Lava Hot Springs

Summer has finally started!!  David is very close to finishing summer school... which means we can play!!!  And so we did this past weekend (July 29th)!!

We took a trip to Lava Hot Springs just across the Idaho border!  Okay I've always wanted to go here, well, since I heard about it that is...  When I was young I took trips to the Salt River tons of times with family or friends.  It's a lazy river that you can float down for a couple hours or all day.  Well, Lava Hot Springs is somewhat like that with a river you can float down as well as some hot pools to relax in on the side of the river or in a separate area.  But, the Lava River is a much faster river with rapids where you may flip and hit yourself on some not-so-forgiving lava rocks in the river.

So our dear friend Shayla invited us to come along with her big group going... sweet!  While we were the ONE married couple compared to about 25 singles, we tried not to be too much of the awkward marrieds.  It was lots of fun to be able to go with a big group, we only knew about 5 or so going, but that was fine with us.  We drove up Friday evening and camped at Lava.  We hung around the campfire and watched everyone chat about dating and getting older.  I totally remember those days and know their feelings, and I feel pretty lucky to have found my man.  They all, especially my friends, are such awesome girls, they'll find their men too when it's right.

Anyway, we woke up and enjoyed breakfast and packed up all our things while also putting on our swimsuits.  We drove to the river, rented tubes for 2 hours, and the 30 of us headed down the river for the first time.  To be honest, I was fairly nervous after hearing how FAST it goes... I was thinking "lazy river"!  Silly me.  But we went down with our friends each time and had about 4 of us holding each others tubes all the way down.  And it was SO FUN!  Really, I could do it over and over.  At the same time I saw many scratched arms, backs, legs - that I realized the more we went down, the more likely we'd get hurt too.  So, after we were done, the best part for me was watching everyone else fall/float down the river.  There was one part that if you went down the right side you'd flip (I totally did and David pulled me up right after, without dying!) so I loved watching that part.  We grabbed a bite to eat at the famous burger joint and then drove home.  And crashed... camping is little sleep and then riding the river used up all our energy.

Well, totally want to do that again - someday I want to do white water rafting, but until then this is a nice substitute and we don't even need a guide :)