Road Trip! Over the weekend Tyler and I joined my family at Lava Hot Springs for a fun weekend get away. Lava Hot Springs is located in Idaho just a two hour drive from my home. It's a tiny little town and is easily passed by, but it's totally worth the stop! Lava, as my family calls it, is a grouping of natural Hot Springs. They've been built into several separate pools that serve as natural hot tubs. The water is naturally heated and the main pools have 4 separate pools that vary in heat. The pools are very relaxing and full of natural minerals. However the pools are my least favorite part of Lava. They're far too hot for my liking (I'm a total wimp about water temperature and don't enjoy hot tubbing). The best and most fantastic part of Lava is the RIVER! I love love love playing in water and the best part of going to Lava is getting to raft the river! The river is heated naturally just like the pools but it's actually not very warm (think warm swimming pool), which is totally fine by me. This river is perfect for rafting, it's not super wide, has some slow flowing sections with just enough rapids and dips to make it super fun. If you're adventurous enough there's even a waterfall you can raft down! My family starts our ride of the river at the same spot every year and it takes us about 20 minutes to ride from the top to the exit point. This year we got a fantastic surprise. The entrance spot we use used to be just a steep hill down to the river with lots of rocks and it was actually quite dangerous to get down. This year they had put in a walking trail with a platform to launch your rafts off of. It’s pretty awesome and made getting into the river super easy! I honestly love rafting the river more than I can explain and it's the highlight of my trip. In past years I have played it safe though. Never really being adventurous. This year I decided to change that! I decided to try the waterfall! I thought I could handle the waterfall as over previous years my younger sister and cousins (ages ranging from 6 to 12) went down it several times. Well as Tyler, my cousin Amanda, and I went over the waterfall things went anything but smoothly. The waterfall has two exit points to it. A nice smooth one that flows over a larger bolder and is a fun ride, another that is a straight drop off that causes the tube to go vertical. Well as you can probably guess, our tube went vertical and it was so not fun. As we went over the edge I was going backwards and went down first. Directly above me was Tyler. As we spilt over the edge, Tyler fell down towards me. He ended up kicking me in the face and gave me a bloody nose and a fat lip! I got a totally hilarious video of it and you can watch it below. You can totally hear Tyler yell “I kicked her in the face!!” and then hear me yell “Tyler get off me! Well the fiasco with the waterfall didn’t keep me off the river, I rafted down it for another 3 or so hours. However I did not go back down the waterfall. But don’t let my story keep you from the waterfall. Other members of my family went down it almost every trip and had a blast. Just keep yourself on the path to the smooth decent and you’ll be totally fine. Here's some more photos and videos of me going down the river :) For those of you who are not adventure seekers, Lava is still a fun destination. The little town is so charming. There’s several little shops and restaurants. This trip my family didn’t eat out but in past trips we always visit the Wagon Wheel. It’s a cute little place with good breakfast food. The town also has plenty of places to stay, lots of hotel options including two right across the street from the Hot Springs. Lava also has camping options which my family uses. We stayed at Mary’s Place. It’s a tent and RV camping site and is located just outside of the main town entrance. Our spot this year was located very close to the road and the train track making it extra loud. But if you don’t mind the occasional train horn the campground is really nice and shady. In addition to the river and hot springs, there's a pool that is actually pretty cool! We didn’t visit it this weekend but have in the past. The pool is heated by the hot springs and has some cool waterslides, two of which go over a road. Overall I had a fabulous trip and hope to return to a family favorite weekend destination. *Kylie
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AuthorHi! My name is Kylie. I'm 21 years old and am married to my best friend! I love my wonderfully normal life and hope you do too. Archives
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