Tour Guide and Birthright Son

The day I decided not to go to Sweden for my birthday (August 10, 2009 to be exact) and was probably just sitting around and feeling like "baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa my life is so terrible, I can't find anyone to travel with," my older brother Russell called me and said, "Hey, do you want to go on a little vacation at the end of this month?" For just a split second I thought he was being a jerk and rubbing in the fact that I couldn't find anyone to go anywhere with me for my birthday. But then I realized that he was being sincere and I thought to myself, 'I have the nicest brother in the world.' (Insert tear here.) So of course I said, "Yes, we should for sure go on a little family vacation," and hung up the phone. I was in a little shock at first because really NOBODY in my family initiates trips but me. My family just isn't as into traveling as I am. I have successfully gotten ALL three of my brothers to travel with me internationally (Lee to Eastern Europe and Ty and Russell to Belize) but it took A LOT of persuading. So a few days later we were all up at my parents' house (aka Lee and Kim's house) and were talking about the little vacation and making plans. I think we were all still a little in shock that Russell initiated it. Lee and Ty both thought that I had put Russell up to it, but I didn't. So we were all just marveling over how amazing it was that we were going on a trip that I hadn't planned and that Russell, of all people, had. And then Russell says, I think to dispel our amazement about his planning the trip, "Well, I am the birthright son." Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! The birthright son? Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! So then we all start teasing Russell about how yes indeed he is the birthright son and yes indeed he is hairier than Lee and he'd better watch it or Lee would steal the birthright. But Russell is watching his back apparently. He says he never accepts a dinner invitation from Lee and Kim if they're serving soup. And then the conversation was over and Russell remotely turned on, using his iPhone, the Brittany Spears song on Lee and Kim's computer that Kim claims she downloaded to do aerobics to, and Tyler started doing what we call the "Didi Dance" to the Brittany Spears song, shortly followed by Lee and Russell, who, no offense guys, aren't nearly as good at the dance as Tyler is. (major run-on, I know) Kim looks at me and says, "You know, nobody would ever believe me if I told them the kinds of things that happen when you all get together." I said, "I know, I know," and then ran to grab my camera to gather some evidence. But, the minute my camera was out the dancing stopped. The weird behavior of my brothers when they all get together is kind of like UFO's, crop circles, aliens, and Bigfoot...TOTALLY for real, but difficult to get hard evidence to prove. So after the dancing stopped we went back to planning and decided that we'd have to rent a car since none of us own a car big enough to comfortably fit four Batt sized adults and a pregnant lady. Too bad we got rid of my mom's Durango as soon as she left the country. I think we all secretly hated that car and were glad to get rid of it when my mom left. So anyway, because we had to rent the car we just decided to do a day trip and not have to spend money on a hotel. And that's all we really decided. To rent a car. Everything else we left up to Russell or up to chance. Russell just said we'd be seeing some of the "treasures of Idaho," or something like that. The night before our little trip Russell told us that we were leaving at 5 A.M. What????? But he was serious. So, we all gathered at 5 A.M. on the last Saturday in August and headed on a whirlwind, unplanned, but fun trip. Here are some pictures... This is a little old store somewhere in Idaho (maybe Challis?). I just like on the front how it says "Staple and Fancy Groceries." I would dare say that most of the groceries we buy today would be considered "fancy" groceries. We are spoiled. Or, at least I am. I've got to be completely honest, I couldn't tell you exactly where we even went on our trip. I know we went to Challis, Mackey, Stanley, Sun Valley, and everywhere in between but I'm not even sure what order or where things that we saw were. Russell was driving and was the tour guide and since I didn't plan or guide anything like I normally have to do, I'm not sure what we even did. Russell is a good tour guide though, especially when it comes to Idaho. He knows all the names of the mountain ranges and areas and little stories about the different places. I think he might have been making some of it up though. For example he told me that the Sawtooth Mountains were named for the Sawtooth Indian Tribe, which, I of course believed. And as soon as they could tell that I believed them the boys all started making fun of me for being so gullible. But I don't know what was so funny about me believing that. It seemed logical to me...Sawtooth Mountain, Sawtooth Tribe. Why not? I guess my logic is a little different than most. I think my logic is fun though. Side story: Lee and Kim recently took a pottery class. I was over at their house and I picked up a bowl they had made to look at it. When I picked it up I said, "Ooh it is warm." To which Lee replied, "Yeah, it is this cool new slightly radioactive material that you can make pottery out of. It is a soup bowl and the radioactivity keeps your soup warm." Sounded like a cool idea to me. Until my brothers (and Kim) all started laughing at me. How was I supposed to know that they had just taken the bowl out of the dishwasher? Seriously. Anyway, back to the trip. So, somewhere in Idaho we stopped at this big fault line where the ground dropped like seven feet or something when there was an earthquake there in the 80's. And there was a fence around the fault line, so of course the boys all had to start walking the poles.

