kidswhotravel

Idaho Falls, ID

Idaho, travel

Idaho Falls, ID

“If Idaho Falls can’t help ya, I don’t know what would, but God, I hope you’re doing good.”

“Mountain Girl” by Shane Smith & the Saints

When Dan and I decided to make this dream a reality, we knew we were going to need some time getting our boots wet and testing the proverbial waters on what we would need for full time living. And we already had plans on the books to spend the month of July back home in Maryland and Pennsylvania. After we finished clearing out our townhouse, the only logical thing we could do was to move our rig closer east. By moving the rig east to Idaho Falls, we were able to cut four hours off our drive… and when you are on a close country road trip, four hours can make a big difference!

We had never travelled to Idaho Falls during our time in Boise. My goodness, we honestly haven’t even scratched the surface on all this amazing state has to offer. And Idaho Falls did not disappoint.

Situated on the Snake River, the town was was actually known as Eagle Rock until 1891. That’s when it was renamed to Idaho Falls after a series of rocky rapids in the middle of the Snake River. And while those falls have changed a lot since the late 1800s, they are still an integral part of the town. A dam was built in 1912 along the falls to help power the growing town, but that was destroyed in 1976 after the Teton Dam disaster. What was rebuilt is, in my opinion, a marvel of modern technology. There is still a dam in the center of town, but it was integrated beautifully into the flow of the river. It is the least obtrusive dam I have ever laid my eyes on! It still, to this day, is the center of the city.

As mentioned before, Idaho Falls was a place for us to figure out how live in a 400 square foot space. Most of our time there was spent transforming a toy hauler garage into a kids’ bedroom/classroom/playroom, organizing the under storage of our rig’s “basement,” and installing various items we had bought to help make full time travel a bit easier.

That being said, we did get to do some exploring! I’m still trying to figure out how best to organize this blog… whether to write our travels in a story or to write some blog posts on the best things to do? Maybe a little of both? Give me some ideas if you have preferences one way or the other. But for now, here are our top things to do in Idaho Falls, if you ever find yourself in the area!

Top Five Things to Do in Idaho Falls

1: Walk or Ride the Greenbelt

We encountered the Greenbelt in Boise and fell in love. A walking (or riding) path, spanning both sides of the Boise river, that went on for miles. We absolutely loved being able to take the kids bike riding on the path, and the entire time we were walking along the river.

Imagine our surprise when we found out that Idaho Falls also had a Greenbelt, which also spanned both sides of the Snake River! The Greenbelt spans five miles on each side of the river. As you walk, not only do you get amazing views of the Snake River, and the aforementioned Idaho Falls dam, but you also get beautiful landscaping and plenty of picture vistas. My kids especially loved the moss animals that were art installations made out of metal and different moss types! You can find a map of the Greenbelt here.

2: Visit the Idaho Potato Museum

Okay, okay, so the Idaho Potato Museum isn’t really in Idaho Falls, but it is not that far and Idaho Falls serves as a great jumping point for so many great day trips. The Idaho Potato Museum is located just south of Idaho Falls in Blackfoot, Idaho. And what is a visit to the heart of potato country, without a stop at the museum honoring the famous crop! I can’t even begin to count how many people said to us, upon learning about our move to Idaho, “What are you moving there for? Potatoes?!” And I mean, Idaho loves their spuds… there is even a license plate out here devoted to a buttered baked potato.

Some interesting facts about potatoes that we learned while at the museum:

  • Idaho produces nearly 1/3 of all the potatoes in the United States. Of that, 50% of those potatoes come from the southeastern Idaho counties. You can thank the rich volcanic soils in the area for that.
  • There is actually a potato goddess – and while she is of Incan mythology, she still exists! Her name is Axomamma and she is the reason the Incans worshipped the potato.
  • The root is the only safe part of the potato plant to eat. The fruit, leaves, and stems are all toxic to humans.

The potato museum was very small, but cute. The kids loved looking at some of the farming equipment used to farm potatoes, enjoyed the entire kids section complete with several boxes of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head parts to play with, and the gift shop.

To end our visit, we stopped at the attached cafe where you can get snacks of potatoes. We each had a loaded baked potato for lunch, and it was fantastic.

I know the kids learned a lot because on the way home, they were identifying potato plant fields left and right. We also found (after some desperate searching) a farm stand on the way home and bought some fresh from the field potatoes. We used these for our state tastings… there’ll be a blog on that later.

