One More State I Can Say I Visited.

On Friday, August 13th, the kids and I made our long awaited trip to Pocatello to visit some friends. The last time we went was this past January. The girls have really been anxious to get over there again. Our van was (and still is) making a ridiculous clacking noise when we drive it. It has something to do with a gasket. Our mechanic who just fixed some other problems with it earlier this summer has been slammed and couldn't fit us in. I finally just took it in today. If we find out it's going to cost much more I think we'll leave it somewhere for dead rather than put any more money into it. Anyway, I digress. My point is, we had to drive the little red Toyota that doesn't have a/c.

I planned accordingly and we skipped town in the morning before it got too warm. I got halfway down State Street before I realized the emergency brake was still on! Oopsie! I haven't done that in a while... It only happens when I'm really preoccupied.

To keep some air circulating we had to leave the windows rolled down a few inches, which makes for a rather noisy drive! The kids were mostly good. Oliver is content to just watch out the windows for big trucks and other cool stuff. All the kids slept for at least one of the three hours we were traveling. I think Oliver and Jane spent a little while mercilessly picking on each other. We listened to TMBG, music from "Glee" and The Beatles. It's so rewarding when I hear the kids singing along to the music I keep subjecting them to.

We arrived alive in Pokey before 1pm and stopped for a quick lunch before descending upon our friends - Melanie, Mark, Jessie and Carson Stander. Mel is one of my best friends. It doesn't happen very often to me, but when our family first moved to Pocatello, she and I "clicked" almost immediately. Jessie is two years older than Jane, but they are best buddies. They play and play with such imagination! Mark is Mel's husband and Carson is their 11-year-old (I think) son.

We hung out a bit and then I took Cora to Blackfoot and dropped her off at her friend Nicole's house for the weekend. They were our neighbors in Chubbuck and then they moved to Blackfoot. Now they're moving to Salt Lake, so who knows when we'll catch them again.

That evening I took Oliver with me to see another former neighbor, Jen Barlow. She's always so fun to talk to.

Earlier that evening, Mark sprung a plan on us! He suggested we take a day trip to Jenny Lake the next morning. (Where the?) They said it was only a couple of hours away - in Wyoming! I had never been to Wyoming before. I had planned on hanging out and visiting more friends in town, but as it turned out I wasn't feeling very sociable that weekend after all, so a little excursion sounded like a pretty good idea.

We didn't take off until about 10:00 the next morning. We were trying for 9:00, but missed it. Mark took Carson in his little truck, and the rest of us (Melanie, Jessie, Jane, Oliver and yours truly) piled into our trusty Toyota. It turned out to be more like a 3-hour drive. I was a little stressed because I was planning on sleeping over at my pal Debby's that night and I didn't want her to be waiting up all hours for me.



Ollie outside Mel's house.


Jackson Hole was on the way to Jenny Lake. I had no idea. It was a nice little surprise. I'd heard of it a lot, but I never knew I'd be going there on that particular weekend. Or even during this particular lifetime!

It was so pretty!



I need to get to the mountains more often...


Oblivious Oliver, Jane and Jessie.


Ollie didn't want to change out of his jammie shirt that morning. I figured it wasn't worth fighting over, so I just let him wear it. But after he wore it all day after sleeping in it, and then slept in it again, the next morning I gently wrassled him out of it, even though he resisted.



Me, Ollie, Jane, Mel, Jessie, Mark and Carson.

After we had sufficiently taken in the beauteous scenery we climbed back in the car and drove the rest of the way to Jenny Lake, which is situated near the base of the Grand Teton.

I took this pretty pic somewhere along the way.


When we got there, we ate some sandwiches and chips as we read all the signs warning us about bears. Something about how they go crazy when they start associating food with people. All the park's trash receptacles are heavy duty and as bear-proof as can be. As we finished up lunch and put everything tightly away, I made sure I wasn't inadvertently depositing a trail of candy or berries from my knapsack. We trudged up the path a short distance to the lake.

There was a boat ride available to take people across the lake to the hiking paths. We decided to go for it. Oliver had never been on a boat before. At least not one that went anywhere like it was supposed to. (I'll talk about that in one of my next posts- if I ever catch up on August!)


Just a tad bit excited...



Waiting for "takeoff".



Windblown Janey.


This is what the vessel looked like.


I can't remember for certain which photos I took from the boat and which were from land. You decide.




