Got carried away on a camping adventure to Wallowa Lake
Saturdays 8am - Noon
June - September Beachview Park
Chestnut & 2nd St Clarkston
I
We Work for You, Right Here in the Valley
1-800-900-2471
All work done by professional memorialists in our own local plant. 1603 Main Street, Lewiston, Idaho 83501
READY FOR A CHANGE? So are we... Guardian Angels is under new management and operating as Generations at Lewiston. Generations is known in Rathdrum ID for its warm and inviting atmosphere, along with extraordinary customer service. We are excited to extend our standard of excellence to seniors in Lewiston and look forward to serving you.
Come experience customer-orientated senior living at its best.
Call us today at (208) 816-4387
SENIOR LIVING AT LEWISTON
6
589421B_21
743-2471
stored my personal be- tiful and rustic. longings in the dorm’s We were certain the washroom cubbies in younger kids would love a June and headed home for camping trip. With three summer. It would be good carloads of kids and a pickto fall back into my old up truck filled with camproutine: Picking berries, ing equipment, we slowly working in the pea plant traversed the windy, gravand going to camp meeting. eled Rattlesnake Grade, Four of us students from stopped at Boggan’s Café Warner Pacific Colto get a milkshake, lege had returned to then wound back up the Lewiston-Clarkthe Oregon side of ston Valley. the canyon. We decided since The camping we were the older, was primitive. We more mature colpitched tents — two lege students, we’d big tents and one take some kids from small to sleep eight our church youth girls and five guys THINKING — at the base of the group to Wallowa OUT LOUD steep mountain. We Lake in Oregon for three days. It’s a rolled out beds and three-hour drive headed for the wafrom Clarkston. ter. Well, everyone In past summers except me. I have a when we worked great fear of water. I nights at Seabook’s made the excuse of pea-processing organizing the food plant, we sometimes and starting lunch. got off early at the beginThere were canoes and ning or end of pea harvest. paddleboats on the lake, We’d hop in cars and go to go-carts on an oval track, the lake, rent horses, ride horses, gift and snack up to Ice Lake, fish, eat shops, a skating rink and sack lunches and laze on an archery range. Plenty the glacier in the summer to do. We sat around the sun. Then we’d make a mad campfire after dinner and dash back to get to work sang and sang. We shared in time that night. Known stories, laughed and cried. as the little Swiss Alps of We were worn out by the America, Wallowa is beau- time the deep darkness of the mountain hit. We crawled into our beds, unmindful of the sharp rocks poking into our backs. On the last night, a loud “kaboom” startled us awake. The thunder echoed off the mountain, across the lake and back to us two times before it stopped. Two girls in my tent began to cry. One screamed, but it was imPUZZLE, Page 5 mediately drowned out by
Sharon Chase Hoseley
GOLDEN TIMES
a second “Ka-BOOM.” The heavens opened, and a torrent of water hit our tent like someone throwing out the wash water. “Don’t worry,” I tried to calm them. “This is a good tent. We’re okay.” I wasn’t sure I believed my own words. I prayed for the tent not to collapse. The third “KABOOM!” deafened all of us as we lay in the pitch black, afraid to move. Water poured away from our door. Thank goodness we pitched on a slope. The lightning and thunder moved away as quickly as it had arrived, but the deluge continued. I could hear rocks rolling down the hill. Not one hit our tent. One by one the girls went back to sleep and I finally drifted off too. We slept late. When I opened the tent flap, I was greeted by the side of a car. “What in the world?” I questioned. I looked at the girls. Sleep was still heavy on their faces. “What’s wrong?” one asked as she stretched. I opened the flap further. “We seem to have made a float trip in the night. Look.” Our tent was intact. We were snug and dry in our sleeping bags, but our tent had floated 15 feet down the hillside — stopped only by one of our cars at the road. We could have floated right on out to the lake. Chase Hoseley is a freelance writer and retired kindergarten teacher who lives in Clarkston. She looks forward to sharing her out-of-the-box, out-loud thoughts with you each month. She can be reached at shoseley8@gmail.com. T U E S D A Y, A U G U S T 3 , 2 0 2 1