It looks like Lee started it, but they all had to take a turn.

So then I decided, "Hey I can do tricks too." I remembered my days back at Falls Valley Elementary when I would hang off the bars of the merry-go-round with my knees and for some stupid reason decided that I'd hang off the fence with my knees. About this time, one of the boys saw me and said, "What are you doing?" To which I replied, "I'm going to hang off the fence with my knees." And then they started making fun of me and I COULD NOT stop laughing. Seriously could not stop. That might have had something to do with waking up at 4 A.M. that morning. Anyway, due to my laughing I lost all control and soon...

fell into the dirt.

Let's just say I was finding little pieces of weeds all day in places that weeds should never be.

So then Lee and Russell decide to re-enact my moves on the fence to see if laughing could make someone fall off the fence.

Russell got Lee laughing, even to his heee, heeee, heeeee point, but Lee didn't fall. I guess I am the weakest link. Somehow the fence tickling lead to...

This.

Fence butting. Feats of Strength my brothers call them.

Anyway, I think we were at the fault line for 20 minutes and I'm not even sure any of us got a good look at the fault. Maybe Kim.

So, I cannot recommend the fault line, but I can recommend the fence surrounding the fault line as a good stop on a tour of Idaho. Next we went somewhere else. I can't remember. But you could pan for gold at the little visitor's center. Everybody found gold except for me. All I found was some Fool's Gold and a pretty rock, but I was okay with that.

The flakes they were finding were tiny flakes though...not too impressive and not enough to make anybody want to quit their job to go pan for gold, or in my case, quit my not having a job to go pan for gold. So to make things a little more exciting I threw in a Sacajawea dollar for Lee to find. I made him give it back though. Hey, I'm unemployed! Then we went to this place where they used a huge dredge and basically ruined the whole stream to mine for gold.

Here are Lee and Kim, in front of the dredge, parked where it last was used. They had a little museum in the dredge but it was 4 bucks to get in and we were all like "no way are we paying that much to get into the museum." And then we drove on, shortly stopping at a gas station and probably each spent 4 bucks on junk food. Priorities, priorities. I thought they should have let us in the museum for free though since they messed up the whole river and raped the land of its gold. The least they could do would be to let us Idaho citizens in for free.

And then we stopped somewhere to eat. I thought we should pack a lunch but Russell said that we had to eat at a greasy diner. So we did. At the diner they had this sign....

so I immediately liked the place and wanted to support them.

I think this is me with Stanley behind me. I really don't know. But it was pretty. I was going to climb up on the railing to get a better picture, but after my experience with the fence and seeing some Chinese tourist bang up her shin pretty bad after getting down from the railing, I figured I'd play it safe and just stand in front.

Pretty pretty Idaho. We also stopped at a fish hatchery somewhere that was really cool because the salmon were coming back to spawn and you could see them jumping up the fish ladders or whatever. They were huge! I love salmon. They are tasty.

And we stopped at Craters of the Moon, but really just for a bathroom break, which started a whole conversation among my brothers of how they could design a better outhouse. That conversation pretty much carried us home.

The end. Thank you to my birthright brother for planning our little trip. It was fun!