Adventures: Boise area

I will divide the category Adventures into two parts. Boise area and La Grande area. Summer spells adventure for us. We like to do fun outdoorsy things and this weather and are is perfect for it.  Our first adventure was one we hadn't done before.  Grandma wanted to get Taz a birthday present he'd enjoy other than money.  Ky and Clay knew about a athletic shoe store that analyzed your foot and found custom fit shoes for running.  So she took Taz here for new Cross Country shoes for his birthday.  Here he is stepping on the analyzer to view his stride.  He was told he has a sever unequal distribution of weight possibly caused from an injury and recommended we get him into a physical therapist. 

They had him try on three different pairs of shoes and go run in them to see which one felt best.  This is the pair he ended up with. 

Grandpa was excited about the experience and decided to get himself some new fitted shoes for the physical therapy he has to start in a month or so. 

Our next adventure was to the nature walk.  We went and hiked the little trails and looked at the fish and took some pictures.  Can you see Taz?

we were sad to find that the visitor center was closed on Monday's though and so we weren't able to go into that. 

So, we decided to go to the haunted prison tour since it was right by the nature center.  We parked in the parking lot and I stuck my credit card and drivers license in the camera bag so I wouldn't have to bring my purse.  Then we walked to the starting point.  I got there to pay and they didn't accept Discover card, so Tanner had to walk all the way back to the car and get a different card.  Once we got through that though, the tour went smoothly.  We had been to it once before, but Cynjyn didn't remember it and really wanted to go.   

We went in  and watched the movie.

Then you self toured the buildings and cells. 

Prisons are dreary and depressing and we felt bad for the prisoners that had been in them.  Here we are in Siberia which is solitary confinement.  We were more compassionate about Talon and his new job as a corrections officer and in awe of the fact that he will be working in prisons.

We loved touring the weapons museum on the grounds.  Taz found his favorite weapons from his video games. 

Cynjyn liked the hands on experience of being in the trenches.

And Tanner found the Colt hand gun from Supernatural. 

They both had to get their picture with that. 

I liked the sword display and all the finery of the swords.

In our quest to be more physical, we went on a bike ride on the Greenbelt.  It is a section of Boise that has paths down by the river.  It is nice and shady and fairly cool ride for the summer heat. 

We managed to ride 8 miles.

Rob and Jodi had invited any family that wanted, to go to Tamamrack in celebration of their 22nd anniversary.  So we went up there Thursday through Sunday.  Clay, Jodi and Taz jogged from our cabin into Donelly, the closest town.  It was 8.6 miles. 

We took a little side trip to Warren Idaho which is a ghost town.  You went to McCall and got an auto CD from the ranger station and listened to it as you drove.  It had interesting facts about areas you drove through.  It was a 45 mile drive, but took about 1 1/2 hours because it was windy roads and some of it wasn't paved.  Goons, mom and dad and Rob and Jodi went.  We got to Warren and here we are at the ranger station with main street behind us.  Warren has 12-16 residents that live there year round, but more during the summer with cabins and such.

The kids loved the one and only playground toy from the old school house. 

Here we are by an original hotel. 

And the store.

They had quite a population of Chinese working the gold mine for awhile, so they had a Chinese cemetary that we hiked up to.  They are pointing to a guy named Goon buried there.

There were 35 Chinese that had been temporarily buried thaere until there relatives could take them back to China for a proper burial.  So there were shallow graves in the fenced yard where they had been dug up and returned to their homeland. They had the names of the buried and two of them were Goon's.

Our cabin had it's own hot tub that we enjoyed.

And you could swim at the lodge.  It was nice, but cold. So we only spent a little time here before we headed to the...

ginormous hot tub with a view overlooking the gorgeous golf course. 

Our other adventure while we were up there was a trip into Cascade to go to the white water park.  It is where they take a portion of the river and make some rapids to float, tube, kayak and boogie board down.  We got two tubes and three boogie boards so Tanner, Taz, Cynjyn, Kres and Clay could all go together.  There was a nice enclosed, air conditioned visitor center that overlooked the river for spectators.  Here is Clay and Kres in one of the rapids.

Tanner and Cynjyn tried their hand with tubing.

Taz preferred boogie board or just body floating down the river.

This was the most difficult rapid and Taz tried it and flipped under.

Tanner tried it and flipped under.

And Clay body surfed it with his doo rag and sunglasses on because he forgot he had them.  The Sunglasses survived, but the doo rag was lost.

Taz and Kres tubing.

Cynjyn had the worst injury trying to find a good place to end her tubing and scraping her knee on the rocks two different times!  She was a trooper though.  It was a fun day.