Mike has been talking about going up to the eclipse for months now. He worked really hard to find us a place to stay.
We tried several different RV campsites that were all sold out. I finally found one the wasn't full, but they wanted $269 a night with a three night minimum! I told them that was way too much. After getting off the phone with the lady she called me back and told me $180. I told her that was still too much.
After that Mike took over. People were renting out their fields for $50-100! So crazy. Anyway Mike got the idea to call church camps. Which turned out to be a great idea! We ended up staying in Bone Idaho and Camp Cumorah for $25 a night.
On our way there we spent Friday night at Bear Lake at Trevor's cabin. It is coming along, they are waiting for logs so they can continue. I guess getting big logs like he wants is hard. He's been trying to get them all summer.
We went down to the lake for a bit, then we decided to go to a play.
Me, grandpa Max and the older kids went and saw Shrek the Musical. It was pretty good.
On Saturday morning we headed to Idaho. We took some back roads and ended up on a dirt road for like 36 miles. (We had heard that traffic getting to Idaho was going to be crazy, it ended up not being too bad, Trevor and his kids came up Sunday night with no trouble.) Anyway, on said dirt road we got a flat tire. When Mike went to fix it we found out that our new car didn't have a jack! So we are stuck on this dirt road that we have only seen two cars on total, with no jack and no cell service.
Mike did everything he could so that when someone finally came around we would be ready. Luckily after about 45 min someone drove by and offered to help us. Because Mike got everything ready it only took about 5 minutes to get it fixed! Thank goodness for good Samaritans! Once we finally got to the camp Mike decided to run into town and get the tire fixed. I tried to talk him into waiting until we got home, but he really wanted to go, so he did.
While he was gone Me and my dad took the kids over to the little pond. We had just bought a couple of kayak so the kids rode around in those and there was a fun rope swing.
Bensen and Vivian loved playing in the sand.
On Sunday we went on a little hike, which Bensen killed!
He pretty much ran the whole thing. Then we went a drove around looking for a good place to watch the eclipse. We figured it would be best to be at a park so the kids wouldn't be too board waiting for hours for the eclipse. We found the perfect park in Ammon, it had a splash pad and everything. Later that night Trevor and his kids came and we had a camp fire and smores.
Finally, the event we had all been waiting for, Monday we got up and made our way to the park.
The eclipse is easily one of the coolest things I have ever seen! I can't even describe it! I can tell you that I am ready to chase the next one...well not the one in Africa, but the next one in the United States.
The splash pad might not been the best idea because without the warmth of the sun it got pretty cold and all the kids were freezing.
After the eclipse we headed back to camp to swim for a bit.
Then it was time to go home. We debated on which way we should try to go home and just as we were about to leave on of the missionaries gave us an update on traffic and it wasn't good. So we decided to take the dirt road again. Guess what...we got another flat tire. So Mike was inspired to get the tire fixed and buy a jack, other wise we would be up a creek with no paddle right?
Well long story short the jack wasn't big enough to lift the car, so he put it on 5 of the blocks for the trailer...still not high enough, so after trying for a half hour we tried to flag people down. This time it was a little harder, people were wanting to get home and didn't stop. Then we had two nice guys stop and together we got it figured out. Sheesh.
Overall it was a great trip! It ended up being a little more expensive then we had planned, with two new tires and all.
The next eclipse is in 2024 and we are going!
