19 Years

For our anniversary this year, Michael and I decided to leave the kids at home overnight, for the first time. Spoiler, they were fine. House didn't burn down, no emergency room visits, people were fed, and the house was mostly clean when we came back. 

While the children were behaving mostly competently, Michael and I enjoyed renting a cabin at Bruneau Dunes State Park. We just kicked back and relaxed.

The cabin was charming and we enjoyed having a little space to ourselves. We planned on attending the star show at the observatory but I just didn't have the energy to be around other people, so we stayed in. Later we noticed the clouds had rolled in as well, so we hadn't even missed anything.

The next morning we enjoyed the view, packed up the van, and decided to go on a hike. Michael wanted to go on the two mile loop. I wanted to go on the six mile loop, over the top of the big dune. As it was already getting warm, we decided to do the shorter loop. 

It was probably a wise decision. Except, we missed the marker where we were supposed to turn. The trail is very, very poorly marked once you reach the sandy areas. We wandered around, heading in what we hoped was the generally correct direction until we found ourselves at the base of the large dune, in full sun. We got my desired hike after all, but Michael was floundering. He can usually out-hike me any day of the week, but he does not deal well with heat, and there was absolutely no shade. I was having visions of having to hike out and find a ranger to bring a four wheeler back for him. Once we made it over the big dune, we found a massive sage brush to sit under. Cool blessed shade. We had also brought a lot of water, which proved to be very necessary. Once we got Michael cooled and hydrated, he felt a lot better, and was able to continue. Which was good because we had another mile or two to go.  

We did finally make it back to the van, three hours after we started. Thankfully we were all packed up already. We refilled our water bottles, used the bathrooms, and headed towards home. We stopped at a little Mexican restaurant drive through in Mountain Home and pulled into a park with lots of shade to eat. Best meal I've eaten in a long time. Hunger will do that every time.