Smile, the tow truck is here!
Sandpoint Adventures July 4th-July 16th, 2020:
It was somewhat strange, I’ll admit, preparing the trailer all week to make our way up North to visit Nicci’s papa in Sandpoint. We were excited, but also somewhat skeptical to make the journey with Covid looming in the air. I’m not generally superstitious, but there were also a few things that happened before the trip that made me wonder whether or not this was a good idea after all.
A couple days before our departure, I noticed Niccole’s car battery was completely dead, and she’d just had it in the day before for an oil change, where they supposedly checked everything. So that was a two day endeavor back and forth to the dealership, but provided some relief as we thought our trusted ride “Slyvie” was all taken care of now. Also, I filled up the water tank in the trailer earlier than usual, and thank God I did because when I went to turn on the pump, water started spewing everywhere!! Needless to say, I drained the water from the tank and packed about 6 gallons for drinking and washing. What a drag, but hey, the silver lining was at least we had a place to rest our heads, stay a safe distance from folks, and cook some good meals.
Our trip had some interesting gigs to start with. We played for a wedding in Horseshoe Bend (about 45 minutes North) on July 4th. Everyone was dancing and having a great time in the beautiful outdoors; a lovely 50 acre property right on the Payette River with giant cottonwoods, ponderosa trees, and old mining cabins. Very cool terrain! The fireworks show they had went till 3 am that morning, though we wouldn’t have minded if they weren’t being blown off 20 feet from our trailer. We missed the “memo” on where they were going to do that apparently…..
Headed off Sunday morning, eyes half mass, to play on another flat bed truck at the Dirty Shame Saloon in Garden Valley (another hour North). We played for several hours in 95 degree heat, having to pull our mic stands and sound system back every 30 minutes to avoid being exposed to the blistering sun. We’d heard about the giant rock slide in Riggins on Hwy. 55, 120 feet long and 40 feet deep, so we knew we’d have to take either 84 West through Oregon and the Tri-Cities, WA. Or go up through Stanley, Challis, Salmon, ID. to Missoula, MT. Well the decision was made for us, cause just as we were finishing up our set at the Dirty Shame, we found out there’d been a horrible accident about 30 minutes away that would prevent us from going home, taking Hwy 84. That accident that happened at 4pm, ending up holding traffic till 12:30 am that night. It was a bad one. At least one fatality and the other 3 life-flighted. They went off the embankment into the river. We said a silent prayer for that family, and also for all the folks hanging out in the blistering heat that couldn’t get back home after a long 4th of July weekend.
Our only route option.
We landed at Southfork Lodge, a beautiful hotel nestled on the river banks of the South Fork and Payette River that night. Our friend and another fabulous VIP member, Trudy was with us as she’d come to our show, and couldn’t make it home due to the road closure. So we camped in our trailer, and she got a room, and we had a quiet evening/morning in a lovely Oasis. The breakfast was delicious as was the much needed shower! Of course, Juno was in her hay day frolicking in the river, and rolling in the grass! She loves a good road trip!
From there, we headed further North Monday morning to Stanley, then onto Challis, and into Salmon, about a 5 hour drive. The terrain and landscape was absolutely breath-taking! Like a combination between Glacier and Zion National Park with rolling farm lands in between. Magnificent! And “Slyvie,” our trusted ride was powerful and doing great so we continued to roll on towards Missoula after we swam Juno in the Snake River. We were hoping to find camp somewhere for the night as we headed up the Lost Trail Pass.
