Welcome back! It's been a minute :) Things have been just crazy and Google Photos hasn't been syncing, so it took me forever to upload my photos and get this written up. Since we haven't really been able to travel over the last 4 months, I was eager to get up to the mountains at some point and get out of the crazy Arizona heat for a few days. I'd been eyeballing a trip back to Idaho for a bit and when Brian asked to come along, I was super excited to show him around where I grew up and spent the first 23 years of my life! It's kind of funny how I used to be kind of embarrassed to say that I was from Idaho, but now I'm proud to show people how beautiful it is. It's really the best mix of rugged wilderness and perfectly groomed open spaces and going back with Brian made me really want to get back to that kind of home.
I blocked off the camper for the week so I didn't have to worry about somebody taking care of anything or the guests trying to contact me while I was out of service and the kids were on kitten-sitting duty, so it was really nice to get away from IT. ALL. We arrived in Idaho Falls at 4:30 pm and grabbed dinner before heading up to my favorite spot in town, the windmills <3 I'd mentioned on an earlier post from when I'd visited a couple of years ago that my dad taught me to drive a stick on this road and it holds plenty of fond memories for me. Brian spotted the Tetons in the distance. The colors are incredible and the clouds are incredible and the way the light changes just blows my mind every time. I can't get enough. We wandered around for a couple of hours, explored, watched the sun go down, accidentally trespassed and almost got caught...good times.
We set up his camera for timelapse to capture the clouds changing and the light as it went from blue to gold and back. I loved some of the pictures of us it captured along the way <3
We stayed the night in Idaho Falls, grabbed breakfast, and hit the road towards Jackson Hole. It was the most beautiful, sunny day hovering right around 70 degrees...bliss and a welcome break from the 100 degree temps we've had in Sedona.
After some exploration and a short hike, we made it to Jackson and spent the afternoon wandering through the shops and then had Prime Rib at the Mangy Moose in Teton Village before checking into our room at the Snake River Lodge. I kind of splurged on our room there, but it was a gorgeous big hotel right next to the Four Seasons, so it was really nice.
If you're not into flowers, feel free to just keep scrolling because there are A LOT of flowers in this post. A lot. Carry on.
Saturday morning, we went out to breakfast before a fun little 4-hour whitewater rafting excursion I'd booked for super cheap on Groupon. We loaded onto a bus and they took us a few miles up the Snake River. Brian was reminiscing about going rafting with his family when he was a kid and wondered if it was possibly the same area. He said that the only detail he could remember was a rapid called "Champagne" and that if we got to that rapid, he'd know that it was the same stretch of river. Sure enough, half way through our trip, the guide told us to prepare for the "Champagne" rapid. What are the odds?! We saw a couple of Bald Eagles and thoroughly enjoyed the hot sunshine and then hit up the Merry Piglets for a late lunch afterwords.
The days up there were nice and long and it didn't get dark until about 10 pm, so we were anxious to enjoy every moment of that day as possible...there was nothing but rain in the forecast for the next couple of days. We decided to drive to the Tetons and I was going to show him one of my favorite spots...a huge field of wildflowers with the mountain range looming over and then the classic photogenic barn that you've seen a million times on Instagram. It was starting to get windy and a huge thunderhead was moving in, so when we got the barn, pretty much everybody else was heading out. We hung out for about an hour, enjoying the storm in the distance and peeking into the buildings and enjoying the Aspens and tall grass and the way it moved in the wind and watching groundhogs chase each other around and we fantasized about how perfect it would be to have a piece of land like that and homestead and just sit in chairs on the deck and soak it all in.
Finally, the wall of clouds got to the Tetons and the storm was right over us. We moved on to the open field and frolicked in the flowers and watched deer and the rain and clouds move around the peaks and ran in the wind and caught the raindrops. I also managed to get eaten alive by mosquitoes at that point and I'd even put bug repellent on, but maybe the rain washed it off, who knows. I suppose that's what happens when you lay down in a field of sagebrush and blooms in June in Wyoming during a thunderstorm. Anyway, it was perfect.
We got back to our room and took a big bubble bath, turned on the fireplace, drank mint tea and watched an old Western movie.
