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Our front flower bed is beautiful this year! Royal blue, white and periwinkle delphinium grace center stage.  I planted them 2 years ago and they have come into their own.  Snapdragons and daisies will soon take over the starring roles as they die back.  Petunias will of course last the whole season.  I love the simple beauty of these annuals.  Mom planted them every spring in front of the cabins.   I remember spray-painting the wire fencing white every spring to make the  beds neat and tidy.  I also remember having to use the hand trimmers to keep the grass trimmed!

Daisies grace the retired farm machinery in the Heritage Flower Bed.  The equipment here is what grandad farmed with when they homesteaded the land in the late 1800’s.  My latest research discovery is a book titled: Horse-drawn days : a century of farming with horses by Jerry Apps.  The rusty machinery I salvaged from the fields are such treasures and I have a wonderful resource to learn more about them now.  Other favorites of mine in this bed include chamomile, black-eyed susans, lupine and sedge.  Of course there is usually a thistle or 2 in the mix.  Grandad battled those all his life out in the fields so naturally they grow here.

Yellowstone Park visitor numbers are up this year according to the newspaper but we already knew that!  So many friends (old and new!) have stayed with us on their journey through this beautiful area this year.  One guest was kind enough to send us her blog entry link after  her stay.  Click here.

Thank you for choosing to stay with us as you travel!  And  when you are making plans to come through Ashton, give Robert a call at 208-652-3570, or his cell 208-851-8646 (he may be out watering my flowers!) to reserve your room or cabin.  He knows the area, the current construction projects in progress and the best way to get around some of them!

We’ll see you soon!  Travel safely!

Our flag flew tall and proud on the 4th of July this week! We enjoyed visiting with guests settling them into their rooms and making sure they had directions to the fireworks display that night at the North Fremont Football field. It was a special week for us too as our son and his wife were visiting. He deploys late this fall. It will be his 3rd deployment, the first to Afghanistan.

Red, white and blue petunias are in all the planters this year.

Lady, our 12 year old lab waits patiently to greet everyone.

We celebrate our freedom and our family heritage of 4 generations of military service.  We are especially blessed to continue the legacy of The Rankin, serving you since 1924!  We can’t wait to host your trip to the beautiful Yellowstone country and surrounding areas.  Guests are delighted to discover the Mesa Falls day trip.  Fisherman are booking cabins (the favorite is  no.5 ! ) for a week at a time.  Family reunions are booked for later this month.  Let us know when you’re coming and we’ll have a comfortable room and beautiful grounds to enjoy.  My flower beds are beautiful this year.  I’d better get another blog entry up to share the pics with you!  Travel Safely!

Winter is here.  Time to play in the snow!  Island Park, Harriman State Park, and surrounding areas of the Tetons and Yellowstone Park welcome skiers and snowmobilers to their winter playgrounds.  The Rankin is closed, and Robert and I are enjoying our hibernation time together.  Snow blankets the cabins.

Snow has always blanketed the cabins in the winter.  This is a picture of them in the late 1930s.  While I’m not sure who is posing with the black lab, the cabins we know and love are buried in white fluffy stuff in the background!

Another winter picture.  This is one of my favorite pictures of D.K. (granddad) just back from the hunt.  Cooked goose for dinner and delicious homemade bread from the oven.  I use that same bread recipe and it’s still delicious.

Photography was one of mother’s favorite hobbies.  And winter provided a quieter time and season to pursue this love.  She captured simple, beautiful “winter moments” as she skied and hiked the snowy hills and fields with her pal Margaret.

I found this picture in a Christmas card mother had sent several years ago.

Margaret continues to ski and shared this picture in her Christmas card this year.

Robert is busy taking reservations for the coming summer.  We’re excited to have 3 families from Fiji and several groups from France coming in July.  Get your Travel Game Plan ON and let us know when you’re coming this summer!   And as always, travel safely!

And now let us welcome the new year,

full of things that have never been.       

Ranier Maria Rilke

New Year’s Eve, 2011.  What a great year for us at The Rankin!  A year full of family, and friends new and old.  We welcomed all to the gorgeous country of the Tetons, Yellowstone, Harriman Park, and Bechler Meadows.  We thank everyone who made us their “base camp” as they ventured into the hills to hike and fish.  Shaded lawns, gas grills, tables and comfortable chairs were waiting at the end of their day trips!

Summer mornings were cool.

The highlight of our summer was the 2011 Thing Rallye.  We hosted this fun group as they gathered from all over the country to travel through Yellowstone on to Mount Rushmore.

We were up at the crack of dawn as they lined up for us to take pictures!

