What better way to celebrate America’s National Day then by having a rooting, tooting, shooting, rafting day. Today is the anniversary of America’s Independence Day, and also our last day at camp. We had a breakfast of fried eggs, pancakes, sausages and hamburger patties and Drew insisted that we have these all in one pile covered in lashings of maple syrup. Now to some of us Aussies and other cultures, this might sounds quite gross, but it was in fact really, very delicious.
We then packed up and cleaned up as best we could, to head off and do some good old American style shootin. The Killpacks have quite a few different guns and we all had fun using the different types. Mostly .22 rifles, but they also had two pistols, a .357 Magnum and a World War II Barretta Pistol. We went to this little quarry to shoot at cans and bottles and boxes. Almost immediately upon pulling up another group of people, two guys and two girls, pulled up to the quarry as well to shoot their guns. Their guns were a lot meaner, a lot nastier and a lot noisier than ours.
This proved to be a little unsettling for Jodie, Courtney, Thomas, Tamzyn and Genna as they have never really been around guns or heard guns being fired before. The .357 Magnum Pistol was our loudest gun, and Thomas’ reaction to firing this was a classic, which I captured on video. Everybody fired all the guns and Thomas is convinced that we should buy a couple of .22 rifles when we return to Australia.
We then drove back to camp, packed up all our stuff and the camper trailer, left the camp ground and drove several miles down river. We then left the caper trailers in a parking area and blew up a large rubber, inflatable boat and three tubes. Drew had decided he was going to take us rafting and tubing down Henry’s Fork. Blowing up this boat proved quite interesting, it had five individual sections, which we blew up with the little inflatable pump that we bought in California for our air mattress. We then had to use the hand pump to finish pumping up the five sections, even though the boat felt quite inflated, Drew explained that when the boat gets on the water which is quite cold, it cools the air, therefore lowering the pressure in the boat, so we needed the hand pump to pump up the boat to the highest possible pressure. This was a bit of hard work.
We then tied the boat and the tubes to the back of Drew’s truck and heading up to the damn wall of the lake that we camped beside and skied in. We then all set off to raft and tube down the river. Because of my hamstring, I went in a tube by myself. I think this ma have been a mistake, as the water was freezing, and as you went through the rapids they would brake over your head right into the center of the tube and into your lap. Whereas in the boat you sat higher and dryer.
The tubes although floating freely, were tied to the rubber raft by ropes. Everybody in the boat took grate delight in splashing the people in the tubes. Thomas then decided to join me in my tube and we floated together for about a half and hour. After much coaxing, Jodie finally decided to join me in the tube, which was funny, especially when she first got in. But it was quite fun. We felt like teenagers again. We then floated to our pick up point and our hope was to pack up and head to the 4th of July parade at West Yellowstone, but rafting the river with 16 people proved to take longer than hoped. Kayden’s work was going to have a horse carriage float that we were going to sit in and participate in the parade, but unfortunately with the drive back up to West Yellowstone we would have missed the start of the parade. So we decided to drive back to Rigby to the Killpack’s home.
I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude and found myself in a silent prayer of thanks to my heavenly father for the blessing it has been to come on this holiday with my kids and my wife and to have great friends like the Killpacks. It’s been 6 years since they’ve lived in Brisbane with us but it seems like it was just yesterday. Everybody picked up where we left off. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to them tomorrow. Idaho is such a beautiful state.
Even as I was driving and looking out over the lush farmland, driving past Rexburg looking at the Temple across town on the hill in many ways it’s not hard to see why scripture refers to this great land as the modern day promised land.
What a relief it was to get back to the Killpack’s house and all the mod cons like hot showers and indoor plumbing. Drew and I organized dinner and I took the opportunity to charge my computer, all the kids cameras and the video camera. Jodie and I then did 2 loads of washing so that we could pack up and head to Utah tomorrow. Then there was a pleasant surprise. Kayden finally worked up the guts to ask Courtney out on a date and I think the person who enjoyed this the most was Drew, cause six years ago when these kids were ten, Drew used to say to us in Brisbane, “I’d love it if Courtney and Kayden would grow up and get married.” They went to see fireworks in a nearby town , rode quad bikes and watched movies. It was a fun night and I think they both had a good time.
In fact all of the kids, the Killpacks and the O’Reillys stayed up very late watching movies, again as if it was six years ago at our usual family gatherings in Brisbane. Drew and Jill kindly gave Jodie and I their bed while they slept in the camp trailer out the front, which I think Drew really liked because the camp trailer is air-conditioned. What a great 4th of July, here are some pics below, please enjoy.
