*Warning: Very long post ahead* Good luck making it to the end!
A month and a half after making a trip to Idaho we went back but just a little more west this time to Twin Falls. From the moment President Hinkley announced that they were going to build a temple in Twin Falls I knew I wanted to go to the open house since that's where my Dad was born and raised, where I lived for 2 1/2 months, and where my Aunt and Uncle still live.
Well that day finally arrived for me on July 17th. We headed north about noon on Thursday and 45 minutes later stopped to eat lunch and top off the gas tank. We spent probably close to 40 minutes there before getting back on the road. Why does it take so long just to eat and go potty?!
We make it the rest of the way with no stops and arrive at the first Twin Falls exit about 3 hours after our stop. Minutes after turning on the road from the highway we cross over a kind of large, but very tall bridge and turn off the road to get a closer look and discover it is called the Hansen Memorial Bridge. We take a few photos because of the name of course. I mean, not only is our name Hansen but with Jon being a structural engineer he designs bridges! One funny note about this stop was when we got to the chain link fence, there was a bush with some orange berries on it and Tanner said, "Those are going to be hot dogs!" Who knew hot dogs grew on bushes?! Another thing about this stop was that by the time we got back to the van to leave one of the boys said they had to go potty. I tried to get Jon to take them back to where we were (it was kinda downhill and lots of shrubs) but other people arriving/walking past ruined that idea. I have had a "TravelJohn" portable urinal in the van for such instances and it came in very handy because all 3 potty-trained kids used it! (We gave them each some privacy using the van's 2 pc window shades.) This was something I bought at a sports store to put in our 72 hour kit and now I know how well it works! I thought it was overfull at first but the absorption material inside finally caught up.
Okay...on to our next stop. I was trying to get to the town of Hansen or a street called Hansen purely for photos but on the way there Jon spotted a sign that said "Falls" with an arrow and turned that way. We eventually made it there to realize it was the Shoshone Falls. The "Niagra of the West" had quite the show that day. Apparently it's not always that raging but they were letting more water through the dam than normal for some reason. As soon as we walked down some steps and had a good view of the falls and the river Garrett got as close to Jon as he could even though it was very hot. We got several shots here as you'll see. We walked over to an area that had some history of the area and photos including an old picture of the same Hansen bridge we just crossed. After me making a pit stop and disposing of the full urinal, we headed toward downtown Twin Falls.
We had a little bit of time before meeting up with my Uncle Chuck & Aunt Jolene (my Dad's sister) on their boat so we went to the bridge on the other side of Twin Falls. I remembered this bridge being bigger than the first one we crossed and I was right. This one had two lanes each way and you could actually walk across the bridge as well. We walked almost halfway just to see the river straight down but then walked back and then down under the bridge. This sure made me nervous even with a stone wall there because the kids wanted to look over. I warned them before we got to that point that they could not climb. Of course both Savannah and Ethan took their turn pushing themselves up with their hands on top of the wall to peer over. They both got yelled at.
Next we headed toward the boat launching area and greeted my aunt, uncle, and my cousin Jennifer that I haven't seen in 10 years and her two youngest kids that I've never met. The only thing I knew about this plan was to go up the river a ways and then barbeque some dinner before returning back. We pretty much did that with some interesting facts about the river along the way given to us by our tour guides. Savannah and Ethan were able to dangle their feet in the water with their second cousins as we tugged along. Since the water levels were quite high (from the dam) they weren't able to tie off the boat where they usually do to let us get out and walk around. Well, we got off in that same general area, but had a more difficult climb up a smooth rock to see the view. It was very pleasant and interesting and worth the risk of injury. Minutes after we got up Tanner had to pee. There were some natural holes/bowls formed in the rock and it seemed like a suitable place to do his business. I realized though that he was going to get wet and quickly pointed to a spiderweb for him to aim at. Gotta love boys! Right after this we look for Jon and the other 2 and realize they were in a cave. As we approached I could feel Tanner's hand get tighter around mine, his breathing get more shallow, and his voice getting shaky. He told me he wanted to go home. I assured him we were not going in the cave, we were just going to watch. It was a really steep hill to the back of the cave anyway. We did more exploring and then about 20 minutes later we hopped back on the boat to have dinner. We glided over to an area that just slowly (although this time was quite a bit faster due to the amount and speed of the water) spins you in a circle while we ate hamburgers and hot dogs. When we finished eating we headed back to the parking lot ever so slowly and then off to Chuck and Jolene's house to spend the night.
The next morning we had to get everyone ready fairly quickly for our 11 a.m. Temple open house tour time. Except for the somewhat long wait before actually doing the tour, it was very pleasant and beautiful. It is a very small temple from the outside compared to what I'm used to but didn't feel small inside. We almost left the temple without any pictures but went back on the grounds for several shots. There was a very nice gentleman doing guides/ushering that offered to take our picture. We had already realized that we couldn't get the whole front of the building from top to bottom in one shot and didn't expect this man to either. We saw him going back a couple feet farther than Jon had and thought just maybe he could get it all. When I looked at the picture it was sooo close! If he would have moved the camera up just a little more he would have gotten the Angel Moroni instead of so much grass. Kinda funny.
From the temple we ate lunch at Chili's which took forever and seemed even longer with 4 restless kids. On the way back to the house I wanted to make a couple stops. One was I wanted to see my Grandma's old house and the other was I wanted to go to the cemetary where she was buried. That was the last time I was in Twin Falls, for her funeral, just days before Jon and I got married. After doing that we went back to Jolene's, gathered up our stuff and loaded the van, changed into swimwear, and went to Nat-Soo-Pah. It's a natural hot spring pool which translated means "magic mineral water". This is about 15 minutes south of their house and I have been there several times as a kid. It is almost exactly the same as I remember it. The water is just my style: warm. The water stays 3 feet for quite a while and it wasn't very crowded. Tanner's always been afraid of the water but he was carefree this time. Tanner and Ethan both were wearing cool little lifejackets I got from Wal-Mart this year and Savannah was borrowing a different one. Savannah probably could have done without one but it was nice not having to worry about her. Garrett was content the whole time. He wasn't all that excited but he wasn't sad either. We borrowed the little swim ring he was in from my aunt as well. We spent close to 2 hours there before we got on our way. We made a quick stop back at the house one last time to drop off their things and get our food from their fridge before heading home.
We still had to eat some dinner actually, and didn't have much luck finding a place before hitting the highway. Several miles down the road there was another town that looked alive still (it was after 9pm at this point) and pulled off. We went through the drive-thru of Jack-In-The-Box (there aren't any in UT), ate in the van and headed home. We finally arrived home about 12:30 a.m. Saturday morning.
It was only 2 days but feel like we made the most of it. At this stage in our lives it seems like just the right amount of time for our kids. It was nice seeing family again, doing things we haven't done before, and most of all, being in the temple with my whole, little family.
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