We were about a mile or two from the summit, MT/ID border when Nicc looks at me, very concerned as says “do you smell that?” I put my sniffer on it right away but didn’t smell anything. Then in a flash, the cab filled up with a most foul odor, and while Slyvie was spiking over 4000 RPM’s, she was losing power quickly! Fortunately there was a pull out ahead, and we pulled over just before we lost all engine power. Whew! First thought….Oh Shit! Second thought, thank God for this pull out! We popped the hood, and a fellow, already parked there, came over to inspect the situation. He thought “sounds like the transmission.” Another fellow, Ray who’d already driven past us in his Winnebago had turned around and came back to check it out. He and his 16 year old son, who was a 6 ft. 7 baseball pitcher, looked at the engine, and we started to trouble shoot what’s to be done. We let the engine cool, and tried Slyvie again. Ray, who will further more be referred to as Arch Angel Raymond, proposed to attach and tow our little trailer on his if Slyvie could make it to the top, thinking that we might be able to coast down 50 miles to the next town in Hamilton, MT. Good idea in theory, but “Slyvie” stunk to high heaven and wasn’t going anywhere. So we swapped numbers, and gave him Nicc’s family’s numbers so they’d know what was going on. He agreed to find a tow company from Missoula to come get us that evening since none of us had cell service. We were completely in the hands of a stranger, and thankfully a kind stranger. It was 6:30 pm when we broke down. We set up camp on the side of the road and made some dinner. We had a beautiful picturesque mountain view from our spot, I cooked; grateful we were okay, and that help was on the way.
Double tow truck service…double the dough $$$ yikes, what’s the garage going to charge?
22 hours later, the next day we’re wondering what the heck is going on? People would occasionally stop at the pull out, but it was to let other traffic go by. We would wonder each time, is this person “Safe or creepy?” “Here to help or hinder?” There were definitely no tow trucks, or cops in sight which furrowed my brow. We made breakfast, read a little, did some yoga behind the trailer, and then while sitting in our road side chairs wondering “WTF?” this bright yellow flat bed truck “Wimps Towing” drives by, and I make a commotion, waving him down. Tim was his name. He said that he’d heard on the radio that we were already picked up by another company last night. To which I replied, “well we’re still here as you can see, and haven’t heard anything, can you please help us?” He was on his way to pick up a motorcyclist, then would come back to check in. He called in another fellow, that would be coming from Hamilton, 50 miles away. “Arch Angel Michael” was his name.
I tried to batten down the hatches in the trailer as best I could because I knew it was going to be a shit-show after being towed behind the big wrecker tow truck. After he got Nicc’s truck on the flat bed he attached the trailer, and we all piled in the cab of the tow truck, Juno on Nicc’s lap, us with our masks on. We were watching the trailer in the rear view mirror. It might as well have been one of those mechanical bulls, buckin’ and poppin’ the whole time, holy crap! So we called a shop in Hamilton, M& M Trans and Auto, most of them were about to close. Mike, our driver said we could have his appointment spot, as there were 60 cars to be fixed ahead of us. They were really nice folks, and let us camp in their parking lot that evening. Silver lining was, we were safely off the pass, and had a great view of the Selway-Bitterroot mountain range where we watched the sun set that evening.
M&M AutoTrans in Hamilton MT in there “parking lot”, pretty sweet view. Silver linings!
We were praying it was something simple to fix, though I’ll admit we were both worried it was going to cost us an arm and a leg. The guy took Slyvie out for a test drive several times, ran his diagnostics, checked everything out, and what did he find? A mouse nest, and its foul smelling latrine all over our engine. Fortunately it had not chewed any wires, but the nest and mouse had suffocated our engine on the pass, and the smell was, well mouse excrement or ground up dead mouse carcass!! Uggghhh! So he cleaned out the engine of the nest as best he could, never did find the damn mouse, and we were on our way.
We didn’t want to go over any other significant passes (Lolo and 4th of July Pass), so we opted to go Hwy. 200 through Thompson Falls, MT. into Sandpoint. It had been a long time since we’d taken that drive, and we’d forgotten how jaw-dropping beautiful it was! We plopped our trailer at pop’s place right next to his amazing garden and under the graceful shade of two ponderosa pines. It was so good to land in such a magnificent place! We had dinner, caught up, and slept probably 10 hours that night, after having had two nights of little rest due to road-side trucker Jake brakes. Silver lining….we finally landed safely!