And the best pictures for last:

My efforts in the flower beds was worth it as I battled slugs, ants, and earwigs!

Do plan on staying with us here at The Rankin Motel this summer 2012 as you travel through the paradise that surrounds Ashton, Idaho!  We have comfortable rooms and cabins to relax in and beautiful grounds to enjoy.  All of our rooms and cabins have coffee makers, refrigerators, microwaves and air conditioners.  Dave’s market/gas station is next door to us and features an awesome bakery and deli for your convenience.

We look forward “to things that have never been.”  Adventure waits!  Travel safely!

We’ve found time to move some new furniture into the cabins along with some new decor.  And I want to share some of the special, unique things about each of our cozy cabins

Early morning sunshine pours in.  There is a corner breakfast nook and a new quilt on the bed.  New curtain panels and valances add extra color to this room now.

A radio (yes it still works!) sits in the corner ready to tune into “Prairie Home Companion”.

Through the door you can see the other room of the cabin.

Here are comfortable chairs, books and a sewing cabinet for a night stand.  And an old, re-finished trunk sits at the end of this bed.

The leather straps are the old horse harnesses used to pull the wagons and plows in the fields.

More Cabin Showcases in the coming blog entries!

We had special guests stay with us last month.  They were the first to rent one of the new motel rooms my mother and father added in 1970.  The travelers remembered my folks and said they paid $24 for the best night’s sleep they had ever had!

Golden leaves, cooler temperatures, and SNOW last week!  We lost quite a few branches off of the trees on the center lawn.  The weight of the wet snow and green leaves (they hadn’t started to turn yet) were too much for the older elm tree branches.

We harvested our barley and flax-seed crops a few weeks ago.  The weather was beautiful!

Now travel back a few years to 1922.

This is a picture of Great Aunt Margaret to the forefront, with my grandfather and grandmother, D.K. and Eva.

The golden wheat of 1922.

And another picture of working in the fields.

What a legacy of labor.  A few pictures have survived.  A few moments are frozen in time. Women posing in the fields. My grandfather standing tall and proud in that field of wheat up to his chest.  He is wearing a suit and proud of his crop.    The other pictures are of horses and men, guiding and pulling machines to gather the crops.  What hard work.  I remember the stories of how much food had to be ready to feed the men working the harvests.  Loaves of bread, biscuits, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, pies and cookies.  Work for the farm women in the kitchen was no easier.

I keep this legacy alive in my heart and have created a flower garden I have named “The Heritage Garden”.  It showcases the few remaining pieces of wagons and wheels we brought from the fields in 2008.  It becomes more beautiful every passing year.

The flowers are about finished blooming now though the black-eyed susans are beautiful and bright.  The days are shorter and traffic lighter.  A few workers on local projects and spud harvest crews are staying with us.  We have our rooms cozy and warm for everyone traveling our way this October!  Travel Safely!

A quiet, relective Sunday in Ashton at The Rankin.  Our flag at half-mast to remember and honor those who were killed by the violence of the 9/11/01 attacks.  The war on terror continues.  Our son has completed 2 tours to Iraq.  We are proud he is serving his country.  He was a junior in high school when the attack occured.  That moment defined his future.

A memoir my family members published is titled “We Remember”  The stories are those of homesteading, the depression, WWI and WWII.  Cousins Beth and Lois each owned a single dress.  They planned dates carefully so as to have a different dress available for a date.  And woe to the person who spilled anything on the garment!  Cousin Winn flew over what remained of Hiroshima shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped.  He was overwhelmed with the destruction and evil that thing had unleashed.  His life would never be the same.

I worked steadily all afternoon in my pansy garden bed.  It is a small area around an old cottonwood stump, shady and protected.  A huge bumble bee was suddenly crawling on the stump in front of me.  As it flew off, I saw a bird taking a bath in the water fountain 4 feet away from me.  The bird splashed furiously and sent beads of water into the air and sunshine.

I worked several more hours into the afternoon and another bee!  Could it be the same one?  I had my camera this time.  He circled in the air several times again before leaving.  The beauty of everything surrounding me was overwhelming.  He had come back to make sure I was appreciating it all.

We welcomed guests later in the evening.  Travelers from Germany were eager to see Yellowstone and wanted to know all of the good places to see.  They especially appreciated the mileage / estimated travel time map we had.  It’s an easy guide to help you navigate the park.  Of course if you come across a buffalo standing in the road, you aren’t going anywhere!  And we always point out the Mesa Falls scenic drive- Robert shows them the road on the map to take, and I show them the picture of the falls we keep on the end table.   All of our other reservations made it safely.

We dedicate this post to our dog Rocky.  We remember.