Honeymoon to Island Park!

Our original plan for our Island Park trip was to come up here and fish our guts out with a few intermittent trips to Yellowstone in between. On our way here, we picked up some year long Idaho fishing licenses and a fly tying kit so we were stoked and ready to slay some hog.
When we got here, we realized that Idaho has the most confusing fishing rules we've ever seen. Luckily we decided to stop at the local fly shop for some guidance on where the best place to fish was. We learned that most of the rivers and streams around here are closed! All we could fish was Island Park Reservoir which is huge and difficult to fish, or we could drive all the way back to Ashton or we could head up to Madison and buy another fishing license to hit the hot fishing spots. Not wanting to buy another license, we headed to Ashton the first day and tried and tried on every part of the river that was legal to fish and didn't catch a single thing. Ben and I each got a bite but we didn't land any. Bummer

Ben holding up the biggest fish we caught the whole day: his fly.

Being happy standing by my dirty car that was so tastefully decorated by our friends and family, even though we told them not to touch it. Thanks guys... at least it was cute:)


Second day we went up to Yellowstone and within 10 minutes of being in the park we pulled off onto Riverside Drive and saw this:

A small pack of gray wolves feeding on a moose or buffalo... not quite sure which. They were across the river so we felt safe but they were so huge!!! These pictures seriously don't do them justice. The two light wolves were smaller but still way bigger than me and the dark wolf was just massive!!! I think he was either hurt or old or both because he was limping on his front right paw and instead of going for the good meat that he'd have to rip off the bones, he went for the soft parts that had been cast aside by the other two.

On our way out of the park we stopped by here again the the small wolves were gone and so was the carcass but the big wolf was there laying in the grass still soaking up some sun.

This elk we saw along with a small herd of cow elk along the side of the road. We were so excited at first we took tons of pictures but then we realized that elk are seriously everywhere in Yellowstone so the excitement quickly wore off.

This is the firehole waterfall that was so cool, Ben wanted to kayak it... thank goodness that's not legal. Yikes!

This chipmunk was hanging out around the firehole swim area and him and his buddy scared me half to death by jumping out of the rocks all of a sudden right next to me. He was a little stunned to so he stuck around for a bit to let me snag this sweet picture.

Ben posing near the swim area... unfortunately way too cold still to swim.

Yes, this picture was taken through my windshield in the parking lot. He decided to jump on my hood instead of fly away when a car came to park right where he was standing in the next space.

Honestly can't remember what this hole is but the pools are my favorites with all the cool colors and this was a fun picture of both of us.

One of my favorite sites called Red Spouter that kind of reminds me of a mini version of the top of a volcano. In the summer it's thicker mud instead of the red water but either way it's pretty cool.

I think this was Fountain Geyser or something like that...

This is just next to Excelsior Geyser and Grand Prismatic pool. It says that Grand Prismatic pool pours out 500gallons of boiling hot water per minute into the firehole river!

Grand prismatic pool!

Grand Prismatic pool... again with both of us.

Ben stretching outside the bathrooms in the parking lot.

Cool picture of our car... With a Bison right behind it!

Stretching again in Black Sand Basin. His back was hurting so he stretched the whole time!

Old Faithful... of course!

Whoa! It's still going!


Ben and I decided after Yellowstone we needed a slow day so we hung around the cabin (which was fine in the bad weather. He worked on tying flies and I played with the puzzle my dad got me. It was a very good day. The morning was a little too eventful though... First of all I must explain the doors here in the cabin: when they're locked you can go out but you can't come back in. Ben and I decided to take my dad's advice about swimsuits being optional in the hot tub and went out for a peaceful morning soak. You guessed it... we didn't check the stupid doorknob and as soon as we shut it we realized what we had done. We were locked out! ...naked! Yikes!!!! I remembered my dad saying there was a lockbox with a spare key out front so Ben grabbed the towel and went for a little walk in search of the key while I waited in the hot tub. I finally grew tired of waiting so I threw on the sarong that Ben for no apparent reason brought out with us and wandered around the yard too. We found the box but didn't know the combination... and we had no cell phones. After fiddling with different numbers for a while I sucked it up and walked to the neighbors to ask for a phone to call my dad. The neighbor answered and luckily he actually had a spare key! As I walked across the yard back to our cabin he yelled out to Ben: "Hey, next time you get locked out... put some clothes on first!!!" Moral of the story: when it comes to the hot tub, always bring a spare key with you!

Ben playing with his fly tying kit. He's so good at it it's taking him over.

Later that day we decided to go fishing so Ben drug out our little raft and trolling motor and drove us across the lake

It was pretty cold and we struggled with the lines getting tangled in the wind for a bit and the boat was taking on some water in the bottom but it was a very fun little outing and a perfect end to a very fun "lazy" day.

Ben fishing across the lake with his home tied wooly bugger flies! We didn't actually catch anything but we felt some real hits... we also felt a lot of false hits. I can also proudly say that I caught the most "grass pikes." (literally a large string of grass... exciting at first but a real let down when you realize your "fish" isn't actually fighting.