Idaho

We're in Idaho. I LOVE Idaho. Even when it's raining. We signed up to go on the rafting trip some of my husband's aunts and uncles put together. They did it a couple years ago and our kids thought it sounded like fun. My husband stayed home with the 5YO and I took the other kids. It was fun. But very cold and wet! It POURED on us. But it was SO beautiful! If you have ever been inside the Rexburg temple, there is a room covered with murals of a river and marsh grass and herons, and you turn around and see Grand Teton at your back. I swear we were in that place today. (Minus the heron--but a moose did swim right across the river in front of one of the rafts.)

I also went running, just to test the waters when it comes to altitude. I'm pleased to report that while yes, I felt the altitude (we've been living at 840 ft last year and we are currently over 6000 feet), it went better than I'd expected. Which is a good sign, since we want to do some hiking next week (notably a trail that goes up to 11,000 feet).

Then tonight we headed back to the lodge for dinner and visiting. We also watched a recent independent movie about Ephraim K. Hanks, a 19th century pioneer/mountain man/adventurer who also happens to be my husband's ancestor. He was in the navy and traveled the world, and he did pony express for many years, but his most well-known act was helping save a bunch of handcart pioneers who were trying to emigrate to Utah and got caught in an early snowstorm in Wyoming. Many rescuers turned back, but he felt like he needed to keep going, bringing provisions and praying for a buffalo that appeared and which he shot and brought along. I think what he found was somewhat akin to what first responders in refugee situations might find, only in extreme frostbite/hypothermia/starvation mode. He was able to rescue many people because he was prepared for disasters already (pony express/all that traveling) and because he stuck with it and didn't give up. At the end of the film were blurbs about what happened to the various real life characters afterwards. I don't remember what the last line was, but my feeling was something on the lines of, "All of you in this room are Hanks. Go and do likewise."

We came home to watch the supermoon rising over the Tetons. And now we're smelling the thousands of lodgepole pines in the breezes wafting down from them mountains. My favorite smell! I wish I could take it with me.