Finally...our Anniversary meanderings...

We began our weekend by dropping the kids off at Chris' folks house and then going out to eat to the Chinese Buffet down the road (I know, lame lame lame...anyhow we shouldn't have bothered because the food all tasted the same and totally wasn't worth it. Oh well, you live and learn!)

Then we headed back to Twin Falls and grabbed some of Chris' favorite snack (Peanut Butter M&Ms at Target) along with some pillows and some other snacks from our house and headed over to the DRIVE-IN!!!! Chris and I hadn't been to a drive-in since one of our first dates so that was a lot of fun! We played good old SKIP-BO while we waited for the movies to begin. First we saw WOLVERINE and then 12 ROUNDS, both great shows!!!

The next day:

After a leisurely morning of sleeping in (and being suprised with breakfast in bed by Chris) we decided to get in the car and start driving! Our first stop was in the countryside outside of Wendell, Idaho (about a 20-30 minute drive from our house)

BOX CANYON PRESERVE:

When we got there (after missing the parking lot and turning around)

we followed a mile long path down through fields...

tumbleweeds...yup, we're still in Idaho!

as you can see it looks pretty boring....

and then we saw this:

For those of you who may have trouble reading this sign it says:

DANGEROUS CANYON RIM

USE EXTREME CAUTION

PARENTS PLEASE CONTROL YOUR CHILDREN

Chris and I got a good laugh out of that and then after walking a few

more yards we came upon this:

That's a canyon....out of the middle of nowhere...and it's a long way to the bottom! I was reminded that Chris is deathly afraid of heights as he wouldn't even go near the edge and freaked out every time I stepped an inch closer to take a picture!!!


The blue water is natural hot springs and the reason why it's so clear is because the water bubbles up from underneath the ground (they are called blue hidden springs)

The water was so pretty and made such a beautiful noise- it was hard to believe that just seconds before we'd been strolling down an old dirt road

And then, back to the sagebrush for our walk back to the road...

Along the way I decided to take some pictures of the old pivots in the fields. I really love photography and especially capturing graphic images that you don't see by just looking at an object normally. I try to capture with the lens the details of what actually makes something what it is...what I wouldn't give for a Nikon D60!!! (hint, hint!?!?)

Since I'm a COWGIRL WANNABE and a JOHN DEERE fan

I thought these pics came out pretty cool...

And then we went to BUHL....

(all I could think of was "Buehler, Buehler..." when the teacher from "Ferris Buehler's Day Off" was taking attendance!)

Along the way I made some friends and they let me take their picture...

Once we got to BUHL there wasn't much to see and not many options for lunch and since Chris was "STARVING" he ate at Arctic Circle while I tried some Mexican Food from Senor Habaneros (I should have had the burger and fries!)

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From there we drove WAY out into the "Williwacks" as we say in Maine...just to see the "Famous" BALANCE ROCK

There "she" is in "all her glory" sitting alongside some old forgotten

highway in the MIDDLE OF NO WHERE!

They hardly had a sign marking her existence!

Reportedly this beauty "balances" on a width of only 3 feet...something like that....

... another trek and up the hill we went...I told Chris that I was going to go to the top and have him take a picture of me standing beneath it- he couldn't let me show him and his fear of heights up so he made the daring climb of death to have his picture taken as well (it only took him a half hour sliding down on his bum and holding on for dear life to get down!)

.

I made it down in about 5 seconds!

Chris facing "the enemy" as he prepared to climb to the top

I occupied myself with picture snapping while he made his arduous climb

And here he is, at the "Top"...I feel okay that I'm slightly teasing him about his fear of heights and his wussy attempt to face his fear because he has tortured me over the last 7 years by making me watch scary movies with him (I have an over-active imagination, which paired with scary movies doesn't mix well with me when I often wake up during the night and can't sleep...)

...Anyways, I climbed to the top next and took a picture of "the view"

That's me, under the rock...I was hoping for a close-up but I guess I wasn't specific enough

when I asked Chris to click a picture...

After we got back down to the car we drove into a little park down the road that has some picnic areas. I almost killed myself while scaling a smooth-faced rock just to get this pic

On the way back into "civilization" we passed by this AWESOMELY PERFECT VINTAGE FORDand Chris was nice enough to oblige and pull over so I could spend the next 15 minutes walking around someone's front yard clicking pictures.

Here's some of the coolest ones...

This wheel was actually on the back left wheel of the truck!

The truck had obviously been "patched up a little" since the front half was FORD and the back half was an INTERNATIONAL truck bed...I've always wanted a INTERNATIONAL SCOUT (and a VW BUS!!!)

As we drove out of BUHL towards the HAGERMAN Valley we were followed by a beautiful wide rainbow (this was the best shot I could get as we were going about 65 mph)

THOUSAND SPINGS, HAGERMAN:

Back before this area of the Snake River had a power plant which has diverted a lot of the natural springs there were literally thousands of springs that spouted out of the rock walls of the canyon. Today there are still several large springs cascading down the rock:

We drove all around Hagerman and saw some pretty reservoirs and a few interesting sights.

Hagerman is actually the site where they discovered the "Hagerman Horse" which is in the Smithsonian-

We also went to Devil's Washbasin to see this waterfall that is unfortunately hidden from view along the highway because the Interstate goes right over it (wouldn't you think that they could have moved the road over a few hundred feet?!)

Because the river is so narrow between the canyon walls right here is creates a lot of force when the water is finally squeezed down through the waterfall (hence the name Devil's Washbasin)

We ended our wonderful weekend together by eating some delicious "steak nuggets" (small pieces of very tender and juicy steak) at The Montana Steakhouse right around the corner from where we live. The food was delicious but they really should hire a different interior decorator!

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Then we went home and TRIED to rent a nice sappy love story to watch but couldn't find anything from the "Black Box" in our lobby so we ended up watching the Will Smith movie, "SEVEN POUNDS" which was good but SLOW and somewhat DEPRESSING!

Oh well, off to bed for another wonderful night's rest and a morning of sleeping in!!!

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(Thanks mom and dad Graf for watching the kiddos!!!)