Snowmobiling is one of Mountain Dad’s true joys in life. His Christmas gift a month ago was the Polaris RMK 2013 model, seen here with me riding.
So we had been looking forward to this snowmobiling trip for a while. Island Park has some amazing snowmobile trails and everyone who comes to stay in the winter comes with that purpose in mind. I had never seen snowmobiles driving right up to the gas station or congregated in groups greater than thirty, but that’s the norm here in snowmobiling heaven.
Unfortunately Mountain Dad wasn’t able to fully enjoy this Mecca of snowmobile culture. While unloading the truck he re-injured his sore rib, an injury he received by falling off his snowmobile three weeks before. On the drive up he was feeling pretty positive about the injury so it was a slap in the face when he hurt himself before the trip really even started. Well, I guess it was more a punch in the chest. My doctor sister who was on the trip with us said it was most likely broken and the only real treatment was to let it heal on its own. Needless to say Mountain Dad was bummed…and in pain. Great start to the trip!
Since Mountain Dad was out of commission we decided to have a ladies’ ride. Although snowmobiling is not my first choice for a snow sport, it is extremely fun. I got to go fast and see beautiful trees and scenery. Even my niece Cara enjoyed riding along with her mom. It was, truly, a ladies ride and lots of fun.
That wasn’t the end of the day, however. Big E needed to get out of our two bedroom condo, for all of us to have some sanity. As nice as the accomodations at
Island Park Village Resort are, an exuberent three-year-old can’t be contained for long. We took Big E and his cousins, Tyler and Ryan to the clubhouse for some swimming. Here they are in snow boots, coats and swim trunks.
I really liked the clubhouse, since it was full of fun activities for kids. A ping pong table, foosball table, movies, arcade games were available for kids plus a sauna and workout room for adults. There was a WARM pool, which was amazing, two smaller hot tubs and a kiddie pool only two feet deep that was the perfect temperature for a kids hot tub. Together with my sister Heather we made whirlpools, played Marco Polo and splashed…a lot.
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Big E does not know how to swim on his own yet. Usually we have him in a life jacket at all times, but of course, I forgot to pack that. So instead I was on full time life guard duty. And let me tell you, that kid would’ve drown fifty times over had Heather or I not been right there the whole time. He is a wild child who can’t touch the bottom of the pool, yet jumps in with grand gusto at every turn. Whether an adult was in the pool to catch him or not he would jump in to the middle of the pool then flail and kick until someone who could touch the bottom helped him to the side.
His favorite phrase of the day was, “I want to do it myself!” which was usually accompanied by him pushing my arm away from holding him up in the water. I thought of just letting him figure it out on his own but it caused me too much panic. At one point he stood on the side of the pool and fell straight backward without even looking behind him. He is fearless…I don’t know that it’s a good thing.
Day two came to a beautiful end and even though Mountain Dad was injured most of us had a really good time.
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Author: Mountain Mom
Hi! I'm Mountain Mom. I live with my husband and three young kids near the mountains in Idaho. When we're not hiking, biking, skiing and camping, I like to spend my time doing Mom stuff and reading.
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Hi Susan,
My name is Jane and I'm with Dwellable.
I was looking for blogs about Island Park to share on our site and I came across your post…If you're open to it, shoot me an email at jane(at)dwellable(dot)com.
Hope to hear from you soon!
Jane