Summer Fun Part II: Day Trips

Shoshone Falls

My brother and his family came up to Idaho a day before the reunion began and we went to Shoshone Falls, a few miles east of Twin Falls.

Keep in mind that this is the end of June and the Snake River usually only runs like this for one week in early April. It was such a rainy June that the water just kept coming.

I managed to get my family to hold still long enough for us to take a picture. Notice the wet smudges? The spray from the falls was getting us wet and it was cold!

I managed to get a cold and windy picture of my two oldest Alabama nieces. They're cute even when they're freezing!

Kilee found a forever friend in her Alabama cousin, Peyton. Those two were the best of playmates.

Shoshone Ice Caves

On another Saturday, Randy and I loaded up the kids and we went to Shoshone Ice Caves (north of Twin Falls).

We had a picnic in the little lean-to picnic area. I'm glad it was there because there were no trees.

Then we went on a tour of the caves with a bunch of other people.

First we had to walk through a lot of lava rock. The ice caves are inside lava rock which acts as a natural filter for the water.

The temperature of the cave hovers right around 30 degrees F and the water that seeps through the rock turns to ice. A pump is constantly pumping the water out of the caves because if they didn't, the whole thing would be full of ice! Sonia Henie, an olympic gold medalist, actually skated on this ice in the 1930s.

Yellowstone National Park

We took advantage of one of the free national park weekends and went to Yellowstone. After all, it's practically our back yard. We convinced Randy's brother and his family to play hookey with us. We had a great little trip because we went during the free weekend in July and didn't have to fight the secret service and presidential detail of last weekend.

The first thing we saw was an eagle's nest. There were cars pulled off the road and traffic backed up because all the tourists wanted to see it. Well, we drive over the Snake River on the way into St. Anthony and there's an eagle's nest over that bridge. All summer we've been watching the eagles and now their babies so this nest wasn't a big deal for us. We kept driving and I didn't take a picture.

I did take a picture of the elk. You'd think my kids had never seen an elk before. When we lived in Owyhee, a herd of elk came down the mountain and grazed around town every winter. My mom and dad live near an elk farm and we drive past it all the time. But here's the elk to prove there are elk in Yellowstone.

Oh-traffic jam. Here's a nice big buffalo. My kids had never seen one before so they about came undone. We were on the west side of the south loop and the bison were scarce on this side. I understand they are more numerous in other parts of the park.

We had a picnic lunch at Old Faithful while we waited for the next eruption. L to R is McKay, Maylee, Kilee, Gensen, Tanner, Alexie, Braxton.

Then we stood around and watched Old Faithful erupt. It's been 14 years since Randy and I have been there, but I'll be darned if it isn't the exact same show! I did note, though, that my tax dollars have been hard at work building board walks all around the site.

Tanner and Gensen made good use of the free time and picked me a bouquet of wild flowers. Do you think that's against the law?

This here is the site of my future cabin. I just have to convince the federal park system, congress, the president, the EPA to let me build here.