The Crater

First, look at this.

In south eastern Idaho my mom's side of the family has a cabin that is positioned in what we call a "crater". Now if you've seen the picture at the link that I posted above you can probably make the connection as to why we call it a crater. Its official name is Morgan Crater, and it was part of my great-grandpas land that he used to put his herds sheep into. When he died, my grandpa inherited the part of the land with the crater in it. When he had a family of his own, he and others built a cabin on one edge of the crater. And every year in the summer, the family would go up to the cabin for two weeks to work and play.
   
 Now, a generation later, all of my extended family gets together in the summer at the crater. It is one heck of a good time when all you do for a week is ride motor bikes, go on hikes, play games, ride horses, and pretty much do whatever you want. Songs have even been written about the crater. Some really good memories have been made up at crater camp.

When my cousins and I go for motor bike rides, we often go to what we call the "blow holes". These are big round holes in the earth, formed by cows that have continually rolled in the mud, making the bowl shaped depressions even bigger. When speeding through them on a motor bike, it's almost like riding a roller coaster. And some of the crazier people such as myself like to go off the jump-like lips of the blow holes. And in the words of Napoleon Dynamite say, "You got like three feet of air that time!"

Another fun thing to do at the crater is riding horses. My uncle and his family are big time rodeo cowboys, and they sometimes bring horses to the crater. It is really fun to saddle up a horse, ride him around into the sunset, and then put the horse back in the corral. Once I even tried to jump my horse over a log, and almost fell out of the saddle. I must sound pretty pathetic.

To top it all of, my family has some of the best cooks in the world, and while at the crater I am treated to some really good food. We even have a special term to describe a deluxe breakfast with pancakes, sausage, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and hot chocolate. We call it crater breakfast. When we eat dinner, we always get to have smores roasted over an open fire for dessert.

Every time we have crater camp, we always go to the local Kilgore Store, in Kilgore Idaho. All the cousins pile in the back of the pickup as we drive down to the store. This is where we made up the crater song. When we get to the store, we are treated to an ice cream cone, and then we all go outside and sit on the fence to slurp up our delicious treat. We all have an awesome time.

I love going up to the crater, and whenever I leave, I wish I could go back.