I had promised on my instagram to have this out yesterday evening. However, as I was typing the little solar lantern died and I was tired and ended up just going to bed, so now that the kids have their breakfast, my second cup of coffee is getting warm, and the bus is clean enough, I sit to finish what I started yesterday. What a beautiful day yesterday was. Let me continue to go backwards because why not?
We’re listening to our evening story having progress towards the ending in the third book of Inheritance by Christopher Paolini. Atreyu really enjoys the story and it really gets better as the author matured. We’re parked next to a lake and the highway is rather close so there’s that noise smog going on but at least it’s not the train horn blaring multiple times as what was going on all last night at a probably way nicer campsite though.
The lake kept the kids occupied for a long time as we skipped rocks and waded in the water. The kids played that the floating dock was a boat and we busted out some sidewalkchalk. Did some good homework and ate dinner.
We only drove like 20 miles to get here from Lava Hot Springs which is a little town beautifully wedged in a mellow Idaho mountain range. We had spent a few hours at the pay for hot springs which has 5 beautiful pools of varying degrees above 102F. The pools and shade are amazing and the kids had a wonderful time diving and floating.
After, I was about to take the kids for a walk, but this local dude walked up and started talking to me about bugus. He proceeded to show us the walk up the river to the little swimming spots and the natural hot springs. He gave me some incense from the local shop that made the whole bus smell sweet on our subsequent drive.
We had spent the night only a five minute drive up from Lava Hot Springs, which is only about 11 miles off the Interstate. The campsite was situated right off the main road and with the traintracks right next to it. But the path up to the crest of the mountain looked beyond enticing and I’m almost sore we didn’t stay there an extra night, though I didn’t appreciate the trainhorn waking me the night we did stay there. I’d had an alarm set for waking up at 7:30 since my kids seem to finally start sleeping longer into the morning and I wanted to be up early to take the dogs up the hillock, however I ended up just muting the alarm and snoozing on anyway.
Here’s the end of my backwards story, but I have more to tell. We’ve been trying to stay mostly in campsites. I have this shift in my head that I want to truly just enjoy our trip instead of mentally stressing myself out about money and things. I’ve been trying to prove my being in whatever way and I’m kind of done about it. I want to see more off the path and more campsites than Walmart and truckstop parking lots. This is the year I wish to not only truly feel at home, but actually relax in this beautiful life I’ve been building. I feel like I’ve been building for years now consistently trying to improve our situation, even when it didn’t need improving, and in that process I neglected some part of myself.
Sitting in the Walmart parking lot in Idaho Falls was fine, though some late night yelling made me nervous. Last night was much the same about it in this campsite though too. I picked a spot a bit too prominent and people pulled into the site probably on their joyrides. This was shortlived, though and I believe I only mildly registered one train.
I wanna spare y’all the potato museum story, as it was somewhat how I expected a potato museum to be. I will load a couple scenes of that onto youtube as the kids enjoyed it. It was good for the three or four rooms they had, but, really, it was mostly origins and development and farming developments of the vegetable, very little about the different types of delicious preparation of it. The guy in Lava Hot Springs who showed us around said that it seems Idaho-ans prefer people to believe that the only thing in Idaho is the potato and keep the gems like his little town a hidden jewel. I think that’s stagnant and somewhat selfish, so here I am elaborating that behind the fields are jewels and they are worth visiting and seeing.
Today I’m planning on driving us into Soda Springs to harvest some natural soda-water and let the kids run. I wonder how large the town actually is as I have a hard time gauging actual size off of map images. I am hoping for a hardware store where i may purchase some fly netting to put over the window gizmo ripped it out of in the trailer and some more so I may make some for the bus too. I also need some short screws to finish our toilet with the little funnel I constructed out of an old water bottle. And I could use a laundromat…..
Any way! Imma finish up this writing thing and start adding my frills with pix and such.
I hope you have something to be grateful for and I hope you have a reason or the strength to share a smile.
At this point, I must say that we do run on donations and I greatly appreciate your contributions. Every little bit helps and gets us to explore just a little more of this exciting world. I accept donations via CashApp: $MatildaBugus and paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/matildabugus
If you’d like to peek at our Amazon wishlist follow the link below. We really appreciate those special wants/wishes/deferred needs finding their way to us possibly via your help! https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3LUAOP5L0M5FY?ref_=wl_share
We now have merchandise ready for you to order! Represent and support at the same time! We love these shirts and we love you! Check it out!
https://matildabugus.bigcartel.com
Also I started this campaign: https://gofund.me/cbaa9246 I very much hope to get any support. share this link or share some love or something. We need help.
Matilda the Bugus 