"All I Wanna Do"

by Sheryl Crow

All I wanna do is have some fun
I got a feelin' I'm not the only one...

We just got home from a great trip to Lava Hot Springs. We were fortunate enough to get to go with our very best couple friends, Aubrey and Bryce, and Scott and Brittney. We really had a blast. We are so greatful to have such awesome friends. I went to junior high and high school with both Brittney and Aubrey and we've all been friends the whole time. Aubrey was actually my best friend ever since I could actually say the word "friend" and I am so glad that we're still so close, and especially that our husbands get along as well as they do!

We drove up there on Friday night and set up camp at this little campground near the train tracks. It wasn't exactly the most peaceful place to camp, but it was nice. We set up camp and headed over to the hot spring pools. I was pretty impressed that Mike endured it as well as he did because he hates the heat, but I was in heaven. It got pretty hot at times but it felt so good! After that we went back to camp, made s'mores and went to bed. It was really comfortable on our air mattress however I just about froze to death that night.

The next day we went tubing down the Portneuf river. Aubrey, Bryce, Mike and I wanted to start up at the waterfalls--actually Aubrey and I did and our husbands lovingly followed their adventure-seeking wives. :) Aubrey fearlessly jumpped on her tube and took off down the waterfall but went off the wrong side. We couldn't see her and after a few minutes I started to worry so I jumpped on my tube to get down there. Aubrey's husband attempted to give me a push but sent me way too far and I was about to go off the wrong side of the falls too. I tried to stop myself and instead fell out of my tube right at the edge of the falls. I was attempting to hang onto my tube and hang on for dear life as the current was pressing so hard against me. My tube flew out of my hands and luckily Aubrey, who was doing just fine, caught it at the bottom of the falls. I however was stuck right in the center of the falls and struggled really hard against the current to save myself from sliding all the way down the lava rocks to the bottom. Some really nice girls helped me get across the falls to calmer water. I asked Mike if he still wanted to go down the falls and he (thinking I meant that I wasn't going to) said that he didn't want to. When I asked if I could use his tube then he was pretty upset that I was still going to go. Against his better judgement I used his tube and went over the falls. Bryce went before me and did just fine. I however did not do so well. I guess I wasn't arching my back enough and I sortof slipped down in the hole of the tube. As I went over the falls my back ripped all the way along the lava rocks on the way down. OWIE! Luckily the water was so cold that as we spent the whole day running the river over and over again it was pretty numb. Unfortunately I got ripped up on quite a few rocks along the way with my ankle and my hip all ripped up too, but none quite like my back. It was so much fun though and inspite of my cuts and bruises I went over the falls every time we started back up at the top of the river. There were 2 waterfalls and the first one is the one I got ripped up on but the 2nd one was the one that I really couldn't master. The first couple of times I flipped every time we went off the 2nd falls but on the 3rd and 4th times I managed to stay in my tube but never quite mastered the art of going off at the right point for the landing to be smooth. It was fun though.


My favorite part were the hot pots on the sides of the river. Here and there, there were little pools of hot water that you could sit in. Some even had these hot waterfalls pouring down into them. At times the water would honestly be scaldingly hot. We'd sit in the little river pools (still in the river but off to the sides) and we could see the little bubbles erupting from down in the earth. It was pretty cool. I couldn't help but think of the movie Dante's Peak (lame movie, I would not recommend it) when the couple are in the hot pot and the volcano erupts and they all die. I'm glad that didn't happen to us. :) I know there are not volcanoes in Idaho, but it was pretty dang hot! :)