Miracle in Northern Idaho

As awful as I have been feeling, I had one thing to look forward to. Cecily invited us to go with her family & Colin's family (in the end Mom & Dad came too) to camp overnight and then bicycle the Hiawatha Trail. She did it last year when she was morning sick and said it was the best she felt the whole time. I really held on to that endoresement. My wonderful husband, who tries at all times to make me happy, agreed to try it and even agreed to use some of his dwindling leave hours so we could leave at noon on Friday.

The moment I stepped out of the car at the campground, I felt better than I had in weeks. We got the tents put up and then just sat around and enjoyed the perfect weather. Some of the kids sweet talked their Uncle David into watching them while they played in the river.

We had a wonderful dutch oven dinner of chicken and cornbread with watermelon and then smores. I was even able to eat a bit of the chicken with my potato slices cooked foil dinner style over the coals. Baby Colin, the cause of his mother's morning sickness the previous year, chowed down on some baby food fed to him by his Grandma, assisted by Grandpa.

The next morning, we packed our lunches, ate a great hotcake breakfast made by Mike and set off. It took us a while to rent the bikes and things for the people on the trip who needed them (David and I had all our gear, thanks to the lights borrowed from our hometeacher.) It also took us time to get all the trailers and tag-alongs attached to the bikes but finally about noon we set off. The Hiawatha trail is a mountain bike trail made from the old railroad route, complete with tunnels (where you must have good lights) and tressles. Because it is a railroad grade, it is very gradual downhill for 14 miles (not a strenous ride at all.) David volunteered to pull the trailer with Colin D., the water jug and the lunch.

It was a wonderful day, a wonderful ride, spectacular scenery, excellent company, and perfect weather, right up to the point where we had to wait for two hours in the sun to board the school bus that would take us back to the top of the hill. My husband of course insisted that I wait in the shade. I was exhausted and sore by the end but had not suffered from the morning sickness during the whole day--my miracle in North Idaho (and a tiny bit in Montana!)

P.S. We ate our dinner at "The Snake Pit", so infamous during the boom time of the late 1800s that a reporter from Boise wrote about a man being stabbed at the bottom of the stairs leading to the restaurant and all the men wanting their beer just stepping over him. The dinner and the ambiance were great.