Bluegrass, hot springs, Sawtooth Range

The fiddle contest and festival in Weiser was so much fun. Many thanks
to my Oregon desert friends Bob, Tim, and Lori for convincing me to
head on up there. The contest is one thing, judged and orderly inside
the high school. The fiddlers range through all ages from 9 to 90 I'd
imagine, and I heard one 9-year-old girl play a waltz prettier than
anything I'd heard in a good long while.

The rest of the fest is a disorderly confluence of fiddles, banjos,
mandolins, and guitars, huddled around tents and RVs who've come from
all over the west. The event's been happening since the 1950s and a
lot of folks come back year after year to get together with ILS
friends to play impromptu oldtime, bluegrass, or Texas swing in the
main camping field or off in Stickerville (so named for the goatheads
and stickers that used to end up on everybody's shoes). Thanks very
much to my new friends Barry and Jen for showing me around and
introducing me to Tim, champion fiddler John, farmer Ed with the huge
voice and so many others.

The next day, after unwittingly staying up till 2 in the morning
sitting around jam sessions, I pedaled 94 miles to camp at some hot
springs east of Garden Valley, ID, which really was a good reason to
linger through yesterday morning. I sat in a natural hot tub, so to
speak, overlooking the Payette River rushing down below. A lot of
rafting trips head through here and there were some serious looking
rapids that I'd imagine only the most daring river rats would attempt.

Yesterday, I climbed and climbed (and climbed) up to the 7200 foot
Banner Summit and here I sit in a nice little coffee place in the
little resort/hunting/rafting town of Stanley. The Sawtooth Mountains,
pictured here, are gorgeous. Today I'll be riding through them along
the Salmon River.