We’re back home and the motorhome is unloaded. Stuff isn’t put away, yet, but at least it’s all out of the motorhome. There was very little connectivity while we were gone and at least two posts from my Blackberry didn’t arrive. So, there are some holes that need to be filled in!
We left Saturday mid-morning to drive north of Rexburg through Island Park to Henry’s Lake State Park. This is one of the premiere fishing areas in eastern Idaho. The Snake River comes down through this area along with several other rivers that feed into the Snake. Henry’s Lake is a fairly large natural lake and can accomodate many, many fishermen and recreational boaters. Nina had reserved a camp spot down near the lake. It was one of two spots left that could accomodate us — but it didn’t have water or electricity. We did just fine with neither. The generator was available but we only used it to make toast for breakfast…!!
Saturday evening we stayed at the campsite, had dinner, and just relaxed. Some thunderstorms moved through which drove us inside a couple of times. There were some pretty serious thunderstorms every afternoon and evening that we were there.
Sunday morning we headed into West Yellowstone — about 17 miles away — and attended the West Yellowstone Ward church services. This ward really understands how to handle large crowds. I expect there were about 700 people there for Sacrament Meeting and about half stayed for the other meetings. People in the ward were assigned to handle various parts of the service. For instance, one person was responsible for rounding up enough Aaronic Priesthood to pass the sacrament and another found the six Priests needed to bless the sacrament and the five Teachers needed to prepare the sacrament. Both Michael and Christopher were asked to pass and they looked pretty sharp in their suits. Each person passing the sacrament took two trays and they were kept pretty busy keeping the trays moving up and down the rows. In the end it took twelve minutes to pass to about 700 people. We take longer than that in our ward for a hundred and fifty people!
Sunday afternoon we took the motorhome and drove around Quake Lake and Hebgen Lake. This is one of the posts that didn’t arrive. Quake Lake was formed on August 17, 1959 when a quake measuring 7.3 on the Richter Scale struck a little before midnight. A huge landslide dammed up the Madison River downstream from the Hebgen dam. Hundreds of people were stranded requiring smoke jumpers to parachute in with supplies and army helicopters to ferry out the wounded. Twenty-eight people died and nineteen of those were never recovered. I remember the earthquake vividly as it was the major news event of that summer. I was working in Treasureton at the Workman farm when the earthquake occurred and it woke me up. It was very interesting to go through this area and stop at the visitors center some 47 years after the event.
The thunderstorms were huge on Sunday evening. We sat outside for quite a while watching the lightning going off all around the area. We didn’t get much rain — just a lot of wind (damaging the awning, of course. I should have put it down and didn’t before we went to bed.) but the lightning show was pretty spectacular.
We pretty much let people sleep in on Monday. Even Nina slept until about 6 a.m.! Christopher can sleep 24 hours a day if left to his own devices, I think. Monday late morning we went into West Yellowstone for lunch, a little souvenier shopping, and the Imax theater show on Yellowstone. I really enjoyed the theater and the information on Yellowstone. I think the kids found it rather boring except for a couple of parts featuring bears. Then we did some final grocery shopping and went back to the campground to roast hot dogs, cook chicken, and for the kids to roast … Starbursts. That’s right — those little chewy candies. You put them on a stick and roast it in the fire. The outside gets very crunchy and the inside gets very soft, almost like a cream filling. I tried a couple and that was enough for me. Marshmellows roasted on the fire are one delicious thing, but Starbursts are a bit too far. The thunderstorms drove us back into the motorhome for a couple of hours of exciting games of Uno. The clouds finally blew away and Nina and the kids went outside to look at the stars. I studied the back of my eyelids for about twenty seconds before going to sleep.
Today is the 4th of July. The day was bright and clear at Henry’s Lake State Park. Most everyone was leaving to go somewhere else (most were probably going home). After a great breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, honey, and Sunny Delight, we also packed up and drove out of the campground about 11:30 a.m. We drove past the Upper and Lower Mesa Falls (I did the Upper Falls trek by myself. None of the grandkids wanted to get out of the motorhome!). Then it was back home to unload the RV and settle in for the night. The grandkids go back to Orem tomorrow afternoon and they’ll be very happy to be back with family and friends. They had a good time camping, but they’re now looking forward to home. Heather, Ty, Jaelene, and Scott all fly home tomorrow and I’m sure they’ll be just as excited to see their kids. By Thursday we’ll be back to normal around here. Time to plan the next camping trip!
