Idaho, Day 2

After a bit of a lie-in, we joined Amy and the boys for breakfast.  What a hostess.  She made us waffles!  We talked some more, and Amy mentioned that her father-in-law processes skulls for people.  He's got these flesh-eating beetles and the uses to strip a skull, and then he preserves them somehow.  The whole process sounded fascinating, something I had certainly never thought of doing.  Then Amy let drop that she has a whole skull collection.  What?! This was all too intriguing to not see, so she brought up a large box full of skulls.  She showed us all sorts of animals, big and small, and we compared and contrasted.  She had mice and voles, a skunk, a beaver, a bobcat, and several bears.  Some were roadkill, others were from a hunt.  All of them were super interesting and we learned all sorts of things as she shared them with us. We saw the olfactory pockets, the suture lines along the plates, and guessed what the animal might be and if they were herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores. 

These are all bear skulls.

You can tell age not only by size, but by how closed the suture lines between plates are.

We came to Idaho a day earlier than we really needed to because we were certain there would be things to see and do.  We wanted to help with any wedding preparations, too, so we planned the day's activities based on James and Alisa's needs.  We agreed to meet James, Ethan, Murray, and Cory around lunch time to pick up tables and chairs, but that gave us a bit of time in the morning.  Not too far from Eagle where we were staying was the Warhawk Air Museum.  We thought we'd give that a try.

The museum is really interesting.  It began as a place to see old military aircraft, but then people began dropping off WWII memorabilia.  The founders saw a need to preserve history from a personal perspective, and the focus of the museum changed.  Donations from community members are on display with the goal of educating future generations about national and local history.  Families of local veterans and the veterans themselves have donated one-of-a-kind collections of uniforms, photos, medals, gear and written narratives describing battle experiences.  Personal histories are attached to display cases, and the museum invites veterans to come and have their stories recorded and preserved, both at the museum and at the National Library in Washington, DC. 

We saw a wedding dress made from a parachute, read telegrams and letters, and saw lots of uniforms, medals, and military equipment from WWI through the Cold War.  Although not huge, there was an extensive collection of all sorts of fascinating things.  It was definitely worth our time.  The children even liked it.  The museum offered a scavenger hunt throughout, so Brandt and Blythe went searching for certain items and received a small prize when they had found everything. 

I thought his war era song was hilarious.  

The "chicken" mentioned in the title is a girl.

I found the song on youtube and we listened as we stood there and followed along.

I took two pictures of Kent and Brandt standing in front of his large display.

In the first one, Kent's eyes are open, but the picture was blurry.

So this is the one I'll keep for posterity, even though Kent's eyes are closed.

This is Morse Code machine.

Blythe is tapping out her name.

I read a super interesting book called When Books Went to War about small, military editions of books sent overseas to troops to help them fight boredom between sorties.

They had to be small enough to fit in a pocket or backpack, paperback of course, and were about all sorts of different subjects--fiction and non-fiction both.

They were fantastically popular.

I had never seen an actual copy of the books, and was delighted to find several of them throughout the museum.

Blythe and Brandt are trying to put together Legos with rubber gloves on.

This simulates how astronauts must work with small parts in space.

Brandt is kneeling next to this big gun and it looks like he is firing it, 

even though there are numerous signs that say, "Please Do NOT Touch."

He wasn't touching.

He's close, but there is no actual contact.

Just saying.

Brandt Morse Coding.

Fortuitously, we finished at the museum just as James and his boys were headed to lunch rather close to us.  We met up at Wendy's and caught up on everyone's activities.  We then followed them to the table/chair rental place to pick up 20 tables and 120 chairs for the reception tomorrow at Callie's parent's house.  They are ranchers with over a thousand head of cattle, and the festivities were going to be at the ranch house.  We drove a long way out of town into the country to get there, but enjoyed the passing farmland.  While the big boys off-loaded, Brandt and Blythe ran around and I helped cut up fruit.  We visited a bit, then agreed to meet up again for dinner.

The late afternoon was spent with adults talking and the kids all board gaming.  I did join in playing Bears-vs-Babies, a very silly game akin to Exploding Kittens, but mostly the kids played and the adults gabbed.  For dinner, we met up at the house James and Alisa were staying at and had Chinese food with all the Barri and the Fredericksons.  Lots of people all together to celebrate Ethan and Callie.  It's so fun to be family we don't often see, doing things we haven't ever done before.