The Great Outdoors

Yesterday, my friend Daniel took Winston and his sister and I up in the mountains and to the hot pools near Warm Lake. What a beautiful adventure. Winston works with us at WinCo. He is 21 years of age and is the sole provider for his family which includes his father, sister and brother. What a kid. He and his family is from Berma and are now living here in Idaho. Daniel has taken him under his wing and is teaching him how to drive and wants to show him around Idaho so when he gets a car, he can take his family and show them what a great state we live in. Back to the adventure.... It's not very often that all of us have the same night off of work. Well this week we did and it happens to be the worst day of the week because of the weather. 60% chance of snow in the mountains. Did that stop us? NO! A last minute decision sent us on our adventure. Out of the city and up the mountain into the unknown....for all of us but Daniel. The weather was beautiful when we left Boise, but we hit a little snow right after we drove through Horseshoe bend. Still the adventure continued. Through the pass, with a little scare around the corner. The car in front of us was driving too fast for the conditions and spun out and hit the cement barrier along the road. Luckily, I was far enough behind him to stop safely. Daniel got out to see if the people in the other car were ok. They were, but seem annoyed that we asked. See if we help anyone again! LOL! The closer we got to Cascade, the more snow we had, but still...on with the adventure. We made a pit stop in Cascade and changed drivers. Daniel knew the way, so he drove the rest of the trip. Mountain....here we come. The roads were snowy, but driveable. We kept a safe 20MPH speed (on my orders, because it was my car!). Higher and higher we climbed up the road. A van came up behind us so Daniel pulled over to let them pass. Minor mistake. As we pulled back into our lane, we hit black ice. Not good on an uphill slope. We slowly started to spin, doing a 180 right into the snow bank. OOPS! Then we were stuck. I took over the wheel. Daniel and Winston got out and pushed. Freedom...for a minute or two. I drove a little ways, then more black ice. Same scenario. Stuck again. Do we continue? The car was turned around at that point so we back down the same way we went up. Slowly! Was the adventure really over? We drove a couple of miles, discussed it and unamiously decided to turn around a give it another go. We were too close to give up. This time we made it with no problems. Woo hoo!!! We were so glad turned back around. You can see the pools from the road, but to get to the them you have to hike a little ways down the hill. I had my camera, but the adventure down the trail did not provide a good opportunity to take pictures. Snow, ice, rock, plus steep hill equals too slippery for Sandee. Every one else went down with no problem, but me being the scardy cat, sat on my ass and slid down. It was just like being on a slide at the water park. A tiny bit colder though. Then came the hot pools. How awesome to be sitting and relaxing in a natural hot springs with the snow falling from the sky. Nature in it's glory. And to be sharing it with your best friends. I did manage to get a couple of photos after our dip in the pool. Yes it was as cold as it looks, but so worth the trip. We plan to go again soon, but camp for a few nights. Hopefully next time it will be a little warmer and less snow. Click on the thumbnail for larger pictures.