We then packed up and cleaned up as best we could, to head off and do some good old American style shootin. The Killpacks have quite a few different guns and we all had fun using the different types. Mostly .22 rifles, but they also had two pistols, a .357 Magnum and a World War II Barretta Pistol. We went to this little quarry to shoot at cans and bottles and boxes. Almost immediately upon pulling up another group of people, two guys and two girls, pulled up to the quarry as well to shoot their guns. Their guns were a lot meaner, a lot nastier and a lot noisier than ours.
This proved to be a little unsettling for Jodie, Courtney, Thomas, Tamzyn and Genna as they have never really been around guns or heard guns being fired before. The .357 Magnum Pistol was our loudest gun, and Thomas’ reaction to firing this was a classic, which I captured on video. Everybody fired all the guns and Thomas is convinced that we should buy a couple of .22 rifles when we return to Australia.
We then drove back to camp, packed up all our stuff and the camper trailer, left the camp ground and drove several miles down river. We then left the caper trailers in a parking area and blew up a large rubber, inflatable boat and three tubes. Drew had decided he was going to take us rafting and tubing down Henry’s Fork. Blowing up this boat proved quite interesting, it had five individual sections, which we blew up with the little inflatable pump that we bought in California for our air mattress. We then had to use the hand pump to finish pumping up the five sections, even though the boat felt quite inflated, Drew explained that when the boat gets on the water which is quite cold, it cools the air, therefore lowering the pressure in the boat, so we needed the hand pump to pump up the boat to the highest possible pressure. This was a bit of hard work.
We then tied the boat and the tubes to the back of Drew’s truck and heading up to the damn wall of the lake that we camped beside and skied in. We then all set off to raft and tube down the river. Because of my hamstring, I went in a tube by myself. I think this ma have been a mistake, as the water was freezing, and as you went through the rapids they would brake over your head right into the center of the tube and into your lap. Whereas in the boat you sat higher and dryer.
The tubes although floating freely, were tied to the rubber raft by ropes. Everybody in the boat took grate delight in splashing the people in the tubes. Thomas then decided to join me in my tube and we floated together for about a half and hour. After much coaxing, Jodie finally decided to join me in the tube, which was funny, especially when she first got in. But it was quite fun. We felt like teenagers again. We then floated to our pick up point and our hope was to pack up and head to the 4th of July parade at West Yellowstone, but rafting the river with 16 people proved to take longer than hoped. Kayden’s work was going to have a horse carriage float that we were going to sit in and participate in the parade, but unfortunately with the drive back up to West Yellowstone we would have missed the start of the parade. So we decided to drive back to Rigby to the Killpack’s home.
I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude and found myself in a silent prayer of thanks to my heavenly father for the blessing it has been to come on this holiday with my kids and my wife and to have great friends like the Killpacks. It’s been 6 years since they’ve lived in Brisbane with us but it seems like it was just yesterday. Everybody picked up where we left off. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to them tomorrow. Idaho is such a beautiful state.
Even as I was driving and looking out over the lush farmland, driving past Rexburg looking at the Temple across town on the hill in many ways it’s not hard to see why scripture refers to this great land as the modern day promised land.
What a relief it was to get back to the Killpack’s house and all the mod cons like hot showers and indoor plumbing. Drew and I organized dinner and I took the opportunity to charge my computer, all the kids cameras and the video camera. Jodie and I then did 2 loads of washing so that we could pack up and head to Utah tomorrow. Then there was a pleasant surprise. Kayden finally worked up the guts to ask Courtney out on a date and I think the person who enjoyed this the most was Drew, cause six years ago when these kids were ten, Drew used to say to us in Brisbane, “I’d love it if Courtney and Kayden would grow up and get married.” They went to see fireworks in a nearby town , rode quad bikes and watched movies. It was a fun night and I think they both had a good time.
In fact all of the kids, the Killpacks and the O’Reillys stayed up very late watching movies, again as if it was six years ago at our usual family gatherings in Brisbane. Drew and Jill kindly gave Jodie and I their bed while they slept in the camp trailer out the front, which I think Drew really liked because the camp trailer is air-conditioned. What a great 4th of July, here are some pics below, please enjoy.
The safety brief from Drew & Jil
Genna Shooting the .22 rifle
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Thomas shooting
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