Hiking in Idaho

I love Sallie! I love that she lives in Idaho. You have no idea how perfect it is that her home is the half way point from here to Utah. It makes traveling to Utah so much easier!And the best thing is that we love our days with the McArthurs. Sallie learned the art of hospitality from Dave's mom. Everyone was always welcome at Wilcox HQ. I always feel welcome even if I will be arriving at awful early morning hours! She makes us yummy meals, clears her schedule to spend time with us and usually has some totally great activity planned. She is even thoughtful enough to get us out and about to stretch our legs. Last year we really loved floating down the Boise river! This year we went on a small hike to see a waterfall.

The kids were really excited about the hike. I really do have a wild bunch of explorers. I think the best thing really was getting out of the car and running around. The waterfall was nice, but oh man was that water frigid. I don't know where it comes from but it was more than COLD!!! I bribed Emily and Chase $5 bucks each if they would swim out to the falls. They were both game. Poor Emily brave as she is only made it half way. She is a slower swimmer. I was about to jump in after her. The water was so cold she looked like she was having trouble breathing. Chase made it all the way out and then suffered there perched on a rock as he crapped from the cold unwilling to come back. Poor kids. I am such a mean Mom! Really the water was so cold I didn't even put my feet in because it hurt!!!

Here the kids are blazing their own path. It might be their very last time cutting their own trails. Chase ran into some kind of poisonous plant. I never saw any poison ivy or oak but it must have been there. If it is there he finds it. Several people have told us it doesn't grown in Western Washington. Well, Chase has found it. And now we know it was somewhere on this hike. We noticed it the next day! Now that we have experience though we started treating it right away. They sell stuff that neutralizes the oils and we washed EVERYTHING!

But the damage had already been done. This is Chase after two weeks of healing. Scary huh. It got so bad and swollen that the doctor put him on some heavy doses of steroids and antibiotic cream. So now we know...Chase is very allergic to the nasty stuff!!! Don't worry (I did) no scarring!

PS Another great thing about our trip was that Ray noticed I had an almost flat tire which we fixed on the way home. I would have been in whole heaps of trouble the next morning!