Anyone whom I’ve talked to recently can tell you I probably mentioned how the hamster wheel has been going full tilt around here lately. Last week was the kids’ final week of swim lessons, I had a VBS planning meeting at church, Grandma was in town, and I had an LWML convention all weekend. Combine that with all the regular day to day stuff and we had a lot of fun but were incredibly busy. That’s why you aren’t getting this until almost a week later.
Most of the week we just had fun playing around the house. The weather wasn’t cooperative for doing much outside, but Grandma know lots of cool stuff to do indoors and is great entertainment. Pictures, play-doh, baking cookies (and birthday cupcakes) there is never a dull moment. In the photo above right is Grandma teaching them Crazy Eights. She also got to go see their final swimming lesson.
Friday we decided enough is enough and escaped down to Hagerman. We tried going to Ritter Island, but despite the posted hours of “Fri – Mon, 10am-3pm” no one ever showed to open the gate onto the island proper. Guess it’s a loosely used schedule…. Not to worry, we wandered out to Lemmon Falls instead. The kids giggled about standing in the mist of the waterfall. They also found a teeny little rock slide and as the children of a road engineer they just knew they needed to clear said slide and had a great time pitching rocks into the water.
If you ever question or wonder why I’m so paranoid about my kids and the edges of things like cliffs, bridges, canals, rivers…..below is why. Seriously, they don’t compute the danger in their minds and they are not always the most graceful of things. He’s having a blast and mom is having a minor heart attack behind the lens. 
After Ritter Island we wandered over to the Hagerman National Fish Hatchery. We hit pay dirt there as the volunteers were on staff and we got a private tour. The don’t bring the fish eggs down from Stanley until June, but we still had a great time learning about the facility. While she was showing us some de-nitrification pumps used to adjust the levels of nitrogen gas in the water to a level desired by baby fish the kids found a little toad. Kevin said I should kiss it. I told him I already had my prince and passed.
Note: In the picture the toad is right in a patch of my nemesis burr Buttercup (aka curveseed butterwort aka Ceratocephala testiculata ) which grows eagerly on every patch of bare ground in our yard. Thankfully it responds well to Glyphosate and a rake, but it keeps coming back year after year.
The last part of the tour was the best. We’ve been down to the hatchery before, but I wasn’t aware that is was okay to pet the large sturgeon they have in the runway by the picnic area. According to the tour guide the fish actually seem to enjoy it. You lay on your stomach and dangle your hand in the water and the fish swim right up and rub their backs along your hand!
That was the best! When asked what it felt like Jack said, “Silky.” A fairly apt description aside from the boney parts their skin (well cartilage really) is very smooth to the touch, albeit a little slimy. These aren’t little fish either. Most were at or over 6 feet from bow to stern. There were also some trout in the run that Jack wanted to pet too, but those trout wouldn’t cooperate. Despite his best efforts, trout just don’t like backrubs, so we stuck to stroking the sturgeons.
Poor Emilie was a bit short-limbed to reach the water. Kevin helped, but I also got the impression that Emilie thought he was trying to dunk her in the drink. Eventually one sturgeon was kind enough to swim right up at the surface so she could touch it.
I don’t know that there is much else to do in a day that will top petting behemoth fish but we meandered down to the NPS visitor center for the fossil beds anyway. They are really well set up to handle kids and we had a grand time exploring and learning about fossils. Plus, no trip out the Thousand Springs scenic byway is complete without a stop at Cloverleaf Creamery on the way home.
We timed our return home well too. It started to rain as we came into Buhl and continued to just pour buckets for the rest of the day.
That night was the first night of my LWML convention which was so incredibly fun and enlightening….but I’ll do a separate post about that later.
