Day 7 in Idaho:

This was somewhat of a lazy day. :) We were all tired from our 7 hour hike the day before, so we mostly vegged. The boys went fly fishing in the morning. Earlier in the week John caught a rainbow trout and Dad got a couple brook trout each time he went. We will post some pictures later of the fishing since they are on another camera. John was looking like a pro with the fly rod and waders!

Later in the day we drove to Ketchum, the big skiing city about an hour from where we were staying. Dad wanted to fish the Big Wood River, which apparently is the place to fly fish in Idaho. When we got back we went out to dinner with the whole group, and the Andersons were going to take us to a hot springs up in the mountains. We drove for an hour and a half through these windy roads around 8:00-9:00 to find the hot spring, but no one who had been there before could remember where it was! Soo... then we drove back along the windy roads in the dark. We were a little disappointed we couldn't enjoy the hot spring, but we definitely had a regular "family vacation" adventure!

Day 8 in Idaho

To make up for the hot spring mix-up the day before, we all went to the beach yesterday. To get to the beach area, we had to cross a stream coming out from the mountains. Keep in mind there is still snow melting from the mountains, so this stream was pretty darn cold... so for about 20 ft we waded through water that had to be around 40 degrees. so cold. But after tackling it, we enjoyed the hot sun on the beach! (John enjoyed it a little too much, now he is a bit sunburnt)

From the beach, most of the group left for Boise to catch flights leaving the next morning. We stayed back in the cabin one more night and drove this morning (we are waiting in the aiport right now). For one last hurrah, we decided to take a short hike, 4 miles roundtrip. The trail was called 4th of July Lake Trail and we had to ride for 10 miles through dirt backroads to get to the trailhead. We drove through a burn area, which was really interesting to see. The fire was a few years back so there were charred trees standing but there was a lot of sunlight and wildflowers were growing all over the place. The trail started at around 8500 ft elevation and we climbed to around 9300 at the highest point. We ended at a lake in the mountains and we even saw some more snow on this trip. The lake was beautiful and we felt so much closer to the bigger mountains being up that high.