Bruneau Dunes State Park, Idaho

Sunny skies and cooler temps made perfect weather for a day trip to Bruneau Dunes State Park (pronounced “Bruno”). Located in southern Idaho, this state park boasts North America’s highest single-structured sand dune (about 470 feet high). This visit was E’s belated birthday activity and we rented a sand-board to try out a new sport.

*Fun Fact: E and I went snowboarding together for our first date. I’m sure sand-boarding is basically the same thing… right?

The hike up the dune was harder than I expected. With each step up, I seemed to slide back down just as far as I’d gone forward. Life can sometimes feel a lot like that too. One step forward, one step back. Ugh! That sand dune was like a giant, inclined treadmill! With a bit of grit, and a little more speed and effort than I had intended on exerting, I managed to finally make it to the top. To be clear, by “the top” I mean the top of the small sledding dune, not the 470 ft dune.

We brought along the kiddos sledding discs, and ended up renting both a sand-board and a sand-sled, just in case the plastic discs didn’t work.

The weather was perfect but it was really really windy! S has a story about a runaway sled.

(my iPhone camera wouldn’t focus because of all the sand blowing around but you get the idea…)

Poor K got sand in her eyes, so she and I took a break in the Jeep for a bit. Meanwhile, the boys tested out the sand-sled.

“Tumbleweeds”

“Brothers”

In the end, we all tried sand-boarding at least once. Happy belated birthday E!

We realized that none of us had ever tried sand-boarding before. It was so fun to try something new as a family. We had such a great day together. I hope this post inspires you to try something new with someone you love.