Island Park and Northeast Idaho

An American Pelican near the Snake River in Island Park ID

On June 2nd, 2012, we headed out of West Yellowstone, towards our new home for the week, The Island Park Village Resort http://www.islandparkvillageresort.com/ . We decided to use a week from our time share bank and get off the road to pamper ourselves a bit. This place is a bit of heaven. A condo community surrounded by a golf course and with tennis, swimming pool, sauna, bikes, you name it, at your finger tips. We thought it'd be fun to just hang out and explore a place we'd never even heard of. Well, lots of other folks from nearby and way far away have heard of Island Park. If you fly fish this is ground zero! There were people all over in the rivers doing the national sport here. Food? If you like Trout (as Mary Ann does), you've come to ground zero for the local delicacy. The little Island Park Lodge http://www.islandparklodge.org/index.html serves up some of the best we tried. I even had some fresh Halibut, and it was perfect also. This is not upscale cooking, but cooking with the freshest ingredients and keeping the preparation basic to let the natural flavors come through. Simple idea, but not so easy to execute! The Trout is caught within a few miles of this place. On my birthday, Mary Ann had to come up with the best burger place around (my usual request for my birthday and New Years Eve dinner). That honor went to Boondocks.  A great, juicy burger and a glass of wine....ahhh. Life is good. 

Boondocks

There are many more surprisingly good eating places in this mostly rural vacation spot. We're looking to a return sometime to try some. Our week off the road, with Harvey parked basically right in front of our condo, went by like a flash. We toured around the area lakes and streams, crossed over the beautiful Snake River a lot, saw another moose on a hike, and drove down to Idaho Falls ( a mere 60 miles to civilization) for some shopping, banking, and a quick look around. On the morning of the 5th of June, we woke up to a pretty solid snow, so we had a snow day. We put on a fire in the fireplace and didn't work much. It was pretty surreal talking to people in Texas who were complaining about the 100+ degree temperatures though. Our next move, after this little vacation from the rigors of our chosen lifestyle (we kid!) is to go back around to do that extended visit of The Tetons. After all, we're still in the area. Only trouble is we can't seem to find a good place to stay near Jackson Hole. Mary Ann was browsing some magazines when she stumbled onto an ad in the back of one of them. It read something like..MOOSE CREEK RANCH, weddings, events, horseback riding, beautiful setting, 3 rv hookups. She showed it to me and said, "Call. Maybe this is the place we're looking for." I did. It was. Can't wait to tell you about it next.....