Friday the second was my day to turn the big 2-4. My totally cool friend Mandy calls it The 24 Club. Kelly had a whole slew of surprises ready for me, starting when I came home from school Thursday. The house was clean and the dishwasher was on. I love that he knows that I wouldn't be able to leave before those little chores were out of the way. After packing, we loaded up the Jetta and set off for some unknown-to-me destination.
We soon arrived at Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park, where we did some hiking on the dunes and took lots of pictures. Speaking of pictures, they'll have to wait because my whole internet setup is being uncooperative right now.
Thursday night we drove to Haley, Idaho, and stayed in a bed and breakfast. I've never done that before - it was AWESOME! It was just this really nice, old house that has been done up to house multiple people where they feed you the most wonderful three-course breakfasts. The rooms were beautifully decorated - ours was kind of a cozy, Asian-inspired, earthy room.
Friday morning we awoke (ate our yummy breakfast of scrambled eggs with smoked trout and French croissant toast with homemade raspberry syrup) and drove up to a ski resort in Ketchum. When we walked into the lodge a man handed me a sheet of paper and told me to fill it out and sign it. Upon reading a few words on the page that stood out immediately, I said, "What? Flying? Possible death? What are we doing?" Turns out, we were paragliding. It wasn't nearly as fearful as people think, especially since we both went tandem with an experienced guide. Actually, the most fearful part of it for me was the part where we had to run about five steps downhill to get the wind in our gliders. Seeing the hamlet of Ketchum below me with the massive Sawtooth Mountains jutting up all around.
After paragliding we went to Craters of the Moon National Park for some hiking and a picnic lunch. We walked through some lava caves that were constructed by Mother Nature (and a some boiling portions of the internal workings of Earth) herself about 2000+ years ago.
Then we walked around Ketchum for a while, ate dinner in Haley and went to the Mint, which is the bar Bruce Willis owns. His band was actually playing that night, but tickets were all sold out so we couldn't go watch. Incidentally, at the Mint I drank the best margarita of my life. Well, it was really good anyway.
Saturday morning we drove up to a hot springs in Sun Valley. I stuck my foot in a pocket of water that was near a boiling temperature, so that was unpleasant. The majority of the springing experience was good, though. We were expecting more springs where we could sit and veg for a while, but these weren't that kind. Then we drove home!
Ah, but yes...Pictures to follow. I put links to things where I could in case you want to check stuff out.
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