When I asked Squirt if he wanted to go swimming this is how he looked....
Osprey
Picnic with Kathryn and Christian - and not forgetting the most important thing - Sam's solar hot dog cooker!
This is a project that has been in the works for several months. Though it has only recently been working. Sam's turning it in for a final project for one of his classes. The parabola - the big shiny metal thing - is shaped in such a way as to direct all the sunlight it catches to one point. You can direct the light and by placing the cooker in the direct sunlight you can slide a hot dog onto the skewer thing in the middle and cook it - yes - they really get cooked!
It takes about 5 minutes to heat a hot dog to where it's nice and hot. Closer to 10 minutes if you want it toasty like the picture above.
If you leave it for half an hour...
It will burn the hot dog - no that's not a shadow - it really is burned.
Squirt enjoying a solar cooked hot dog (actually he enjoys all hot dogs - he'd eat hot dogs for every meal if we would let him)
Yesterday we needed a last minute improvise to cook a hamburger. Thanks to a pickle lid, my wonderful engineer and his pocket knife - a plate was fashioned that cooked the hamburger. It sizzled and smoked like hamburgers do when you cook them on the grill. So cool! Sam's got plans to make a separate attachment to cook hamburgers - something more long lasting than a pickle lid.
After lunch it was time to float the river.
Caleb didn't mind the river...
Until he felt how cold it was.
He was not very impressed and even tried to climb up Sam's legs so that he could get out of the water. Despite the name of the river being Warm River - it wasn't really warm.
Even sitting on a tube that kept him out of the water was too much for Caleb...nope - he wasn't impressed.
Even being in the tube(s) on land was traumatic.
But when he rode down with Dad he was pretty happy.
He liked the ride until it was time to get off and he got splashed a little. I didn't know there were little kids who didn't like to splash...but we have one. (I took him to the splash park in Rexburg a few days ago and after an hour his swimming suit was still dry - pictures to come.)
Caleb much preferred doing this while the others floated the river:
So he and I sat on the bank and ate chips
and Oreos
and watched the others float past
And life was good - and we enjoyed the view
After the final run Dad insisted that sitting in a tube and watching the river was even better than floating the river - and he and Christian came up with some ideas for a motion ride at Disneyland that was like floating the river. I think they called it The Great Idaho Adventure ride...and Kathryn added that there should be a squirt bottle to get you just a little bit wet.
We went down the river a bit to feed the fish after everything was over.
I've been up to Warm River to feed the fish a number of times - but this is by far the best picture I've ever gotten of fish there. I'm so proud!
Caleb liked the wind in his face on the way home.
Silos in Ashton
We stopped here to get ice cream and mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes for dinner - ice cream because that's what you do if your last name is Robbins and you've been swimming.
The bathroom was kinda scary - but really, really clean.
And look at how beautiful the fruit is there!!! I especially love the mirrors behind it - makes it look like there is tons of fruit.
And for the Psych fans...yes, I found the pineapple
Sam got Cotton Candy ice cream and I got Huckleberry (one of my favorite flavors of ice cream EVER!)
And then we came home and had showers and went to bed. It was a long day but so fun. I think I'm the only one who ended up sunburned - and only a little on my face. We stopped by the Jet Stream on the way home just to show Christian where it was...but the water at the Jet Stream is incredibly high this year.
Like so high we may not get back here before we move. And that makes me sad. Here's a comparison for you:
I posted with the blog post from 2009 that the water was higher than normal that year - but it's nothing like this year.