Leaving Goose lake took us across the desert, past the Abert rim, with Lake Abert below. Even this saline lake is showing signs of retreat.
We traveled on to Juntura, but a Heat Wave has hit--Juntura was quite hot. We had hoped that the Malheur River up canyon from Juntura would be cooler, but that was not the case. The Campground host campsite was un-manned, and another trailer was camped with no one in it either. We camped into a nice back up site near the river, and noticed immediately that the grass was not being watered as much, and most faucetts did not work. Still, it is a lovely setting, but hot and with dry camping, no A/C. One other camper joined us by the evening. By bedtime it has cooled to 80 degrees inside the trailer with all windows/tent bed canvas open, and throughout the night I and my compatriots slept with few if any covers. The temperature inside at 5:45 was 67 degrees, so it never really cooled off much.
We had a quick breakfast and hit the road, heading toward Vale and on to Idaho. At Caldwell, Idaho, we stopped at a Sinclair oil truck stop, and bought Helen her birthday lunch at the Sage Cafe. The pulled pork sandwich was a mite spicy, but delicious, and we ate it all, ordering three pieces of home-made pie to go (strawberry rhubarb; raspberry peach; and sugarless apple). The sweet waitress brought us our pie cartoned all to-go with each container labeled and, knowing it was Helen's birthday, she did not charge for Helen's rhubarb pie.
We then pushed on, heading toward Lowman which was supposed to be only 88 today. However, as we headed out of Boise the heat continued to raise and when we turned on the highway toward Lowman, forested and along a fork of the Payette River (stunningly beautiful), the temperature kept climbing, hitting 100. Lowman was in the high nineties, and although it was after my typical "tie-up" time I wanted to push on, to gain elevation and hopefully lose heat.
The temperature finally began to fall and reached 84 degrees. We decided to pull in to the infamous Bull Trout lake, where Bill, Liz, the kids and I had camped many decades ago. We found the turn off on the left (north side) going down two miles on a gravel road to the lake. Now it apparently has drinking water, but when we reached the lake, all of the campsites had been taken over by a large group, so we turned around and kept going down the highway. A good thing, because we turned in to Banner Creek campground (it only has three back-in sites right next to Banner Creek, and a very clean and fresh smelling pit toilet; no water. The campground is a few miles past Bull trout Lake and on the south side of the highway. All three of us are delighted by it. The temp was in the mid-80s, but it had been a long hot day, so we all sat in the creek and cooled off. Beetle damage is present, and many trees have been taken out, with many more still drying or dead on the adjacent hillside, but by and large it looks lush and green. 
Tomorrow, we are going to have breakfast in Stanley and re-group our plans for the next two days. We have no internet access here and need to know the likely temperatures in both the uplands and on the Snake River plateau to make some decisions. We may find a commercial campground near Idaho Falls where we can have power and thus A/C. We shall discuss our options for dealing with the heat tomorrow at breakfast, knowing we must rendezvous with others on the 18th in Jackson, Wyoming. As to the post-Yellowstone phase of this trip, it is too soon to tell our return route; it will depend on the heat wave and whether it is continuing.
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