A couple weeks ago at Rigby Lake, Scott helped the girls build a dam and some little houses. Then he showed them what happens when a dam breaks and water floods a "town." The girls loved watching the houses wash away. They didn't quite grasp the tragedy that would entail. Then Scott took the chance to educate the girls on some Rexburg history, teaching them about the Teton Dam Flood. I knew relatively little, it turned out. Youtube was quite educational. We then headed out to the dam site to look around. Tony was staying at our house for a week or so and was able to come with us!
The top two pictures are pictures of the dam. You can see on the right side of the picture where the dam broke. Basically they built an earthen dam that didn't hold for any amount of time. Like, the day the reservoir reached max capacity, the dam eroded and water flooded, making its way through Teton, Rexburg, Idaho Falls, and Blackfoot (and everything in between). Some reports we watched said 11 people died, some said 14. And thousands upon thousands of homes were destroyed or damaged. It was quite epic, apparently. I imagine the scientists who declared the building plans impermeable to water felt pretty...not great.
I don't know why the left side of the dam is eroded. Scott thinks maybe they carved it out to look and see what happened. But it used to be straight across.
We drove down some pretty sketchy roads in our minivan (scary!) We walked clear down by the river. Immediately upon arriving I spotted this little guy and Tony was kind enough to catch him for the kids! I even touched it! :S
Pretty quick after releasing the frog, Tony was dashing after this snake! Addy refused to touch either reptile, but Ellie and Grace were all into it! Ethan even touched them. He didn't really care one way or the other...
It was SO hot guys. I didn't really realize where we were going. I'd never been. Scott had been camping there before, I didn't even know if we'd get down near water. SO we were a bit unprepared. But no worries because I DID have sunscreen, so when the girls begged to swim in their undies, I obliged. Addy had already fallen in anyway :S
Tony did some fun swimming and exploring. At one point he had gone further down river to see some rocks and shortly after that came running back screaming like a little girl. I yelled to him: "There had better be some naked aborigines chasing you if you're screaming like that!" Turns out, he had seen a large snake and wanted to catch it for the kids to see. But as he let it slither past and his eyes reached the tail, it was a big rattle! Ok. I amend the previous statement. If you see a rattlesnake you are allowed to scream like a little girl! After that we were all a little more jumpy...lol
And a selfie because, hey, I want people to remember I was there, even if I was just taking all the pictures!
We had a really fun time exploring as family, hiking around, learning something new, and enjoying the hot weather. Thanks for joining us Tony! It was nice to have someone along who isn't averse to touching slimy things (Scott would probably like me to specify that he has no trouble with frogs, but, like Indiana Jones, isn't too fond of snakes...)
No comments:
Post a Comment