4th of July

Island Park

Mesa Falls

West Yellowstone

We had fun over the 4th of July. Rick, Kolten and I went camping with Phil & Melissa and their kids to Island park. We ended up spending one of the days going to West Yellowstone to see the hot springs and Old Faithful and got some great pics. Take a look.

Below is Mesa Falls.

These next few photos were of Phil fly fishing. We got up at 5 in the morning to go fishing in Island Park and didn't catch a thing. If you zoom in on the picture below you can see Phil way in the back getting ready to get in the water to fish.

The only thing Philly caught was a glimps of the breath-taking view of the lake.

This was a view of the lake right when we first got there at 5-5:30am. Steam was still rising off the water.

This bison was staring at an old lady that was probably 30 feet away taking it's picture. Rick kept saying, "Hurry, get the camera! I want to get a picture of that lady when she gets gored." She was so dumb. There was no way she was going to get away if that thing decided it was going to charge her. You would think people would wonder if they might be protective of their calves.
And, yes, we have a zoom on our camera. There was no way I was getting that close to these things.

As we were leaving for the day, we saw some bison walking across the geysers so I made Rick pull over to take some photos. The photo below is deceiving, it looks like it was really cold that day but it's actually just hot springs steaming in the background and the ground had turned white from the hot spring water. I bet it was probably still 75-80 degrees out that night.

This was a sign that they posted near one of the walking paths saying don't jump into the hot pools because it might burn you. Rick thought it was hillarious. I guess he figured if you were too stupid to figure that out yourself than you deserve to get burned.

Below is a pic of our cute little nephew, Dillon.

This was a close up of the ripples the water made from the hot springs.

You might think that these next few photos are of a lake but these are actually photos of about a quarter of an inch of hot spring water trickling across the ground.




There were the most amazing colors throughout the park. The ground in places looked like marble.
This little stream was a yellow-green and the ground around it was colored the same and then would fade out to oranges, reds, browns and greens. I think Yellowstone is so interestingly (if that's a word) gorgeous.




The next couple of pictures below are of the fireplace in the Yellowstone Lodge.

While inside the lodge, there was a squirl that came in through the doors and was running around eating crumbs off the floor.

You can't see it very well but it ran right under my legs.

As usual, Rick and Kolten were messing around on the walking paths next to the hot springs when they weren't suppose to. Maybe that sign was posted for them???!!!

Relay Rick

A couple of days ago, Kolten and I got to witness Rick hard at work. Ok, not really, but they do play a lot at work. This was a relay race that the city put on after a class they gave for Rick to try to get promoted. It included firemen from all over the surrounding areas, Jefferson Co., Ammon, and I'm not sure where else. I guess no one from the Idaho Falls Fire Department signed up to participate in the race and the chief wasn't letting go that easy. So before Rick went to class that morning, the chief came and told him and a few other guys at the class that they would be participating in the race. Rick was so excited (not at all correct) so he called me and Kolten to come watch. My camera battery was dead so you get to see the pics from my iphone. (If you can imagine - I guess some guys actually practiced for weeks for this relay race so it was hardly fare. We didn't even stick around to see who won.)

Enjoy...

Rick getting ready to go.

To start out the guys had to have their oxygen tanks taken off and replaced with new ones. I guess the city has pinched a few pennies on our tanks so they are really hard to unscrew and screw back on.

Next they had to jump in some foam and search for the hose cap to screw on the hose for the next part of the race. Below on the right hand side is Rick coming out of the foam handing off the cap.

Then one of the guys from the team had to spray a ball with the hose around some cones to the finish line.

Rick enjoyed the clean up time but not as much as Zippy, the guy spraying him off.

4 Wheeler riding in Heise this last weekend

Kolten and I went 4 wheeler riding again last weekend with Jess, Shelley, Kaden and Beavis. We had a blast.

Here was the veiw from the top of the hill when we finally made it up there. The dirt was blowing in the wind through the valley so the pics didn't turn out the best but who cares, look at the gorgeous valley below.

As we were riding we rode past some old cow bones. About 5 minutes after riding past Kaden kept saying he wanted to go back and see the dinosaur bones.

Here's Kadens new gangsta pose. I think that stands for Westside??!!
Jess and Kaden exploring the streams.

Kaden and Kolten cleaning their shoes and hands off in the snow.

Snack break for us... Beer break for Beavis...
Below are shots of the group trying to block off a stream... Why??? I do not know.

For Kaden it was more of a bridge.... back...

and forth...

and back again...

That was our day of fun. I'm too embarrassed to show you the photo of my dirty face after the ride... Sorry.

Spring Time in Idaho Falls

I'm sure many of you know where these pics were taken. I decided to take the dogs for a walk the other morning down by the river and brought my camera along to snap some shots of the hints of spring time. I guess this is what keeps me here in Idaho. Some pics are a little crooked but that's the cons of bringing the dogs with me.