It's Always Something...: Idaho Camping.

Back to vacation!

After Maddy’s races, we all went camping up above Fernan lake (about 7 miles past the Saddle for those fellow past partiers) for a few days. We had a great time, taking the motorcycles out and enjoying the river. The first day, Stevie and I (one of Hayden’s friends) while waiting for Dad and Stu to come back with the trailer, turned rocks into spears by sharpening them on other rocks. It pretty much set the mood for the whole trip: lazy, slightly odd behavior, with good company and good conversation.

The first night was pretty tough for our little family because it was so cold. Stu and I froze. Kaden woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep so my Mom brought him from our tent into the camper with her so he could finally sleep. The second night Marcia went into town and got warm supplies and a blow-up mattress for him so he could stay with her in her tent. Then it ended up being much warmer the second night so it didn’t matter as much. He slept through the night and got up as a happy baby. That’s always nice.

It was, as always, beautiful up there. It was a great opportunity for Stu and I to relax and forget about Abu Dhabi (and sand), eat good Momma E food, and just enjoy the trees and outdoors without sweating to death. Stu had a blast on the bikes with my Dad. He came back to camp ready to purchase one for each of us! I had a little less luck. My Dad patiently showed me how to ride the bike but by the time I’d mastered going straight, I started to feel icky…

Sooooo, the REAL fun part about this trip was that me, Hayden, Maddison, my Mom, Tori (Maddy’s friend who came with us) and Stevie, all got “food poisoning” while we were there. We got home on the third day and Hayden started to feel bad first. That night all of us were up throwing up and “going to the bathroom” ten or 15 times a piece. It turned out to be that there were cows (which we knew about, and took pictures of) that were grazing free range near our campsite, who went potty in the river water we were using to cool our drinks in our makeshift fridge. Note to self: Don’t eat cow poop EVER again!

So instead of having a great time for the next few days, Hayden and I “bonded” by switching places all day long between the couch and floor in the living room. He even gave me control of the remote a few times. It had been a long time since I hurt so bad while I was sick. All of my joints hurt in addition to the severe tummy ache. It really put a damper on our plans to just lay around on the floor all day. But the next day Hayden and I were hoping we were up to going to Silverwood (our local theme park) since Stu felt fine and had been bored the whole day before. We got there and we all went on the Panic Plunge which is a ride that takes you a hundred feet in the air and then drops you straight down, stopping right before you crash to your death at the bottom. It was awesome. But that was the extent of my riding abilities (I was all dizzy and cold sweaty... and still nauseous) so Stu and Hayden went on the Aftershock roller coaster which is the new cool ride that takes you up vertically (you’re facing straight down) almost 200 feet then drops you straight down, you do a couple loops and go up backwards another vertical tower and do the whole ride backwards. Pretty intense. I sat out on that one (only to go back on it several days later when we went back) and by the time they were done we were all ready to go home.

Mom was on her way to get the pig for the Pig Pickin’ with Jeff and Harrison so we went along to get it… Pig Pickin’ blog to follow!