Santa Claus Came To Town!

The middle of our winter road trip brought us to Declo, Idaho, Population 338. If you’re wondering why I’m spending my Christmas in a random town, don’t worry, I’ll tell you. The Kunau Family comes to us courtesy of my Dad’s second marriage. In his words, his first “lasted 35 days…just long enough to not get it annulled.” His second wife came to him from his ranching days in British Columbia. Apparently he saw her building her log cabin with her bare hands and knew she was for him. She had a 4 year old daughter named Norma that my Dad stayed in touch with over the years after he moved to Colorado and they seperated. Norma’s two girls, Delaney and Rayn, just love him (and buddy). My dad visits them relatively often and I even helped build one of the girl’s first bikes a few years ago for my dad to bring up here. It was nice to finally meet the people my dad speaks so much of. And let me tell you, I fit right in. They own about 400 cattle and were bringing home “fresh” meat for dinner. I found out later that you don’t actually want meat fresh. The steaks we had for dinner our first night had been hanging for 21 days. Normally Richard will only hang his cows for 14 days to age but he heard a lot of people doing it for 21 days so he tried it on this 1400 lb beast…. I’ll just say that 21 days was perfect! Talk about fresh tender steak. And of course some potatoes, because what would you be if you came to Idaho and didn’t eat a potato. 

We had to run for this one, it was raining a bit!

After dinner it was like being back in Auburn. We turned on the Boise game (people around here don’t talk about kicks, or field goals, or anything related to a school called Nevada… apparently all the big wigs here already had plane tickets and hotels for the Rose Bowl…) and all sat around having a few drinks and just getting to know each other. I knew I belonged when we were talking about the equestrian team at Auburn and Norma said  “You know the difference between equestrian girls and rodeo girls? .... equestrian girls jump poles… rodeo girls jump bars.. the drinking kind.” They’re a big rodeo family; Delaney showed me some of her buckles she’s won and some of the pictures from her competitions. She’s 11 years old and beat a senior in high school this summer to win the barrels. 

On our first full day here we got up and did a little ranch work. Fed the horses, bunnies, cats, dogs, pony, etc. And then Delaney and I headed up to the mountain to snowboard for half a day. Sitting here now I can tell you I’ve missed the sore feeling that comes from that kind of activity. It also didn’t help that I was completely confident approaching my first ever box, hoped right on and fell (more like tumbled) right off. I laid there for about 2 seconds, laughed, and got up. My wrist can definitely feel that today. Luckily all the girls got in the hot tub last night so I think that may have helped a little… Whistler should be interesting that’s for sure.

That night we went to Edith’s Restaurant… “Home of the best burgers in town” … and also home of the only restaurant I’ve ever been to without a menu. You can only get one thing (two if you include some of the best, most fresh French fries I’ve ever eaten… Idaho sure knows how to do potatoes) and that’s an Edith’s Burger! Edith is the guy that owns the place and he knows everyone that walks in the door. His meat is the freshest you’ll get at a restaurant and it was by far one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. I definitely didn’t mind that I only had one option. 

It was a little sunny, we couldn't keep our eyes open

Christmas Eve consisted of sleeping in, lazying around, playing video games with the girls, doing more zip lining (I forgot to mention earlier, but Richard put in a zip line for the girls and I was the first adult to try it out.. video to follow) and just kind of hanging out. For dinner we had one of the biggest roasts I’ve ever seen (from the same 1400lb beast we had steak from the other day). After tracking Santa for a while online and helping the girls make sugar cookies to leave out we all headed to bed. 

 

 

Rayn is so small she fly's up when she gets to the end!

Christmas morning has been thoroughly enjoyable. This is the first Christmas I’ve just sat back and watched the joy that comes from kids seeing what Santa brought and trying to be patient to take turns opening gifts. I also heard from a certain someone in Madison that they woke up to a WHITE CHRISTMAS! How exciting is that?! We are actually happy about not having a white Christmas here (granted, there’s still snow on the ground the mountains right up the road are still covered) because my dad and I are leaving in  about an hour to head up to Seattle for the next leg of our trip. 

Hope everyone else has enjoyed Christmas as much as we have.