Ahh…safe at Papa’s!
Juno was in her glory! No borders, fences or any restrictions on this big beautiful plot of land, so she ran for the ball like her life depended on it! She was the happiest and freeist we’ve ever seen her! There were fields of long grass and wild daisies everywhere you turned! The aspen trees rustled their leaves singing nature’s song. Hummingbirds by the handfuls fighting for the feeder right outside the dining room window. They’d often come right up to you and say hi. Osprey in the distance feeding their young, and the luscious forests that spread as far as the eye could see! It was quite a solace sanctuary to land, and we were so grateful to be there! Nicc getting the quality time with her papa she’s been so looking forward to.
Juno and Sunny in the lake. Sunny learned how to swim that day!
Her dad cooked us breakfast every morning, and took us to his favorite restaurants almost every night. The floating restaurant in Hope, right on the water, was a definite high-light. Again, everywhere you looked between the Selkirk, Cabinet, and Monarch mountain ranges, to Lake Pend Orielle; that gorgeous 43 mile glacial lake, and the healthy, dense forest all abound, you felt infused with life! We both remembered the allure of why it was we’d lived there for so many years.
Highlights of the trip were too many to describe, and what a good problem, eh? Nicc got to go car shopping with pops, though she’s still on the look-out. Slyvie got us home just fine thankfully. Niccole also gleefully got to drive dad’s giant Denali truck (he never lets her drive). She drove his Polaris, 4 wheeler all over the property, and had a thrill on his high powered lawn mower! Dad jumping out of the way at 89 years old, yelling “slow down Niccole!”
We floated the Pack River in a double kayak one day. We didn’t realize this happens to be the major pass-time of all the locals now, so it was quite a busy float, but beautiful nonetheless. Dad BBQ’d some steaks in his “green egg” and it was probably one of the best smoked steaks we’d ever had! Big pig-out sesh! Our friend, Kimmy came up for a surprise visit and came to our show, camping next to us one night. Swimming our dogs at Tressel Creek was a blast. Dad lives 8 miles North of Sandpoint, and we didn’t even venture into town till the last day of our trip cause we were having such a great time in the sticks. We got to spend some outside quality time with our dear friend, Rhea, Niccole’s former acupuncturist, who had also come to our sole performance there in Hope, ID at the Old Icehouse Pizzeria. Talk about a lot of LOVE in the audience. It was like coming home! It was a feel-good show, where you could see everyone’s hearts open to the music. And a gorgeous view of the lake and majestic Monarch Mountains in the back drop. Everywhere you turned there was such exceptional beauty and bounty. Idaho is quite a home!
Mo and Juno on the Pac River. Pac full of beauty!
So that being said, we had all of you with us in our travels, and wanted to give you a peek into our adventures along the way. The song “Smile,” off Niccole’s second album kept resonating with us on the trip. “Smile is the sunshine of your Soul….. puts joy where there was once a lonely hole, no need to keep it together, emotions are like the weather, no control.” Since our smiles are presently all covered up with masks, we wanted to give you this song as a reminder and giant thanks for being our rays of sunshine through it all! We recorded the Blaze and Kelly version of “Smile” in our studio just for you! Hope you enjoy! Take very good care of yourselves, and may your smiles also bring a ray of sunshine to humanity during these unprecedented times. Be safe, and be well!
Love Mo and Niccole
Nic’s note: My awesome Dad and I target practicing…he’s 89 and still a “dead eye” :-)
Nicc’s notes:
We decided to give you BOTH versions of Smile so you can hear the difference back to back. There is almost 20 years between these 2 recordings. I love the Cello and the vulnerable “baby” voice I had back then, but…I prefer Mo, even over the Cello ha ha! I find it amazing that a song so old can be even more relevant than when it was originally created! I hope you find it interesting. Thanks sweet friends, for bring smiles to our faces every day!
