The last Thursday in July found Dave and I leading the eldest daughter, her fiance and his two daughters to the family cabin in Idaho. I love going to the cabin because even when there are 25ish children aged 4 months to 17 years accompanied by 14 adults, it’s a calming place. This is the same place How To Be A Cautionary Tale happened but with no snow because…well, it’s July.
To Dave and I’s delight, the night we arrived it was almost a full moon that was surrealistically close. I love my husband for so many reasons, not the least of which is even after traveling for 4 hours he pulled over to the side of the road when we were almost to the cabin so I could take pictures of the moon over the family homestead.
It was late when we arrived and since I still had to work the next day, after setting up our pop-up and greeting everyone, I left my husband to continue visiting and made my way to bed. Morning found me working bright and early, ignoring the chaos happening in the cabin close by. Dave brought me breakfast so I wouldn’t starve as I hid away, waiting for everyone to head out for the day. One of the family members has brought his boat for the past few years so heading to a lake about an hour away for water sports and swimming has become a recent tradition. Of course, trying to herd so many people takes time and it was mid morning before I was able to move into the cabin where I could work more comfortably.
I’m used to having the tv on as background noise during the day to keep my house from being too quiet but I didn’t have that luxury where I was. While there is a tv there, it only plays vhs tapes (have I mentioned how remote the cabin is?). I had to use my phone as a hotspot to have internet for work but the connection was sketchy so I didn’t dare try to add streaming music to mix. This made for such an overwhelmingly quiet day I was happy when people started to slowly return and the noise level began to rise. Normally evening is when the adults play games while the kids run rampant outside but this year conversation dominated, giving Dave and I more opportunities to wander outside and take in the peacefulness. One of those chances was to watch as the sun began to sink from the sky. I had a blast taking pictures that evening with the camera on my phone. The lighting was amazing so I was trying to find a setting that would do it justice, but without much luck. Still it was fun seeing how the different settings affected the images.
When we went outside later, well into the dark of night, we saw large plumes of red crackling smoke off in the distance. This was the first time I seen anything like because I haven’t been as close as we were to a full blown wildfire. The fire started off burning about 12,000 acres on Thursday, by the time we left on Sunday afternoon it had engulfed more than 100,000 acres and was only 20% contained because it reached an area already burned.
Luckily, the fire wasn’t close enough to affect our weekend other than creating hazy skies with oddly colored clouds.
Saturday was rafting down a shallow river as a group until we reached the park in the above photo. There was some question as to whether we would go or not as the temperature had dropped from the previous day. Eventually all of the cats (I mean people) were herded to the starting point, inner tubes were blown up, suntan lotion was applied and 40ish people (including the baby!) floated on various items along the water at differing speeds for about an hour. My seven year old granddaughter wanted to float with me so together we made our way to the park, she’s cute and I just love spending time with her. Now, when I say this river is shallow in spots, I mean shallow. There were a few occasions I had to get out of the tube and pull it along with my granddaughter to a different part of the river because we quite literally bottomed out unable to move any further. We were in the first group to arrive at the park, the rest of the party trickling in over the next half hour during which we slowly took over the grassy area. We spent another hour or more after the last of our members drifted in in swimming, burying children in the sand and playing odd land-based games with the tubes. Last year I encouraged the older kids to play human ring toss with the tubes. Once a child was completely covered with tubes they would fall over and roll a short distance on the grass. It turned out to be very popular with the kids and I, at least, found it entertaining to watch. Sadly, it wasn’t really played this year.
We headed back to the cabin early as my daughter and her family were considering leaving that day. We arrived at the cabin just in time for a short but heavy burst of rain which soaked everything that the unfortunate luck of being outside. The storm pushed the rest of the family to return as well, before we knew it we were up to our eyeballs in relatives once more. After some back and forth my daughter decided to stay the night opting to leave in the morning instead.
You may, justifiably, ask how do so many people stay at a three bedroom, two bath cabin? Most of the adults sleep outside in tents, we have our camper and one couple bring their fifth wheel to stay in. The kids on the other hand, sleep in a tangled mess. They used to sleep on the trampoline outside but this year most of them chose to sleep indoors taking over one of the bedrooms, covering couches and a great deal of floor space. Timing when to take a shower is amusing and usually at least one bathroom is occupied. Nevertheless, it’s a fun chaos.
We left Sunday a couple of hours after my daughter but long before other members of the family. Not wanting to go straight home (we rarely head straight home from any excursion), we decided to visit the Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls. The museum has had a steampunk exhibit going on that I wanted to see so we stopped for lunch and explored what it had to offer. It was a delightful diversion, one focused on the technology in the Victorian period along with famous writers and scientists who contributed to the era and the genre displayed in steampunk trappings more than what I would have considered truly steampunk but it was still an excellent arrangement. They also have a fabulous gift shop with some great steampunk items.
Finally it was time to head home, relax and enjoy being home.
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