The best laid plans....

It had been raining all week. Not all day long, like it does in Oregon, but more like a Hawaii rain, without the warmth, of course. So nothing like a Hawaii rain. But off and on, an hour of rain here,  then sunshine, then an hour there, then sunshine.

We were getting cabins ready for the busy summer season. So much to do...touch up paint, sand and stain, put out outdoor furniture, deep clean grills, clean up yards from trash left out in winter that got buried in snow 10 feet deep. I was on a roll. My brother had come to help, and worked me so hard I could barely walk by the day's end.

Our clean-up had produced about 4 loads to take to the landfill. Save that for Saturday, May 16, the last day before I was to leave for home, I told myself. Get it all at once. Friday night I went to bed with rain coming down hard. It was too noisy to be considered white noise, but I was too tired to care. I fell asleep hard, but sometime during the night noticed the lack of noise. The rain had stopped.

The rain had stopped, all right, but something typical of Island Park took its place. Little did I know that the silence I was experiencing meant my four loads of landfill fodder were being covered in 6 inches of snow! I woke up Saturday ready to get to work to find all my plans foiled. But how could I be disappointed when looking out the window of The Gathering Place I beheld this sight? So I took the morning off, relaxed in the recliner, turned up the gas fireplace and enjoyed a typical Island Park spring day! I love this place!

#islandpark #yellowstone #islandparkcabin

Moosen!

Moose are awesome. And I love that I get to see Moose almost every time I'm in Island Park. I usually see them in the Henry's Fork of the Snake River, as it passes through Mack's Inn. Often I see them up at Johnny Sack Cabin at Big Springs. I have seen them on Island Park Dam Road, near the reservoir. And I have seen them casually crossing the highway.

I have never seen a moose in Yellowstone National Park, but I did find a fantastic CD of "moose tunes" at one of the gift stores in the park. It's by Brent Holmes and is called "Moose Tunes for Kids".  Even as I think about it, I can't get the tune to "There's a chocolate moose on the loose..." out of my head! He has a great CD about Bears also. Google him...you'll find options to buy, and if you have small children you are taking through Yellowstone, they will love it. The great thing about Brent's CD's is the tunes are not irritating to adults (well, some adults, anyway) like most kids' tunes.

Anyway, back to why I love moose. I think it is because they are so seldom seen, at least in this part of the world. So when I do see one,  I feel as though I am looking into a secret world that is normally kept hidden from me.  They seem so confident. I have never seen one run away when it encounters humans. In fact, it seems to almost be challenging humans. Like "Go ahead...Make my day!"  They seem to tolerate us if we keep our distance, so I'm not afraid of them like I am grizzly bears, but I know they can do some serious damage if angered.  Which is why I talk to them in happy tones, from a distance :)

About Island Park Yellowstone Cabins

Welcome to Island Park Yellowstone Cabins! I love everything about Island Park, Idaho, and this blog is dedicated to helping you, the reader, learn about Island Park and come to love it too. It is also dedicated to those of you who already know what a special place "The Caldera", as we affectionately call it, is!

I manage a handful of cabins and lodges in the Island Park area. It all started one year when my extended family decided we would like to rent a large cabin somewhere and have a family reunion. I had stayed in Island Park once, many years prior, and suggested the location to the family. They were game, as most of them had never been to Yellowstone National Park, and none had ever been to Island Park. 

We stayed in a great cabin in a quiet, wooded area. Although we did a lot of Yellowstone exploring, we found that we loved hanging out in Island Park as well. We went to Mesa Falls, Big Springs, and Mack's Inn, where we saw our first ever moose! We went horseback riding in Harriman Park, and whitewater rafting near Yellowstone.

Strangely enough, Dad was absent a lot of the time. He was off wandering, we thought, which was not unusual for him, as he often had a hard time sitting still and relaxing. What we didn't know was the whole time he was off wandering, he was really looking for a cabin we, as a family, could purchase! He was having such a great time that he wanted us to have a place of our own where we could get together as a family whenever we wanted. 

Well, Dad found a cabin...a 3900 sq. ft home in the Mack's Inn area.  That was fall of 2004. We didn't have the funds to just go buy a second home, so we decided we would rent our home out to vacationers, with the goal of giving families a place where they could make wonderful memories as we had done at the cabin we rented. After remodeling and decorating, we opened for business Christmas of 2004, naming our cabin "The Gathering Place", as we hoped it would become for many families. It worked, and we have been renting our cabin out ever since, and have used it numerous times for our own gatherings. I eventually decided to manage a few other cabins, and so Island Park Yellowstone Cabins was born!