Beautiful day with my beautiful lady!

Karen and I took the boys with us this time and they had a ball. We had a ball too so it was good for all of us. We went out to a little town called Arco and had breakfast at a little cafe called Pickles Place. The food was good and I even bought a hat that says Pickles Place, Arco Idaho. I needed a hat since I had forgotten to bring one and my bald spot would have gotten totally burned in the nice sunny day we had.

There is a hill behind Arco where each year the graduating class has a tradition of painting their year on the rocks so we stopped at this little park to take some pictures of it. It turned out that it wasn't a park at all but a memorial for an old WW2 submarine. The caretaker saw that we were parked there and he came down and showed us around. We really only intended to take pictures of the cliffs and all the dates on them but as it turned out we got a history lesson too. As you can see they had the conning tower of the old sub mounted on a slab of concrete and it was certainly not something you expected to see this far from the ocean. Of course I had to have a picture of my favorite model and her boys sitting next to it.

After we left there we went to the Craters Of the Moon National Monument and along the way we stopped at this scenic overlook to take some pictures. That's where I took this picture looking back toward Arco which was way across the valley against those mountains in the distance. The loop road in the monument was still closed for the winter so we didn't get to drive around in there but we just figured we could come back later after it warms up some.

We continued on to a little town named Carey. Just outside of Carey is the Carey Wildlife area and low and behold, they have bass, bluegill and even perch in there. We talked to a couple of guys who were there and they said there are some 5 lb bass in that pond and the old fisherman in me was chomping at the bit for coming back to this place. Karen has a small boat and there is a boat ramp so we plan on coming back with it next time. This is nothing more than a series of canals lined with cattails and fed by a hot spring, and it looks just like the Flemming unit at Honey Lake where I used to fish all the time. When I walked down to the little boat ramp I saw a 8 or 9" perch swimming there and boy, I really want to catch some of those guys.

After stopping in town to get something to take with us for lunch we came back the way we came to a dirt road that led to a reservoir called Fish Creek Reservoir. We found a little spot off the road near the creek to sit in the sun and eat lunch and talk and we even got a little sun burned doing that. Good times to be sure!!

We checked out Fish Creek Reservoir and some of the ranches up that road and this picture is looking up Fish Creek above the lake. The snow is melting and it was really nice and warm so all my whining about being cold was ancient history today. On the way back we stopped at this little roadside hot spring and there were several people there so we took a few pictures and left them alone. It's not that hot but warm enough to soak in and it's hidden from the highway even though it's very close to it. A cute little spring and I'll have to come back and sit in it sometime.

So it was a memorable day and we had the best time talking and being together and enjoying the warm sun. It just doesn't get much better than this!