Love, Love, Love

Saturday morning we went to a coffee shop in downtown Ketchum. It is a little place called Java. Chris had a cup of joe and Lauren had a chai tea latte. With our drinks, we walked over to the town square (where we have been spending A LOT of time) to enjoy our drinks and read. We pretty much read all day until Lauren could no longer stand the pain in her butt from sitting. We then left and explored the town some more. We found out that this weekend they were hosting an art festival in Atkinson park, so we joined in on the festivities. We walked up and down the rows of art exhibits. The hand carved wood displays, photography, and paintings were our favorite ones to observe. There were some pretty incredible artists there! When we were finished, we sat at a table to listen to the bluegrass group that was playing for the festival. In Lauren's opinion they were playing some good ones: Hey Good Lookin' and The Preacher and the Bear. Lauren was thoroughly disappointed with the latter, no one can sing it like Andy Griffith! We forgot to mention in an earlier post that Ketchum caught fire! Not really Ketchum, but the Sawtooth National Forest seven miles away. The sky looked pretty crazy that night as the smoke was engulfing the sun and making it blood red! We then headed to camp and made dinner. We had something besides sausage for the first time since we started camping; we had chicken! We savored this meal, bite by bite, and then went to bed.

Sunday, August 11, 2013, we celebrated our first anniversary! Woo hoo! It was done in high fashion. First, an epic mountain bike ride on Ketchum single track. Then a romantic bath. Actually, we dunked our heads in the Big Wood River and tried not to get any of the sand or rocks stuck in our hair. We cleaned our legs and arms from the sweat, dirt, and blood we had gained since our last semi-bath. We donned our best clothing, which wasn't much, and headed to town for dinner. But first we stopped to relax for a while at the square. We ate at Ricco's Authentic Italian. It tasted more like microwaved imitation Italian. Despite the taste, we ate our entire meal, can't let food go to waste when you are on such a tight budget! We left dissatisfied and still hungry, so we went to Smoky's Mountain for their gluten free pizza, sundae, coffee, and a hot cider. It could not have been more different from our first two weeks as a married couple when we were in Italy. After our sundae we drove back to our campsite and shared two plastic cupfuls of white wine from the Amalfi Coast and sat in the back of the Isuzu pickup watching the sun set. We shared about some of the things we had learned about each other in the past year. We toasted to the past year, full of blessings and reasons for falling more in love with one another, and also to the future!