I have a guess on this shot.



You know what? I think I took this one from the car. That's why it's crooked.


So pretty.





We chose the easy walking path for the sake of the kids. Not to mention the fact that I had only brought sandals on the trip because I had no clue we'd be running off to the mountains that day.

Oliver did not want to walk. For some reason when he isn't supposed to be wandering around, that's all he wants to do, but if I need him to walk, he only wants to be carried. I felt kind of bad because it was his nap time and he was all tuckered out, but at the same time he is SO heavy. Over 30 lbs. I just couldn't carry him for very long. And forget about shoulder rides. He freaks out when we try to put him up there.

Mark kept joking about seeing bears. After only about 15 minutes of walking, we turned a corner and really did see one. A small black bear. It was right there, I'd say about 20 feet away from us! We all froze. I felt so helpless as I kept my offspring close, knowing that I'd have no way of protecting them if the bear decided to come get us. I was sure we were going to die, especially since Oliver had been bawling already before we realized the bear was there. Ollie's cries didn't even phase the bear. It didn't even look at us. We started to worry that because this bear was smaller that it might have a mom nearby. Holy crap, we were scared! We watched as it moseyed over to a tree stump and tore it apart with its claws, looking for buggies. Oh, so comforting. Mark actually took video footage of it doing that! We stood there in our tracks as it casually strolled back down the path from which we had just came. It was soon out of sight, but we were just hoping no other hikers were approaching and about to make a surprise acquaintance with Mr. Black Bear. We had no way of sending a signal to them, obviously. What a relief that he was in a good mood that day, just chillaxing and minding his own beeswax.

Yes, I was dumb enough to take a picture of it. My apologies for the blurry image, but I was a smidgen shaky. I waited until it was a ways off, but I only took this one picture because I was sure the subtle beep of my innocent little camera would be the sound that turned the bear from calm to crazed in a Kodak moment. I didn't really feel like being eaten for lunch. I'm sure Mark would have sacrificed himself if the bear really had pounced, but I'm just so glad he didn't have to resort to that.

We truncated our mountain hike, but the only way out was the way we came in, and after several minutes we didn't know whether the bear had vacated the path or not. We figured if he was out to kill he would have already taken care of us, so we opted to go back in the direction we had just seen him go. It was a choice of going back or forth, and we didn't know what was "forth", so we turned around with the intention of heading back to the little boat dock. The bear hadn't gone far in those minutes we stalled. We saw him again just off the path. We tried to make a comfortable amount of noise so as to not catch him off guard, and as nonchalantly as possible we left the vicinity. We encountered two young ladies on the path who were about to go the way of the bear, so we (in near unison) kindly warned them. They decided to take the other route.

We let the kids play in the water for a while. It was quite chilly.






We took the boat back over to the side of the lake where the cars were parked and loaded up to go home. We were there for just a few hours, but we had an adventure and saw lots of pretty things. The kids were all ready to go home. That meant I would get over to Debby's at a reasonable hour. Yay!

The way back to Pocatello was the most beautiful drive I have ever taken! Well, the part between the lake and Idaho Falls. Unfortunately, my camera was in the trunk. I really should have pulled over and gotten it out. The sun was in the perfect position, casting its warm rays over every green hill and valley. I felt like I was in Europe or somewhere with all the spectacular landscapes hither and yon. It was absolutely magnificent. We passed a field with a group of gargantuan hay "loaves" scattered about. They seriously looked like they had been molded in huge bread pans. I had never seen anything like them. How peculiar! Or should I say, how bizarre?

We got back to Melanie's just before 10:00 pm. I dropped Mel, Jessie and Jane off, and Ollie came with me to Debby's for the night. She was my secretary when I was the R.S. president. She's so fun to be around. I just love her.

Sunday morning Ollie and I slept in until almost 10:00, then we hung out for a couple of hours with Deb and her daughters, then went back to Mel's to hang out some more. Then Nicole's family came and dropped Cora off from her weekend stay in breathtaking Blackfoot. She had a great time. We were glad to have her back with us.

By 7:00 pm we were ready to go home to Boise. It's never an easy task to separate Jessie and Jane, but we somehow managed. We said our buh-byes and drove off into the distance.

Poor sleepyhead couldn't keep his eyes open for long. (Cora took this. I don't shoot and drive while I'm hurtling down the freeway.)


Another gorgeous sunset. A nice way to sum up the weekend...