Our Yellowstone Trip - Swimming in Island Park

Following on yesterday's post, after going back to the cabin to change, we headed down to Island Park, Idaho - just a few miles away - to take the kids swimming in the North Fork of the Snake River.  The water was much to cold to actually swim in, but the kids had a lot of fun just wading in the shallow river and playing on and off the dock, pictured below.

The following short video clips just missed Levi running the length of the dock and jumping in the river at its end.  You can get a sense of his exuberance in the above photograph.  Before we knew it, he had charged down the dock and off the end.  The video picks up with him coming out of the water.  He, as well as all the kids, were just enjoying the heck out of themselves.

Things then took an even more interesting turn when Levi spotted a small fish near the dock.  Then, the hunt was on.

Mark upped the ante when he told the kids that he'd give $20 to whoever caught a fish first.  That's when things got really serious.  Nathan joined in and spent the next hour or so, wading up and down the river, trying to catch a fish with his hands.

Meanwhile, the Quads moved upriver, taking their search further afield.

When we first arrived, we were the only ones on our side of the river.  But we were eventually joined by a couple of families who appeared to be related.  One of the kids had a BYU T-shirt on.  At first, only the wives and the kids would come down to the river.  The three husbands kept their distance, standing in a group up in the parking lot, talking and looking on.  

I suspected that they were trying to figure out what the deal was:  why were two mature men with these five young kids?  I had noticed similar looks that morning in Yellowstone, at Old Faithful and at the Wolf and Bear Center, and I would experience it again throughout the remainder of our trip.  People would look at Mark and me, and then at the kids, then back at Mark and me, a quizzical look on their face.  I could just see the wheels turning in their minds and the conversations they were having with themselves:  "Could those guys be gay?  They don't look like brothers.  I mean, I've heard of gay couples adopting kids, but I've never heard of a gay couple with *five* kids!  What the ... ?"  I just smiled.

Finally, after searching for at least an hour, Nathan rose up from the water and yelled, "I caught one!"  By then, at least one of the husbands from the parking lot had apparently decided it was safe to come down to the dock, and both he and his kids were well aware of the hunt that was going on.  Everyone turned to look at Nathan.  These pictures say it all:

It was a fun, fun afternoon.  Such a simple activity that didn't cost anything but from which such memories were made!  

Finally, the time had come to head back to the cabin and heat up that Costco lasagna that we had brought.  We had a nice dinner on the deck of the cabin, then retired to the living room to watch Green Lantern together.  It had been a good day.