The Cabin! Island Park, ID

7/16/26 - We drove up to Island Park, ID yesterday which was a scenic, 2-hour drive. After the tedious task of backing the huge camper into the small parking area outside the cabin we relaxed for the rest of the night. Then went to bed late not realizing it again, these long northern summer days have made our new bedtime 11ish, but the dogs are still getting us up around 6. We bring bear spray with us whenever we are outside (even walking from the camper to the cabin) because the cabin is only 45 minutes south of West Yellowstone and there is a very healthy Grizzly bear population here. We saw one 2 years ago during one of our floats!

7/17/26 -This morning we slept in and had breakfast late. Later, we set out for a float from Osborne bridge down to our cabin with lots of snacks and drinks. Kennedy and Mackenzie were jumping off of the raft and swimming most of the time. Near the end we were battling some pretty intense wind where Mackenzie and Kennedy had to pull Kelly in the raft. Inness took the canoe and had a fine time in the wind. We do this float every year we come and we highly recommend doing it just not in the wind or a rainstorm.

7/18/26 - Today was yet again, another exercise day, but with a little more pizzaz. Today one of Mackenzies friends joined us for a hike along the Big Spring River where you can feed the fish (but usually the seagulls eat all the food) so make sure you bring quarters. Theres a very cool cabin from the 1930s that a German man, Johnny Sack, hand built and he also hand made every piece of furniture in it. He was only 4'1" so it felt quite small and hobbit like. He also made his own power by building a water wheel that was fed by the spring.

After the fish feeding fest, we ventured on to a wonderful place called, an ice cream shop. Pinecone, a local ice cream shop that is a must go if you are in Island Park. It has sundaes, milkshakes, bagels, and real fruit soft serve. Once our delicious treat time had passed, we went to work off some of the sugar with a float and a swim at the community dock and our Grandpa, Poppi John had arrived! Mackenzie and her friend swam the whole way to the dock and then the girls had a water gun fight! While enjoying our time at the dock Inness was taking pictures of the huge male moose who loved the river right outside our cabin. We all wanted to see the beautiful creature, so we rushed back and took many, many, many more photos. When the bull moose arrived, so did our little cousins and their mom, Alicia

Bull Moose in Pinehaven

7/19/26 - Today we all geared up and went for a bike ride at Harriman State Park. Its close enough to the cabin that some of the group rode there right from the cabin. When we got there we realized that there was a Mormon Cricket hatch and migration and they were all over the road, some squished and a lot still moving along. Apparently, they havent had this phenom in over 30 years at the park! Kelly remembers as a child that her grandpa would collect these crickets for him and her brother Chris to experiment with.... so she must have been remembering when this area had the last hatch! Harriman is one of the places that you can see Trumpeter Swan pairs year after year and we saw two "couples" but didnt see any babies yet. There were also Sandhill Cranes, plenty of ducks and ducklings and bear poop but no bears.

7/20/26 - We went to Wade Lake in Montana today with our friends from Evergreen that also have a place up here, The Campbells. They introduced us to this lake 2 years ago and we love it. The water is unreal its so clear. We have fun swimming, paddleboarding and finding crawfish. It was a proper hot and windy Montana day that made the paddleboarding a real workout! Mackenzie and Poppy John also had a battle royalle in the water, the debate is still raging about who the winner was...

We left Wade Lake in the early afternoon and made our way back towards the cabin and the dogs.

7/21/26 -Today I (Mackenzie) woke up at the crack of dawn and went outside. Apparently, dad was up too so we made a time-lapse of the sun rising. It was a slow morning after that it was nearly 10:00 before everyone else was up, it took Kk a while to get out of the camper and Eira was just sitting in bed. It was Eira's nap time by the time we got out of the house to do a float. When we got to the boat launching ramp and had the raft unloaded, I saw a weird thing in the water it stopped moving and I saw it was a snake eating a fish once the snake got it's head down the rest went smoothly. So we went out on the float we had a nice float. Then out of the blue we turned a corner and... there was a moose so we had to get out of the water and walk to the cabin. later we ru into one ofmygrampa'soldfriendsand he has a gallery called http://lastchancegallery.com .

7/22/26 - We finally decided to go out fishing today after some pointers on a spot from our friend. Kelly, Inness and Poppi John left sort of early and finally were successful fishing up here. The secret was going somewhere you could use worms vs barbless flies! Kelly and John both had multiple bites and John landed 1 Rainbow and 2 small Brook trout. Kelly landed one Rainbow. They kept the rainbows becasue they were ~9-10" each but they released the smaller brookies and we had oven baked trout for an appetizer that evening. Its one of the few fish that Kennedy actually likes!

Later that day Kelly and her dad set out on the electric dirtbikes to ride around the river and have a beer on the cliff opposite the cabin. And Kennedy set up a full service Spa at the cabin :)

7/23/26 - Its leaving day, wah wah. We still wanted to get a float in so we did, then started our drive up to Montana only about 4 hours after we meant to!