CONTINUING OUR TOURING CHALLIS

In July, my friend and publicist Peggy Washburn and I took a two day trip from Boise to Challis, Idaho. We wanted to visit the town where my family and I raised BUMMER, Our Pet Bighorn Sheep. See my blog on Returning to Where it All Started. Chick on Title to be redirected to that blog.

The next morning we started our day by driving by the house we lived in when BUMMER lived with us. We took pictures and drove by the elementary school where I taught. What memories.

We drove over to the Tea Cup Café and bakery for a cup of hot chocolate The tea cup and bakery is a large beautiful new building with a wrap-a-round porch you could sit on and look up and down main street. As I sat there I thought Challis main street is definitely a Sabby Chic design street. There are old shabby historical buildings mixed in with some modern and then this beautiful new 1900s building.(The tea cup and bakery)

What a contrast.

Next we backtracked to the junction of Highways 93 & 75 to visit the Land of the Yankee Fork Interpretive Center. If you drive to Challis make sure you stop and visit the interpretive center. It is full of old mining equipment, old pictures, old everything. It brings the history of that area alive.

When we arrived I was sad that Loretta the women I had been talking to about stocking my books was not there. However, Joni the Supervisor took the time to visit with us and tell us about the renovations which are being done in the old town of Bayhorse. She also gave us information about the Bayhorse charcoal kilns, and the buffalo kill cliffs. I want to thank Joni for the information and for purchasing copies of my book, BUMMER, Our Pet Bighorn Sheep for interpretive center gift shop.

Our next visit was the Challis Arts Council at the Maddog Gallery. The Challis Arts Council was founded in 1988. As a link between artists, arts and cultural organizations and the community. They purchased the MadDog Gallery in 2007 and are both located in the same building on Main Street. Melissa from the Council, actually wears two hats and has two different desks in the Gallery. One for the Council and the other for the Chamber of Commerce. She is a wealth of information on different places to visit and about happenings in Challis. She told us to stop by and get some fresh cold spring water from the Challis spring, my reaction was; “What! The spring is still here.” So we decided to make that our last stop as we left town.

Thank you Melissa for your help and for allowing the people of Challis to purchase my book BUMMER, Our Pet Bighorn Sheep from the Maddog Gallery.

We crossed the street to see the Challis Library. I was so impressed. It was arranged to make use of every part of the room yet felt warm and inviting. There were activities going on in the back. Thank you to the librarian aide for letting us look through the library.

After leaving the library we drove over to the Challis spring that Mellisa told us about. I could not believe my eyes. Because in the 60’s, the spring was about a block from our first house and was just a pipe coming out of the mountain. Now there was a squatty log cabin built over the spring with a short walk way built over the pipe coming out of the mountain. A sign was nailed to the front of the cabin that stated. “This Spring is privately owned and maintained- ENJOY” It tasted just like I remembered: Cold, fresh, pure, the best water ever.

Visiting Challis brought back so many memories from that time we lived there with BUMMER.

Jylene Morgan is a retired educator. She is passionate about the importance of reading aloud to children from top quality children’s books. Writing about her life experiences she captivates her audience by telling the tales of her family’s adventures. The first several books are written about funny exchanges that occur when human and wild animal’s lives come together.

To order any of Jylene's books or to see more at Challis, BUMMER or Reading aloud to Children go to www.jylenemorgan.com