Beautiful Idaho

I must admit that before I moved to Boise, I thought there was no beautiful scenery in Idaho. I acquired this bias during my formative years when I had only been along the I-15 corridor, mostly visiting cousins in Malad, ID (which is about 13 miles from the border with Utah). I now freely admit, I was wrong!

It is now my quest to find and photograph all things beautiful in Idaho. Here are several of the most recent:
Last Tuesday, a rainstorm passed through our valley. Just about bedtime, the clouds broke and we got to see a double rainbow, right in our back yard! The kids (at least Sabrina and Roderic) really liked seeing it.


In their PJs, but I still let them go outside to see the rainbows and take their pictures.

Stacy told me on Friday that the US Army Corps of Engineers was letting water out of Lucky Peak Reservoir this weekend, out of a side chute of the dam that makes a "Rooster Tail." I convinced Ryan that we should take a bike ride to go see it. In the May issue of Treasure Valley Family Magazine, there was an article of kid-friendly hikes and bike rides. It included a 4.6 mile round trip bike ride, Boise Dam tour, starting at Diversion Dam and going to Lucky Peak Dam. We just needed a truck to transport our bikes and trailer down there. It would have been no trouble to ride our bikes down there, just adding a couple of miles, but, we would have had to ride our bikes back up the hill to our neighborhood. I called Stacy to borrow their truck. She said yes. About 20 minutes later, she called back to see if their family could come along; meaning her and Doug and their 5 girls along with Doug's brother, wife and 2 sons. Sure, no problem. Then about 5 minutes later she called again to have me help her find another bike trailer to borrow because when she called to borrow her neighbor's, she ended up inviting them to come with us as well (2 more adults and 3 children). I found another bike trailer and about 45 minutes later, we were on our way. And quite a train we made. 4 bikes pulling trailers (with a total of 7 children), 1 bike with a tag-a-long bike, 1 bike with training wheels, 4 kids bikes and 3 parents pulling no-one. It was so fun!

Here is a part of the train. And me with our kids at the "rooster tail."

Last spring, Ryan went on a hike with the scouts to Jump Creek Canyon. After showing the pictures to Sabrina on Saturday, she was sold! On Memorial Day he took us to hike there. We saw a lot of poison ivy. I don't think I've ever seen it in person before. It really made the canyon look lush and green. The hike was really swift. 1 mile round-trip. Roderic liked that we got to ford the creek (and throw lots of rocks in it) while hiking. It was a popular place to hike yesterday. Some of the people were quite annoying. Hyrum liked being carried in the back pack, which is a good thing, since we're planning a backpacking trip in August. He absolutely loved throwing rocks in the pool at the base of the waterfall with Roderic. It was hard to get them to stop for the picture. Ryan said that Hyrum clutched a rock the whole time we were hiking. What a rock hound we have! This hike was the perfect length for Roderic, he never asked to be carried! And he loved climbing up the rocks around the waterfall pool. Sabrina was a great sport. And very cautious about the poison ivy.