect one. The kids helped me get camp setup and we started making some dinner. I enjoyed a frosty malt beverage while the kids played around the campsite.
After we finished eating and getting everything cleaned up we decided to call my wife. The tight timber at the campsite made it difficult to get the sattelite phone to work. My wife answered and I said “Hey” and the phone call dropped. It took several minutes before I could get the connection to work again. She was worried because she saw a strange number and then heard my voice say “Hey” and then the call dropped. She was very relieved to hear that everything was ok and told the kids goodnight. The two youngest kids climbed in the canopy to warm up and watch a movie while the oldest son and I sat out and enjoyed the evening whittling on a stick and talking until to cool evening forced us to bed ourselves.
The next morning the 3 year old daughter woke up at about 5:30 am because she needed to use the restroom. It was now 1.5 hours until daylight and was 32 degrees. We made hot chocolate and warmed up breakfast burritos until daylight. We broke camp early seeing today was going to be the longest of the three days. We worked our way up the St. Joe river and stopped several times to get out and throw rocks in the river and play around. We reached the top of the divide between the St. Joe river and the North Fork of the Clearwater River and stopped for lunch. Afterwards we descended down to the North Fork of the Clearwater River and continued down river about 20 miles until we found where the Brother-In-Law and family were at.
The kids were excited to get out of the pickup seeing it had taken us 6 hours to travel 83 miles that day. They played near the river until they managed to fall in and get wet. After a change of clothes, they had fun playing with sticks near the fire. We had dinner and then got the kids to bed and relaxed around the fire and had fun visiting.
The next morning it was lightly sprinkling and I packed up camp and then we had breakfast. We helped my Brother-In-Law get his camper packed up and we all left about the same time. It rained a little on the way home but other than that it was uneventful. We spent a couple hours getting everything put away shortly before my wife arrived home. All in all it was a great weekend and the kids had fun even if we spent a lot of time in the pickup. The total mileage for the trip was 413 miles and almost 13 hours of moving time. I have some changes that i'd like to make to my setup and I blew a CV boot on my front axle so there is lots of grease to clean up and get taken care of before the next trip.
Now it's time to fix the pickup and then begin building my expedition trailer so that it's ready for the spring trip. Thanks for reading my trip report.
Justin