3: Stop at Reed’s Dairy for Ice Cream

I like ice cream, but we try not to indulge too much. But after a day out exploring, we passed this dairy farm and I just had to stop. I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing the ice cream (and milkshakes!) were! Kinsley got a treat of huckleberry milk – she was so excited that it was purple. Our favorite ice creams were the maple, the huckleberry, and the cookie dough! There are two locations in Idaho Falls, and we definitely recommend a stop! You can find their website here!

4: Take a Day Trip to Craters of the Moon National Monument

I am in the midst of writing a separate blog post all about Craters of the Moon, but I thought it was such a worthwhile visit, that it should be listed here. Located about two hours from Idaho Falls, you can find Craters of the Moon National Monument. It is a surreal landscape shaped by volcanic eruptions from thousands of years ago. It is also one of the best places to observe the changes that eruptions can make the surrounding ecosystem.

You can spelunk in lava tube caves, hike up cinder cones, and the kids can do their junior ranger badgework! I don’t want to go in any more detail than that, but Craters of the Moon is well worth the visit if you are in southeastern Idaho.

5: Visit the Idaho Falls Zoo

Dan got tickets to the zoo as a surprise for the kids who went through a time of a lot of stress and anxiety as we prepared for the move into a fulltime lifestyle. I was expecting the zoo at Idaho Falls to be something very small, but I was incredibly impressed upon arrival! I would rank this zoo as better than the Boise Zoo, but shhh, don’t tell anybody.

We had so much fun looking at all the animals. They had lions and lemurs and snow leopards! The best part is that it was incredibly evident how much time and effort the zoo staff put into caring for the animals and their enclosures. Everything was clean and well-decorated.

Perhaps our favorite part was the face painter. We decided to splurge and let the kids get their faces painted, something we almost never do. And the lady who worked there did not disappoint! Kinsley wanted a peacock, which turned out beautifully. Addy wanted a unicorn. But perhaps, my favorite, was Levi’s – who wanted a snow leopard. It wasn’t one she offered, but said she thought she could whip something up. It was amazing!

Idaho Falls Honorable Mentions

  • Costco: I mean, we stop whenever there is a Costco in town, but we were so surprised when this Costco had DIESEL fuel!
  • Grand Teton National Park: Grand Teton is only a two hour drive from Idaho Falls, and along the way, you are rewarded with some spectacular mountain views, especially when you drive over Teton Pass. We spent a day in Jackson Hole and then took a drive through the park. Why not a top five? Because it deserves a whole blog post devoted entirely to a multi-day trip!
  • Snow Eagle Brewing and Grill: We took the kids out to eat on our anniversary here and the food was great. The beer flight was even better!

Mountain River Ranch Campground

I can’t finish a blog about Idaho Falls without singing the praises of the campground where we stayed. The Mountain River Ranch is located in Ririe, Idaho, about twenty minutes outside of Idaho Falls. It is nestled close to the Snake River and is the absolute perfect retreat. I would recommend it 10/10 to anyone looking to camp in the area.

It is under relatively new ownership and the new owners are doing an outstanding job of building the campground into the perfect getaway. There are beautiful campsites (water and electric only), a yurt, some cabins, and even an old camper you can rent out to stay in. The owners helped us as we were transitioning into the lifestyle, helped us find storage for the month we were home, and received our mail for us. I am so thankful to have been able to spend two and half weeks total here.

Follow along on our adventures: @our_pickett_fences

A New Adventure

About Us

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Lao Tzu

So many people have asked us why we decided to take this leap. Why did we decide to sell literally nearly all of our belongings? What prompted us to downsize our 2700 square foot house and move into an RV with only about 400 square feet? How can we possibly stand being together in such a small space… all… the… time?

It’s hard to answer that question, to accurately explain what this journey means for us and our family. So, I guess the best explanation is to start at the beginning.

Dan and I have been traveling since we met each other. Some thought us crazy, but after only seven months of dating, we embarked on our first cross country road trip to Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. Two weeks, multiple states, ten national parks… we came back stronger in our relationship because of it. A year later, he surprised me with a trip to Glacier, and it was there that he proposed to me next to a waterfall on a hike. Having kids never slowed us down. We went on our second cross country road trip to the mountains of Yellowstone while I was pregnant with Levi. I will never forget the 13-mile hike we did together down the backside of a mountain in Grand Teton. When Levi came along, we ventured to Tennessee and Maine and lots of other states on the east coast. Then the twins arrived, and we went to Florida and Grand Cayman and Mexico. When they were two and Levi was five, we took our third cross country road trip, back to Yellowstone. And then, just last summer, we picked up our entire family and moved across the country to Idaho.

