Moments with Marilyn: Adventures in North Idaho

After working locally for the census for about a week, I was asked to travel to Northern Idaho to help with completing the census in rural Idaho. Always up for an adventure, I said yes and headed off to Ponderay near Sandpoint way up in the panhandle of Idaho almost to the Canadian border.

You probably know of this area of the state because of the association with some unsavory groups that are occasionally in the news. You remember Ruby Ridge, which was made famous by the 1984 standoff between Randy Weaver and US Marshalls, well it was about 27 miles away from the hotel where the 20 of us sent north to help complete the census stayed. With so many ranches, farms, vacation cabins, and the occasional compound of militants, enumerating takes a long time and a lot of people.

Let the adventures begin!

My hotel room was small and reminded me of a cruise ship cabin but this was no vacation. I worked 10 - 12 hours many days. I worried that my old brain and body couldn't handle it but in fact it was quite invigorating! I can do hard things!

Each morning I received on my government phone a list of 'cases' or addresses that I was to visit. Most of the days I drove well over 100 miles and one day over 200!

For my first week I spent my days in Priest Lake which is just beautiful!

Many people have vacation homes there. I particularly liked this one. The family flies to their lake house in their float plane. Nice!

I could enjoy my lunch in spots like this.

My animal adventures were quite tame compared with other's experiences. One lady said that she parked her car and walked up to a house. When she could see the driveway, there was a bear sitting there. And yes, she did skip that house! Another man was chased away from a house by a flock of aggressive domestic turkeys. I saw many flocks of wild turkeys but they were more scared of me than I was of them so I never got a good photo.

This cute black billed magpie seemed to think he needed to be counted in the 2020 Census!

And there were lots and lots of deer.

Many times the roads were dirt, narrow and rutted. One of my cases was up this rather pretty road. This is the wider part of the road!

Here is how my car looked after a few days of this. Notice the flower stuck in the car!

People often ask me if it was scary. I got nervous a few times. Once I am sure that my guardian angel was looking after me. I had three houses at the end of a LONG dirt road. I think it was probably 15 miles on a very bumpy, narrow road. By the GPS, I knew that two houses were straight ahead and one a slight distance to the right. For some reason, I decided to go right first, where I met a very nice man staying for the weekend at his mountain cabin. After getting the information I needed from him and enjoying a conversation with him and his wife, he asked me where I was going next. I showed him on the map and he hesitated before saying, "Don't go up there. The two guys who live in those houses suffer from PTSD and they DON'T LIKE strangers. They have No Trespassing signs, accented with a sign that says, 'We don't use much ammo. We get you on the first shot'." That convinced me that they didn't need to be counted and I marked the houses as dangerous. I know that I would have turned around at the signs but the road was so narrow, there is a good chance I would have been backing down that primitive road for a mile or so. Not my idea of a good time! Thank heavens for guardian angels or tender mercies or whatever you want to call my choice to go to this house first.

So I was only scared a couple of time and I can honestly say that people were overwhelmingly courteous. There was the occasional grouch but most people answered our questions cheerfully and helped us identify vacation homes or vacant homes which made our jobs easier.

Another day I had 42 assigned apartments on Budweiser Lane. I wondered how a street came to have that name. Turns out the apartments are for migrant workers at a huge farm called Elk Mountain Farm.

And it is the largest hops growing farm in the world. Hence the 'beer' name!

On Saturday, I headed home and those guardian angels went with me. I was zipping along on US Hwy. 95 near Grangeville, Idaho when my car started acting weird. Warning lights came on, the air-conditioning and radio went off, and finally the car started slowing. I was worried as there was little shoulder and quite a bit of traffic. Amazingly, just as the car slowed to an almost stop, a little road appeared on the right, I turned on that road and managed to get the car to the side before it completely died.

I said a quick prayer of thanks and started to call AAA but there was no service. Just then a nice man stopped and told me that there was service just at the top of the hill and even offered to drive me up there. I called AAA and George and we arranged that a tow truck would take care of the car. In non- COVID times, I could have ridden with the tow truck driver to the mechanic shop in Meridian but they don't allow that now, so George started the drive north to pick me up. Oh another tender mercy was that I had very little idea of exactly where I was but there was an RV park just by the road and they had a brochure with a map so when I called AAA I could tell them precisely where I was. A little thing but it sure made this experience easier.

The tow truck and George weren't going to arrive for about 3 hours and mercifully there was a beautiful cemetery right at the top of the hill. I sat on a bench that was the grave marker of David and Dianne Mager. I was in the shade, with a place to sit, where I could see the car so I passed the time reading and enjoying some snacks. Plus I had cell service! I think at least 5 people stopped to be sure I was ok and to see if they could help me in anyway. Nothing beats a small farming community for friendliness!

I love the idea of having a bench for a grave marker so much I may want that when I die.