Last Minute Vacation to Island Park

On Monday last week, Randy and Jared figured out that none of us had to work after Wednesday morning and thought we could get one last vacation in before Randy's wedding. So Blake made a phone call to his cousin Grant, and made arrangements to stay at his cabin in Island Park. Thanks, Grant! We had a great time! We left here about 2:00 Wednesday afternoon and got home about 6:30 Friday night. It was a fast, short vacation, but it was fun.

We loaded up the four wheelers, a little food and clothes and were on our way.

Wednesday night after dinner, we went for a ride, it was a very nice evening for riding. We rode up to Meadow Creek Lodge and decided we would go back there on Thursday to eat lunch or dinner. (It's the same place that we like to snowmachine in and eat.)

Randy wanted to rent some Jet Skis and go the Resevoir on Thursday. He had some reserved for 1:00, but the guy called around 10:00 and asked if we wanted to come and get them early, so we did and took them down to the lake.

Randy and Jared really don't know what they are doing, but they plan to have fun figuring it out.

Blake decided that he wanted to be taken out to a boat dock in the middle of the lake and do some fishing.

Jared, having tons of fun.

I found a shady spot on the shore and read my book!

After a couple of hours of riding around and fishing, the guys decided they were hungry, and they wanted to go back to the cabin to eat but we didn't know what to do with the jet skis. Blake had a brilliant idea, we could just leave the machines with the Ulrich family, who just happened to be at the lake too. We went and talked to them, and they were more than happy to use the machines while were gone. So, we went back to the cabin and changed and got on the four wheelers and rode up to Meadow Creek Lodge. While we were riding, the sky started looking more and more black with storm clouds. We hurried and ate our hamburgers and headed back to cabin. It sprinkled on us most of the way, and started to really rain about the time we got to the cabin. Randy and Jared hurried and changed back into their swim suits and we headed back to the lake, it was really raining hard and the temperature had dropped to 54 degrees. When we got back to the lake, 3 of the Ulrich family were waiting for us. The machines were tied to the dock, just waiting to be loaded up. Luckily, they had been able to ride them most of the time we were gone.

We waited in the pickup for a few minutes, hoping the storm would pass.

We could see a clearing, and thought the storm would blow over, which it did in about 20 minutes.

So, here they go again! This time, they had the lake all to themselves.

Blake is fishing from the dock, can you see Randy in the background?

Randy, taking a breather for a minute.

Now, for a continuation of redneckness -- see Cindy's blog --- Jared wanted to try water skiing behing a jet ski, he had dreamed this up before we left home and had even borrowed some skis. Well, what he didn't think to borrow was a tow rope. So, they decided to fashion one themselves. Blake found a stick, or branch and some rope he had in the pickup, it wasn't very big rope, but they decided to try it. Well, they got it all tied to the jet ski and to the stick, he got the skis on and started going, the rope broke immediately. But, they didn't give up, they doubled the rope up and tried again. That made it too short and he couldn't stay up.

Randy just picked Jared up out of the water after his second attempt at skiing.

They still could not give up, so Blake went and got the real tow rope out of the pickup, you know, the one you use in the winter to pull someone out of the snow. They tied it on with the other little rope and tried again. This time it worked and he was able to stay up while they went around several times.

There he is - skiing behind a jet ski with a hand made tow rope and bar!

Remember. the temperature was only 54 degrees, and Jared was freezing when he got back to the dock. Randy decided that it was too cold and he didn't want to get in the water and try skiing. (I think he was afraid he wouldn't be able to get up and didn't want to be showed up by his younger brother.)

One more redneck moment, Blake wanted to ride one more time on the Jet Ski, but was not in his swimming suit, so he took his shoes and socks off and jumped on in his jeans and jacket. He's lucky he didn't tip over!

On Friday morning, we got up and packed up ready to head home. We decided we would drive home through Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It turned out to be the real long way home!

Before leaving Island Park, we went to feed the fish at Big Springs. The fish must not have been awake yet, because they didn't want to eat anything.

Since the fish weren't eating, Blake decided to feed the seagulls. They appreciated the bread!

We were very dissapointed that we only saw 1 eagle, 1 elk and this herd of buffalo. Not a very good animal sighting trip.

As we drove home we saw the Grand Tetons, what a magnificent sight!