The temperature was just right with a slight breeze blowing through the trees keeping the mosquitoes away.
The water falls were mesmerizing and calming.
There were only a few other people in the area and our day hike through nature was the perfect way to spend the day.
No matter how many times we go to Mesa Falls there seems to be something new to catch our eye. This time the lower falls were the highlight. Nathan, Vivien and I took a little side trip (beyond the fence line) to get a closer look at the lower falls. If we had gone better prepared we would have taken the trail down to the falls but for this day, braving the edge of the rocks was excitement enough.
As we dangled our feet over the edge of a rocky ledge Nathan and I kept exclaiming how amazing our view was.
God is a spectacular artist!
On the way home we stopped at the Warm River Campground. The boys have been camping with the scouts there but I had never been and every time we drive down into the valley after visiting Mesa Falls, I want to stop. It was worth the stop!
We played in the river for a bit, wandered around a couple of the campsites and suddenly, a plan was coming together. We wanted to camp overnight at Warm River not just sleep in the tent in the backyard, as was previously on our list. To our surprise, Vivien was pushing for the idea so we had to do it before she backed out and remembered that we wouldn't be bringing the house bathroom with us. We decided to camp the next night with whoever could come. With LeRoy, Levi, and Derek all working that left Vivien, Justin, Nathan, Hyrum and I.
The next day we packed and planned and our excitement built even more. There were a few sprinkles throughout the day but the skies did not look like they would bring a storm. The Idaho skies can be so deceiving. We started our drive to Warm River and by the time we got to St. Anthony it felt like we were driving through a flash flood. The roads were flooding and the windshield wipers were on full speed and still couldn't keep up. We started to vote on continuing or going home. We decided to at least go see the camp and how the weather was there. The camp hosts on site were so helpful and nice. They had a weather radar map and told us that the storm was supposed to go until midnight but the next night should have clear weather for camping. They let us drive in and look at the sites and we set plans with them to camp the following night, on Friday. On the way home we noticed the face of the storm staring down at us from the clouds.
When we got home we left everything in the van and the next day we went camping.
It was a beautiful day with clear skies and being there hours earlier than we were the day before made for an even better experience, especially with the tent difficulties ahead of us. Our tents are used all summer long by the Scouts and I had no idea they were in such bad condition! Having just been on Trek, setting up and taking down a tent five times in one week, I figured we'd have camp set up quickly and would have plenty of time to play in the water before dinner.
It took us nearly an hour figuring out how to jimmy-rig the broken poles to a near standing position. After we finally had it in a semi-standing position a breeze came through (not even a big enough breeze to consider it windy) and our tent flopped to one side. As I stood there staring at our lopsided mess the thought came to me to put the long table inside the tent. It worked!
With camp set up we were ready for water play. Nathan and Hyrum stayed close to shore with me
while Justin and Vivien floated down the river.
It was wonderful to be away from the busy-ness of our usual technology filled life. We loved having time to read in the sunshine, walk along the trail, watch a beaver in the bushes and cook our simple meal over an open fire.
Our only injury was a burn that Hyrum got while trying to take his hot dog off the roasting stick. He grabbed the metal stick close to the end and immediately dropped it. I quickly got it soaking in cold water and he bravely tried to ignore it, wincing only a few times, but we could see that he was holding back tears.
As we were sitting around the fire and the sun was setting I noticed that Nathan hadn't come back from his visit to the bushes (nature call). I called to him but he didn't respond so we all began to look for him. He wasn't in the van, he wasn't by the water, he wasn't in the bushes where we thought he was. I started to feel panic as I stared at the water, offering a pray. We called a few more times and then he came walking out of bushes on the other side of the camp. I tried to push the panic away seeing that he was safe and not wanting to make him feel like he was in trouble. When I asked what he was doing he hovered close to me and in a whisper explained that he went to say a prayer that Hyrum's hand would be okay and that he could sleep and play without it hurting and that our tent wouldn't blow over in the night.
Our night was spent in complete peace. Hyrum slept without any trouble, we were all warm, there was no rain and no wind and our tent stayed up in it's leaning glory.
After our simple breakfast of hot cocoa, warm oatmeal and eggs hard boiled over the fire we rolled up our sleeping backs, took down the tent and packed up our camp. As we began loading up the van Justin volunteered to do it himself while the rest of us went on the nature walk we had intended for the morning. We found a trail that leads from the campground to the lower Mesa Falls. We could see Justin across the river, Nathan and Hryum spent time throwing rocks in the river, Vivien and I reminisced about the past two days and what a fun camp out we'd had. We only went about 20 minutes on the trail and decided to save the full hike for another day.
Our camping trip at Warm River was so much better than sleeping in a tent in the back yard.
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