The next stop on our Adoption Journey was to Pocatello, Idaho. We left early Saturday morning on the 17th of July and returned the next day late afternoon, so this was a quick jaunt. Pocatello is roughly 2.5 hours north of us. And we learned Pocatello is the "Smile Capital" of the US.
This turned out to be a great trip! As with all these adoption get-the-word out trips, April and I look to make them as enjoyable as possible. So with our car packed up with just a few things, and our flyers and cards in hand, we headed North. The plan was to stop in as many towns as possible on the way up, stay the night in Pocatello, and then spend the majority of our time there before heading straight home.
We ended up stopping in several towns including Tremonton, UT, Garland, UT, Fielding, UT, Malad, ID, Downey, ID, Lava Hot Springs, ID, and of course Pocatello, ID. In each of these towns we were able to share our pass-along cards and/or our tear-off sheets (flyer). We stopped in grocery stores, community rec centers, hardware stores, youth centers, and many other places along our path. Since we are doing a private adoption and an agency isn't involved in matching us with an expectant mother, it is up to us to find a match. We hope to get the word out to as many places as possible on our search to match with an expectant mother looking to put her baby up for adoption.
Top Memories
Here are a few of our top memories from this trip:
Our very favorite memory from this trip was stopping by and visiting with a number of different pastors, preachers, bishops, and other church leaders to share with them our search for our little one(s). They were all so kind to take a few minutes out of their busy Sunday schedule to visit with us and expressed interest in helping share our cards. These churches included the First United Methodist Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Empire Park Ward, the Gate City Baptist Church, and the Trinity Episcopal Church.
As a child, my family would take vacations to Lava Hot Springs in Idaho. Since we ended up refueling at a gas station just off the interstate about 10 miles from Lava we decided to take a trip down memory lane. Lava Hot springs is a small town built around natural hot springs. Many years ago they installed an Olympic size swimming pool with 3 giant platforms. It was a fun place to go swim, soak, and even float the river. We drove into the town, which was SIGNIFICANTLY more busy and crowded than it was when my family would go. There were literally thousands of people walking around carrying tubes, floating the river, catching a bite, or soaking in pools. It was fun to see the town again and share it with April. We hope to vacation here someday soon!
We drove by a themed hotel in Pocatello called the Black Swan Inn. It looked fun so we pulled over to see if we could get a quick tour. Although this stop had nothing to do with spreading the word about our adoption search, it looked too fun to pass by. They gave us a quick 20 minute tour of three rooms which was surprisingly awesome! Our favorite was the Mayan Rainforest room.
Of course, we HAD to celebrate our trip by getting ice-cream at a local spot called Jungle ReTreat. It was great ice-cream and had really cool jungle themed party rooms! We asked to get a tour of the party-rooms because the pictures online looked so cool. We each got two scoops - April is adventurous and tried licorice and Lime Ricky. Our total cost for both was $6. What a deal! We need one of those near us back home!
We stopped by to see the Pocatello, Idaho LDS Temple that was under construction. It was beautiful!
We ate the most amazing creation - Captain Crunch encrusted French Toast at a famous little restaurant called Abracadabra's there in Pocatello. This was SO good, but so sugary haha. Definitely to be treated as a dessert and not a meal!
At our hotel we hit the hot tub and the pool. We met a few people who were all trying to enjoy the water while social distancing where they could. We met a family with a young teen boy who was so very polite, sweet, and cordial. He asked us about how many kids we had and we explained our search for our babies. The only down side was that one of the tiny kids peed in the hot tub -- EVERYONE OUT haha! Something we will experience with our own kids I am sure.
What a fantastic trip this was for us! We feel we were able to really get the word out in this area.