Sunday we ventured into Yellowstone. It was pretty drizzly but there weren't a ton of people there so that was nice. Right off the bat, we spotted a mamma Grizzly with 3 little cubs off the side of the road. We were the first to see them, so we pulled over to watch and of course, 30 other people pulled over and then started getting out of their cars and honking to try to get her attention. I hate people.
After walking the long boardwalk through the geysers and springs I spotted what I thought was a dark bush, but it appeared to be moving. I stared long and hard and just wasn't quite convinced that it was a bush and once Brian came out of the restroom, confirmed that it was a big Bison laying down in the trees.
Throughout the day, we spotted a ton of deer and elk, a (whitish?) wolf, a coyote, another bear, a badger, a moose, a golden eagle, some huge crane-looking pelican thing that we initially both thought was an ostrich, lol.
The next day brought more rain, so we decided to take the long way around to West Yellowstone. It was actually snowing on Teton Pass! It stuck right in between 36 and 42 degrees which was actually lovely, but I hadn't really packed many cold weather clothes or a jacket for that matter, so I pretty much wore the same thing every day, lol. The drive was beautiful...through rolling hills and fields and the Tetons in the distance. We drove through Island Park and into the park the way I remember from being a kid...when the forest was freshly torched (the big fire was in 1988 and I was born in 1985) and the baby trees were making their way to the sky. Those baby trees are still only maybe 10 feet tall after all of this time.
Tuesday started out partially sunny and gorgeous, so we hiked a trail close to Teton Village. We followed it up with lunch in Moose and then continued on to Jenny Lake and String Lake (a hike I did with my parents several times a year for my entire childhood). Another wave of clouds and rain were rolling in which made for a gorgeous moody vibe in the mountains, but it quickly turned super cold again and we'd been pretty active up until then, so we grabbed an early dinner and spent the later afternoon cozied up in our room.
Friday we hit the road back into Idaho, grabbed lunch in Idaho Falls and then west towards the center of the State. Of course, it was the best weather day of the whole trip and it was pretty much all spent in the car, but that was fine with us. Brian was fascinated by the INL site and Craters of the Moon and then we found a little mining ghost town where the Ranger took Brian's lucky $2 bill because he couldn't break $100 for the $5 entrance fee. Gosh I love the backwoods.
We explored little old homesteads along the way and admired Mount Borah...the tallest peak in Idaho.
We gradually turned along the Salmon river into Stanley. We made it in time for my favorite burgers in the world and homemade apple pie a la mode at Sawtooth Luce's. Even Brian thought they were delicious and he's hard to impress :)
The place I'd booked for the night was a tiny old cabin built in the 1800s along the Payette river. The lodge had about 8 little cabins spread out through the woods and Sawtooth mountains with little wood stoves and outhouses and they were totally off the grid and in the middle of nowhere. Half of the chinking was missing, so you could see daylight between the logs and they were just the cutest little things ever. The place ran on a generator in the daytime, but they shut it off between 10 pm and 7 am. There was a waterfall right behind us and hot springs dotted all through the river, so they had a hot spring-fed pool just up the road a bit and served coffee and oatmeal for breakfast. Anyway, it was still another hour and a half from Stanley, but with seemingly endless daylight, we made it there in time for golden hour and it was glorious. We checked in and then headed out on foot to explore the little canyon we were in.
We had a full day on Thursday before we had to head home, so we drove south into Sun Valley and then Brian found a dirt mountain pass shortcut back that was pretty sketchy, actually. He was hanging on for dear life as I cruised up the gravel along some super steep cliffs and huge boulders that had crumbled onto the road. Good times.
I'd assumed that we'd take Friday off as well so we could get a little bit of sleep and unpack before the crazy holiday weekend, but when you're boyfriend is also your boss, you do as you're told and work. We ended up getting home at 3:30 in the morning on Friday and had to be at work at 6:30, so it was a rough day. We had such a great trip though. It was a much more pleasant experience being able to show Brian around where I'd grown up than it was 2 years ago when I went alone and everything just made me sad and nostalgic and emotional. It also made us even more intent on our dream of buying acreage in the mountains and building a little cabin to live in for the rest of our lives. I can't wait until then <3