Not Really My Idea of A Vacation

I have an an awesome aunt and uncle who are spending some serious time at a so-called cabin this summer. This week was an extended family get-together near their place, so my parentals collected their children and we headed to beautiful Island Park. For those of you not familiar with it, Island Park can be found in the Eastern portion of that great state, the one and only Idaho. It looks a lot like this:


And also a lot like this:


These pictures really don't begin to do it justice . The lake is breathtaking and the forest is lush and green. So green that it really catches me off guard, being that my part of the world really does count as a desert. It helped that it RAINED most of the week (let's remember that the Winders were occupying a tent) and when it finally stopped raining, well, we'll talk about that later.

The main purpose of the trip to Island Park (besides the family bondage) was to do this:


My grandfather has a nice set of ATV's that he generously shares with his family and we get to go play on these babies a few times a year. I'm not the biggest fan of four wheeling-- it's fun but not a big deal-- but the trails were nice and muddy (again with the RAIN) and so the one ride I was able to fit in turned out to a great big splashfest of the dirty kind.


This picture doesn't really show the muddy mess we were both covered in, but you get the idea. I LOVED it. The sun came out for a few short hours, and Isaac and I went off to do our own thing. It turns out that riding is a lot more enjoyable when you're not sharing an ATV and riding in a convoy of 15 or so people.

We ended up spending a good part of the five day trip huddled up under a tent trying to stay warm. Good attitudes abounded:


Yup, the joy and rejoicing were everywhere. I did manage to get through three really good books, even if I did most of the reading while hiding in the parked car.

The last night we were there the clouds parted and gave us a beautiful goodbye:

That was the last of the good feelings, because about this time Isaac was the first of several victims to fall prey to some nasty bug. It hit me during the night and by the morning of our departure my sisters and dad were starting to go, too. And then I looked out the window and what did I see?
Snow. THREE INCHES of SNOW. It turned out to be FIVE INCHES of SNOW by the time we left, because Isaac had been feeling so horrible that we spent that night at my parent's cabin, and I still had to go pack up our stuff from the TENT in the SNOW. Apparently, someone in charge missed the memo that it's JUNE. And I know that part of the world isn't exactly toasty yet, but the SNOW just kind of left me bitter. And the stomachache didn't help, either.

This is what it looked like when we left town, all four of us sick with various ailments.

They actually had the snow plows out, it was that bad. I wasn't happy but Chelle and Isaac were truly miserable... it was a long drive home. We're still recovering.

And that was our vacation. It wasn't really horrible-- we had a fun day of window shopping and lunch out in West Yellowstone, Isaac got in a couple of extra rides, and it was nice to be in a quiet, pretty place with family to talk to. But somehow it's the bad parts that are sticking in my memory.