First we drove to Brigham City for dinner at the Idle Isle Cafe. It was pretty good food, but their furnace was broken so it was extremely cold. We had to wear our coats while we ate.
For most of the drive it was snowing or the snow was blowing pretty good. Most of the drive was uneventful. As I mentioned earlier, I was the first to see the Rigby Water Tower. Then again, my sister's weren't there so I had a distinct advantage. The background for that is as a child whenever we'd go to Rigby my sisters and I would compete to see who would see the Water Tower first. Turns out that I won this time :D
The one downside to not having my sisters (and their families) with us was that they weren't there to sing one of the Family Travel songs over the CB radio as we travelled. I was personally introduced to this phenomenon when my family came to Pennsylvania to pick me up from my mission. It seems while I was gone my family was introduced to a group by the name of String Fever and there was one particular song on the album that my sisters loved to sing especially to my Grandpa while we travelled. The song is Lamp Lighting Time In the Valley (those of you that know the song will now be humming/singing it for the rest of the day. For that you may curse me, but my response is simply "You're Welcome") so when the song came on my iPod just outside of Rigby, I had to play it over the CB but didn't sing, for which I'm sure everyone involved was very relieved.
As we approached Rexburg you could see the Temple off in the distance. It almost looked as if it was floating in the air. We made it to the hotel and pretty much immediately went to bed.
Friday morning we went through the Temple Open House. The Temple is very beautiful and it excites me even more to see the Oquirrh Mountain Temple as it appears to be the same basic floor plan. There is a theme of Wheat throughout the temple and everywhere you look there is the image of wheat. It's actually pretty cool. There is also a ton of wood everywhere.
I was surprised at how organized the Open House was. I remember waiting in really long lines at previous Open Houses' but not at this one, everything went fairly quickly, which was good considering we had small children with us.
After the Temple Open House we to lunch at
Big Jud's. My son has been wanting to go there for quite some time because they have the Big Jud Special on the menu. It's a large order of fries and a 1 lbs. (yes, a full pound) hamburger. He had his mind set that he was going to order it, but thankfully he split it with his Grandpa. Not only did they order this behemoth they ordered it with Bacon too. To their credit they finished it.
He ate half of it by himself. I was surprised that he was able to do so, but he did and he didn't get sick. The other thing that was great about Big Jud's is that they have
Cherry Ironport(or Ironport and Cherry as I've always called it). It's a regional drink that can be difficult to find and anytime I find it I have to get some. As a kid, we'd get them whenever we went to Idaho, so finding it during this trip was appropriate.
Nearly everyone at our table had one (or more, I had two myself) and my daughter who had never had it before proclaimed it the best drink ever.
After lunch we went to Rigby. We have a lot of extended family there and it is where my Dad was born and spent a good part of his childhood. We went specifically to go to the Jefferson County Museum to see some items that are on loan from members of our family.
When we'd go to Idaho when I was younger we'd either stay with my Great Grandparents in Idaho Falls or in Rigby. When we'd stay in Rigby it was at the Funeral Home in town. They lived upstairs, the Funeral Home was downstairs and the Trains were in the basement. I've written briefly about the train before (see this
post). My Great Grandpa built the trains by hand and I have many fond memories, as does all of the family I'm sure, of spending time with Grandpa downstairs running the trains.
Because of all of those memories is a place that I like to visit whenever I can. This time was special to me because most of my children had never been there and those that had probably don't remember it. I took a bunch of photos, in fact I finally filled up the 1gb memory card in my camera and had to switch to the much smaller 32mb card.
At first we went to the Jefferson County Museum, because there are a few items of Grandma and Grandpa's that are on loan there. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the old fashion phone, but I did get a photo of some of the trains and Grandpa's old slot machine.
I have great memories of saving my nickels (or as was usually the case, begging them off of my parents), putting it into the slot machine, pulling the handle and hearing that distinctive sound. They have it near the front door of the Museum so it was the first thing we did when we arrived. Just a note regarding these photos, before anyone starts jumping up and down yelling and screaming about under age gambling, see that piece of paper on the wall above the slot machine? It's a history of slot machines in Rigby and about how it was given to my Great Grandfather and how his son has loaned it to the Museum. You can play all you want the catch is and it states it on the sign, you can't keep any winnings, they must stay at the Museum. So in reality it's just a fun way for them to raise funds.
There are two other items that are on loan to the Museum, a doll house that was given to my Dad's aunt no too long before she passed away at age 9 and a display case of some of the trains and buildings from the Funeral Home.
After the Museum we went to the Funeral Home and saw the trains and some family members. You can see all of the photos that I (and my Dad) took here, but one of my favorites from the bunch is this one. It's some of my kids listening to their Grandpa (my Dad) tell a story about the car in his hands. I've heard the story a thousand times, but I never tire of it and am happy that my kids get to hear it too.
After we left Rigby, we did the typical thing that families with young children do when staying at a Hotel/Motel. Yup, we went back to the Hotel, went swimming and brought in some dinner. While we were at Big Jud's earlier in the day I saw a flier that advertised a Snowmobile Scoot N' Shoot that was going to be that night and the next day. It looked like a ton of fun, but since I didn't have any snowmobiles or the the time, I wasn't able to go. The one thing was that it was being sponsored by the Hotel we were staying at, so while we were swimming and eating out dinner there were snowmobilers coming and going the entire time. It really made me wish that I had some, but the event was a Polaris event, so I didn't see too many Arctic Cats which made it easier to bare.
The next morning, we went to the Rigby Pioneer Cemetery and traipsed through the snow to go see Grandma and Grandpa's grave. The snow was pretty deep, up to my knees at times, but it's always good to pay a visit to them when we get a chance. It would have been nice to have visited the graves of my other Great Grandparents buried near Idaho Falls, but their headstone is flat and we would have never found it under all of that snow.
We then went to Smitty's in Idaho Falls for Breakfast. It's pretty much a tradition that when we go to Idaho, we go for Breakfast at Smitty's. My two sons both ordered the 15 Pancake breakfast. One finished it, the other did not, but was extremely close to finished. My guess is that he still had all of that hamburger weighing his stomach down from the day before.
The one cool thing was that when we walked in my son noticed that they had Butter Rum Life Savers at the front counter, so when I paid our bill, I bought four packages of them. The problem is that my mouth is now raw from sucking on Butter Rum Life Savers, but it is oh so worth it.
After Smitty's we left for home, stopping at another set of grandparents on the way home to visit. Overall it was a very worthwhile trip, especially since we don't get there very often and we don't know when we'll be there next.