The idea of living on the road always seemed like this pipe dream. When Levi was born, we would go on these trips and joke about the idea of traveling for a year or two before settling down in some mountain town in Montana or Colorado or Idaho. But that seemed like such a crazy idea. I was still teaching, homeschool was not an option for me at the time, and Dan had far from a remote job.

But then, COVID hit. And if there was anything that COVID taught us, it was the importance of family. We were told to hunker down and ride the wave and suppress the curve. We all became homeschool moms and dads… the majority of companies became work from home… and we did everything… together.

It was during the camping season of 2020, the year we used camping as our escape, that Dan and I really began to think “what if.” We found ourselves using camping as our way to continue to live while the world seemed shut down. We traveled that summer to Kentucky and Tennessee. We traveled to North Carolina and upstate New York and so many Pennsylvania state parks. And during his first grade year, we opted to homeschool Levi. And it worked… we flourished!

But the weekends we weren’t camping, it became depressing. We felt boxed in. We had the same monotonous routine. We all stayed in the same house, oftentimes isolated from friends and family members at the behest of our leaders. And our mental health suffered. I found myself wishing for something more.

I also looked at my kids and mourned my time lost with them. I was so angry at COVID for ripping two years away from my children’s childhood. So many days that we didn’t spend with friends. I still am in disbelief that in the early months of COVID, we went without giving our grandparents hugs and we went without seeing our friends. I blinked and my children were older. My son was going to be entering second grade and my little toddlers now had their own personalities with no more baby faces.

In early 2021, we started watching YouTube videos of these families that traveled full time in an RV. We started researching layouts and dreaming of this life on wheels. This life that gave us the opportunity to “live again.” We even went so far as to pick out the perfect rig. We traveled two hours north of our home in Pennsylvania and toured some Cyclones and fell in love with so many of the features. I had even made homeschooling work – as my son was thriving in first grade under my instruction. But… there was still one thing missing, and that was the remote work.

In late spring of 2021, we got an opportunity to move our family across the country and be near the mountains. The mountains have always seemed to call my name. It wasn’t a remote job, but it was a good job and it was out west. We moved to Boise, Idaho and rented a townhome near downtown. And it was lovely. The mountains were so close, and there was so many outdoor recreational opportunities available to us! We had so many amazing experiences.

When Dan was offered a position that was full remote, we took it. We took it originally because it gave us the opportunity to search for property outside of Boise. But, when we began searching for a home, we were in disbelief at the housing prices! It just seemed like this wasn’t the right choice for the moment.

And the wanderlust still called.

We started looking again and talking again about going full time. But it seemed like such a hurdle. Actually, it didn’t seem like a hurdle… it was a hurdle. It was a huge hurdle. But, we decided to take that leap.

We toured a rig. After talking about it, we decided to put down a deposit. By the time we called back, that rig had been sold (it was only two days). We found another rig and the next day attempted a deposit. It had sold earlier that morning. We realized then how difficult this was going to be.

All in all, if there was a hurdle to leap, we definitely leapt it. Supply chain issues affected our purchase from start to finish… the camper, the truck, even the IKEA furniture we needed to convert our back room. We sold more than half of our stuff… again. The remainder we paid to ship back across the US to move into storage near our family homebase. We’re still attempting to complete minor renovations inside since we had nowhere to park the rig in Boise.

There were so many times we thought we should just throw in the towel.

But, I sit here typing this on the back deck of our new toy hauler… our new home. We just arrived and our site is overlooking a mountain landscape and a lake.

My three kids just rode by in front of me on their bikes. And it made me realize, we did it. We actually did it.

We did it for those three kids. Those kids who will grow up with experiences beyond any I’ve had myself. Those kids will bond with each other, will learn from their mother and their father, and will continue to develop a love for nature, for the outdoors, and for the many people all over this great nation who have made it what it is today.

They say that we only have 18 summers with these kids… and man, is it true. Our kids are already eight and five and are growing like weeds.

And so, in a long, circuitous, roundabout way… that is why we did this. We did it for our kids. We did it for our family.

So, here’s to our adventure. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

Follow along on our adventure: @our_pickett_fences