Holiness and Hiking in High Country

Sound like a book title? Well, this week combined a Bible Missionary Holiness Camp with some hiking near McCall, Idaho. McCall is on the western side of Idaho, so I decided to take the scenic route up around the mountains. According to the directions, it was even 50 miles shorter. As usual, I never really know what I'm getting into, so we'll let the pictures do the talking.
My first stop was at the world's first nuclear power plant, Experimental Breeder Reactor 1, which is now a landmark.
For those nerds who are interested, here's a blurry description. It was unique because it used sodium potassium, a liquid metal, as the primary coolant.
The reactor control room.
The top of the containment.
Looking through the containment into the core... you could almost feel the "zoomies". They claimed the twitching and slight glow would wear off after a couple of hours.
Mock-ups of the fuel rods.
Imitations of the 4 famous light bulbs that were first lit by nuclear power. They located three of the original bulbs, but an engineer allegedly still has one on his desk at the site somewhere.

Continuing on my way, I stopped here for a picture of the Sawtooth Mountains. I took a similar picture here a couple of months ago, except I was upside down and everything was covered in snow.
Thinking I was taking a short cut (and blindly following my GPS), I turned off onto a road, that quickly turned into a 1 lane dirt road. As you can see here, some portions were smooth, but others...

...weren't so smooth. So as I dodged creeks, trees and grand prix eating potholes, this little short cut turned into 45 miles of blind curves, mountain passes and car rattling hours of back country driving. Now I know why they all drive trucks in Idaho!
You know it's bad when the DOT calls you slow.

At least there were some nice waterfalls along the way.
The forest recently burned, but now the wildflowers are blooming!
Hallelujah - pavement at last! Eight hours later, I finally arrived at the church camp and got to enjoy some great services and meet new people. As always, nothing beats a keen sense of the Holy Spirit in a service.
Saturday afternoon, I headed out for a hike near the camp. The first couple miles included some beautiful lakes and waterfalls cascading down the rocks.

A couple guys had ridden these beautiful horses up the trail.
Some great views of the lake.
A lone tree stands strong in the middle.

After leaving the first two lakes (and all the other people), it got interesting. Somewhere between the hail, pouring rain, thunder and canvassing the hillsides in search of the snow covered trail, I found the adventure once again. Here you can see the sun in the distance. Unfortunately, that's as close as the sun would get as a I muddled through the rain.
A great view of the mountain behind Louie Lake.

After a long hot shower and some more great services at camp, another weekend came to a close. But, it also brings me that much closer to my much anticipated trip home with family, friends, camp, hiking and who knows what else! After 167 days away, I can't wait to see everyone! For those I won't see, I'll be sure to get some pictures up as soon as I return.