Mountain Home, ID - Fort Running Bear RPI park

Our 300 mile road trip to Mountain Home, ID took us about eight hours. The route mapped out by our GPS took us over winding roads posted with 35 MPH signs; many sections of which were under construction. The countryside was beautiful ranging from well treed mountains to rolling earth colored hills. We never did see any of those famous Idaho potatos growing! We learned later that the potato fields had already been plowed under for the winter! We did see lots of cows grazing in beautiful pastures and hay stacked in readiness for the fall and winter.

Our new park, Fort Running Bear, is located 26 miles from town; three of which is up a dirt road. The RPI park information book contained advice to detach tow vehicles before starting up the dirt road with an additional caution to drive the tow car a good distance behind the coach in order to avoid the dust and stones kicked up by the coach. Needless to say, after such a long trip, we were glad to reach our destination. The park owners, Steve and Marril, have owned the park for twenty years and they have the hospitality thing down pat! Marril gave us a map marked with site options and drove us to each one in her electric cart until we finally found the one we wanted.

The park is clean, well laid out and has a very cute clubhouse (see pictures above). We discovered the swimming pool was closed for the season, however, after checking out all the park sponsored activities, which were sure to keep us busy, we didn't care. For starters, they offer a breakfast from 8:30 Am till 10 AM on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. When Marril discovered we were beaders, she suggested we set up our jewelry display on Saturday morning and try our luck. We gladly accepted her kind offer and actually did sell some of our merchandise.

We drove the 23 miles into town the day after we arrived and had lunch at a wonderful Chinese restaurant....the chow mein was out of this world and priced right at $6.95. We were delighted to find a Wall-Mart in town and took advantage of many of their services; an oil change for our Yaris, haircuts for both Bill and I and food shopping! The Yaris was in desperate need of a wash and washing cars and rigs in the park is forbidden! Luckily their was a car wash close to Wall-Mart and after much effort Bill was able to remove the bugs and dirt that I had feared would be permanently affixed to our car. We knew that much of this effort would be in vein because we had to travel that dusty 3 mile road back to the rig! However, creativity is something that RV people develop over time and instead of the "California duster" Marril told me people used to remove road dust from their vehicles, I decided my swiffer duster could do the same job. With about fifteen minutes effort I had our Yaris looking spiffy again. While I was in cleaning mode, I decided to tackle the back end of our motor home which had picked up about a quarter inch of fine brown dirt from the trip into the park. An hour later the coach looked a whole lot better. Thank you swiffer duster for a job well done!

After the Saturday morning events, Bill set to work cooking for that evening's pot luck dinner. As usual, I went into my overachiever mode and suggested that in addition to the lemon meringue pie he planned on making that he also use some of our over abundance of potatos and make some potato's au'gratin. He was busy in the kitchen most of the afternoon. His efforts were well worth it both dishes turned out great! The pot luck dinner was well attended. I think there were about 40 people there. The food selection was awesome....homemade baked beans, mac and cheese, Shepard's pie, two kinds of pasta dishes, fruit salad, a rice casserole, chili, blue berry bundt cake and several different kinds of jello mold deserts. Bill's pie vanished quickly! We learned that when you bring a pie to a pot luck it is best to cut and plate it ahead of time; the presentation is better and it makes it easier for people to take.

Activities listed in our RPI book include fishing at Anderson Ranch Reservoir about 5 miles away (a fishing license would have cost Bill about $35. for just a few days use). The other sites listed in the RPI book were a minimum of 40 miles away; Sun Valley (80), Mountain Home Air Force Base (40), Bruneau Sand Dunes (50), and Shoshone Ice Caves (60).