Island Park Trip 2015

This year as always on Labor Day we went camping in Island Park at the Buttermilk Campground.  We tend to get tied in knots with the campground hosts over the rules but for some reason we go anyway.  It didn't rain as much as it did last year thankfully.  Last year it rained constantly and we just gave up and went home.  My family and I arrived on Friday morning about noonish.  We picked a campsite near the far bathrooms as they are usually the cleanest and the least used..  We set up our camp and were just hanging around.  LouAnne and Troy finally showed up around 5 or 6.  They were able to camp next to us.  We brought our Wildcat this time and not any boat or raft because the water was reputed to be so low this year.  Troy brought the raft I gave him but it turned out it had a hole in it.  We tried patching it but the patch wouldn't hold.  Partly I think because the patch was for a bicycle and partly because the temperature was not very warm.

Saturday we had to clean up and go to the baptism of Jadyn who was going to be baptised by her brother Keaton.   Normally Hugh and his family come up with us to Island Park but this year they did not because of the baptism.  I got up early Saturday morning and sponge bathed myself in the cold air.  We put on our nice clothes and drove down to Idaho Falls.

Quinn sleeping on the way to the baptism

Keaton, Jadyn and Hugh after the baptism.

After the baptism we went to Hugh's house for lunch for a couple hours and then we went back up to our campsite.  We spent a lot of time cooking.  I am not sure why it went so slow but this year it seemed like we were always cooking and then cooking some more.  David and his family came up and visited us for a few minutes that night.

Quinn and Katy down by the reservoir.  Notice how low it is.

 Sunday we cleaned up and read our scriptures and did our church thing.  Later we went on a leisurely ride through the forest to the east side of the reservoir.  Me, Katy and Quinn were squished as I had Quinn sit on Katy.  Teresa had gone home Friday night because Macey needed to be at a cross country race.  They did not make it to the baptism.  They did not come up again until Saturday night after David had left so me Katy and Quinn did not have much to do.  We did have a good time exploring with the Wildcat and we were able to go down to the water's edge in some places.  We kicked up some dust as well.

You can see the Wildcat up in the trees.  We could have drove down here but I wasn't sure if the lip from the forest to the rocks was too much of a drop off.  Hard to tell in this picture

Looks kinda cold.

Man I'm orange

Katy and Quinn posing with the Wildcat

This Wildcat is fun

Threw some snow on the big smoldering stump

Our tenting arrangement

Teresa and Katy 

Maple and Quinn

 In the afternoon after we had cooked a crazy long lunch and eaten it (We cooked whole chickens and cobblers and my chocolate cherry torte in the dutch ovens) we went to the parking lot and I let Troy drive Josiah around in the Wildcat.  Josiah is infatuated with side by sides.  Then Troy took Shaelynn.  Then he took LouAnne and on the way back let her drive it.  I thought they were never going to get here because she wouldn't pass the snail in front of her.  I then took Quinn and then Katy for a ride and then let Macey drive it and then I took Teresa around some trails in the forest.

Troy and LouAnne take the Wilcat for a spin.  I thought they were going fast until......

They come poky poky around this corner.  Notice how in the next 3 frames that they have not moved much.  Wait a minute!  LouAnne is driving!!

LouAnne are you ever going to get here??  You don't need to wait for that snail.  Just run it over!!!

Troy's hair was not blown by the wind

Quinn trying to get Maple to jump as high as she can.  Thats a pretty good leap there.

 We get done driving the Wildcat and Troy and LouAnne have to go so Troy can get to work early in the morning.  As you can see in the next series of pictures with the dog we are bored.  We looked at each other and sat and looked at each other.  It was about 6:00 pm and I said, "maybe we should just go home so we can have more time to accomplish our mountains of work at home."  We debated for a minute and decided to do just that. We had camp packed up in around an hour and were home by 8:45 pm.  I had an overwhelming feeling as we were leaving that maybe this would be the last time we went to Island Park.  I felt kind of sad as I hope it isn't so.  But I get that feeling a lot and it doesn't seem to be accurate.