Vacation Spot #2: Salmon Idaho

As kids, we spent a week or so, most summers, in Salmon ID. I loved spending time at my aunt Myrna's house, and spending time with my cousins.  My kids don't have any 1st cousins their age.  But my Salmon cousins all have kids my kids' ages.  So, like 6 months ago I started pestering my cousins (who now live in UT, FL, and TX) to see if they would all be in Salmon at a time that would work for me to crash their family gathering with my kids.  It worked out that we got to see everyone except the TX family.  It was so fun!
Lots of kids, lots of energy, and lots of fun!

The drive to Salmon went through an area with a forest fire pretty close by.  It was SMOKY!  Later in the day they closed the road.  Glad we made it through before that!

We ate lunch in Stanley ID.  Cheeseburgers and chips and fries.  Super healthy (not), but very yummy.

The kids loved this sign and asked if I would leave them alone so they could get a free kitten.  Ha!  

All of us were in Salmon for about 24 hours before some of their family started having to go back to reality.  This is the chow line for that first meal together.  

What a fun bunch!  Emmi and Jonathan are really close to Libby's age.

We got to play at the main Tolman ranch house (my Dad's best Salmon friend now lives there, Edward).  They have this great swing.  Fun for all except my brother Nick, who back in the day tried to speed it up and ended up cutting his fingers in the motor.  My kids were duly warned not to do that.  

Ben and I shared one end of the tent.  Every night until the last one (when I finally realized I could prop up one side of his air mattress) he slid off the mattress and onto the floor of the tent.  But he slept right through it.

We took beautiful morning walks every day.  Amazing, right?

We had a multiple birthday celebration one lunch.  Can you tell what this rice crispie cake is?  (Hint, it is a state, with a pile of chocolate chips on a certain city.)

The wind did some major blowing once a day or so.  We woke up in this state one morning.  Yikes!

I brought a couple of crafts.  The one that caught on like wild fire was the Perlers.  The kids did Perlers off and on all weekend.  They created some pretty awesome stuff.  (For those who don't know, Perlers are little beads that you put onto boards with pegs and then iron together to create stuff, like soldiers, dragons, monsters, flowers, butterflies, etc.)  

On Monday we went down and played in the Salmon river.  

Sarah doing pushups in the river for burp or fart punishment.  I forget which.  

Finally they went out a bit farther and floated in the current.  Sarah loved it.  So did Libby and Ben, but I didn't get pics of them somehow.  

I forgot to bring towels to the river.  Ben didn't want to ride back all wet.  He wanted to walk with me (it isn't very far, like .5 mile maybe?)  He said, "Mom, this reminds me of walking home from dropping off the girls at school with you.  And now I won't be doing that, since I'm staying at school."  Melt my heart.  What a sweet boy.  He also wanted to climb and slide down the gravel pile on the way home.  It was pretty high but he just did it.

On our last night they pulled out a few skating costumes (from the roller rink days).  Sarah did a performance for us while we ate in the restaurant they created.  

The restaurant staff. 

The restaurant menu.  Cheap pizza!  Expensive Dessert!

Going out for a last train ride.  

This is almost an exact image of what did happen to Libby later on the ride.  Except she actually fell out.  A bit bruised and sad, but overall good.  No one had to get stitches the whole trip!  (In fact, I had a bad cold and ended up the only one who went to the doctor the whole trip.)

Salmon.  Gotta love it.