What I did this weekend (Part 1)

My boyfriend & I went to visit my family (missing one brother, who wasn't able to make it from Portland) at my sister's place in Idaho. The road trip was nearly 500 miles one way. We passed through Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, and arrived in the suburban town of Meridian, Idaho on July 2nd. The drive was astonishingly beautiful and made me miss my hometown. I guess there is something to be said of high-desert scenery, it's pretty in it's own way.


Saturday was spent driving up to the Banks-Lowman hot springs on the Payette River. On the trail down to the river, I was walking with my brother Al. As we were climbing rocks I mentioned "this feels so familiar but I know I've never been here before." He said to me,"You are a JOLE. How many times have we done something exactly like this?" And we laughed and laughed. It made me feel so happy and so connected to my family through space.

There are 4 small pools of hot springs which were under the waterfall feeding the river. The river itself was very cold, and the hot springs remain the perfect temperature for soaking. There are a few small waterfalls springing from the mountain side forming the hot springs. My family all remembers the summer before my dad died, when he visited this same place and tried out the hot springs at the VERY TOP of the mountain. Apparently he "dipped his foot in" to test the 500 degree water and got badly burned. The family saw he come barreling down the mountain and yelling "don't go in there. It's too hot!!" This story makes me sad about not being able to make that last trip with my father, but happy that he could experience the beauty of this earth; I know it was probably his favorite thing to be outside with nature.



To get to this hotsprings pool, we had to wade through about 4 feet of rushing cold water, then climb up the rocky mountainside. It was sooooo freezing. We went in teams so that we could help each other hold onto the rocky mountainside, wade out to the shallow, knee-deep water, then make our way through the current back to the mountain to climb up to the pool. (Even my 8-year-old niece made it with the help of her older brother & her mom. No easy feat, when you realize the water was probably over her head and she had to swim!) Once we made it up to the hot spring, we had about 8 people all soaking in the tub. The bottom was made of beachy sand, and the water dripping from the mountain made for the perfect shower. The Payette River below, the mountains above, visiting my family, having soaking kisses with my boyfriend, reveling in such perfect moments. How many times do we have for such moments? Life is such a blur. It made me want to slooooow time and never leave that place.

Eventually we had to make our way back to the other side, full knowing that we would be pushing AGAINST the current this time. We all knew that there were smaller warm pools at the place we had started from so that made it worth it. Lee & I decided to go together, and we just dived in the cold water to get the shock all at once. (It wasn't as cold as I remember on the way there, so maybe our theory worked!) Once we made the trek back, we immediately climbed up the waterfall on the rocks to soak in the smaller tub. This tub had a bunch of streams coming down, so you could stand just perfectly under it, and have warm water running down your neck and body. The minerals in the water made my skin feel so soft. (Once we got home, I just felt kind-of dirty, and wanted a shower. Heheheh)