Scott uncharacteristically decided we should go on a spontaneous vacation. On top of that, he decided to indulge me in the kind of vacation I’ve always wanted to take, where we just drive with no destination and stop whenever we want. He got out a nickel, put it on the dashboard and said when we came to a crossroads we would flip it to decide. We never actually did that, but it stayed there the whole vacation as a symbol of our freedom. We set out and every time we saw something we wanted to stop and read or look at, I’d say, “Let’s stop…we’re explorers!”, or “Turn off here…we’re explorers!”
We left on a Friday morning and headed north to explore Idaho. We made a stop at Smith & Edwards by Brigham City because it had good recommendations from friends and family. We’ve seen it by the side of the road but we’re usually headed to a family thing and don’t have time to stop. It is huge and has absolutely everything. After our eyes stopped bugging out, we hit the road and drove on. We passed through farming country and our first stop was the Minidoka National Historic Site where Japanese-Americans from Washington and Oregon were interned. It only became part of the National Park Service a few years ago and only the entrance buildings are still there. Most of the camp was divided up after the war and sold to farmers so it’s mostly all private land now. It was sobering to think of the people being interned there. And it was very windy.
We had to traverse a lot of back roads in and out, and saw lots of interesting small towns. We took off along the Snake River and found Shoshone Falls, which I’d never heard of but rang a bell with Scott. So we headed towards that and it was totally awesome. It’s called the Niagara of the West and is actually higher than Niagara Falls. It was really amazing and we stood there watching it for a long time. Why have I never heard of it? We hiked around on the trail a little and got some other views and it was a nice day, although evidently the wind blows all the time in southern Idaho. We stopped at several interpretative signs along the Snake River canyon, which is really deep and really wide, and there were several places where there were big farms at the bottom. We saw BASE jumpers on the Perrine Bridge which is really high up over the Snake River and people jump off the bridge and parachute down to the bottom, then climb up the rock face to the top. That night we stayed in Twin Falls.
Saturday we went to Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument which had a fire in September so the trail was closed and we didn’t get to see the Oregon Trail wagon ruts up close. Darn! There are horse-like fossils that have been excavated there and we saw the famous Hagerman Horse skeleton at the Visitor Center, along with a display on Minidoka. We left there and saw signs for the Hagerman National Fish Hatchery and since we’re explorers and it said “Scenic”, we decided to check it out. They had a self-guided tour so we followed the blue painted fish on the ground and learned all about salmon and how they are fertilized, bred, and raised. That fish hatchery was quite the operation, and it was interesting to see all the little salmon jumping around in the raceways. It was also my first trip to a fish hatchery. We took a turn-off in Buhl to see Idaho’s famous Balanced Rock. It was windy and rainy so I stayed in the car and saw it from there, but Scott jumped out and took a quick picture. It looks like a couple of buff guys could push it right over.
It was cooler on Saturday and we headed to Craters of the Moon National Monument, which is high up in the mountains so there was still snow on the ground. We saw lots of lava all over the place but a lot of it was covered with snow. Even so, it was eerie and really awesome. The road through the park was still closed due to snow, but they said we could walk in. So we walked in on the road but the wind was blowing so hard and it was so cold that I got a bad headache from being blasted by the freezing wind. It was a very interesting place and we need to go back sometime when it’s warmer. We forged on to Pocatello and stayed there that night. We saw lots of farms and ranches while we were driving.
Sunday we left Pocatello and drove on some really small back roads (think gravel) to find the Curlew National Grasslands which turned out to be a real adventure for explorers and also pretty disappointing. There was no grass growing and even with Scott’s GPS on his phone we were driving out in the middle of nowhere. I finally found an Idaho public lands site on my phone that helped us figure out where it was and it looked like all the terrain we’d been driving through for 3 days. There was a reservoir and a pretty plain campground. So we finally got back on the main road and all of a sudden we were in Box Elder County and realized we were back in Utah even though there was no sign on that little county road. We made it to the freeway and headed back through a lot of snowstorms. We stopped at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and drove the auto tour. We saw lots of ducks, Canadian Geese, grebes, four white American pelicans up close, and lots of other birds that we had no idea what they were. It was really cool but the auto tour goes on a little dirt road that is really bumpy. Fortunately, Scott had brought the binoculars and it wasn’t actually snowing there so we got to see birds.
So…our exploring yielded lots of fun and some interesting facts about Idaho that I never knew. For example: Arco is the first city in the free world to have been totally powered by nuclear energy beginning July 17, 1955 which happens to be my Dad’s 16th birthday. And there have been 50 nuclear reactors built since then in a 900 acre reserve belonging to Idaho National Laboratory. Only 3 are still working. And if it had been after Memorial Day we could have seen the world’s first breeder reactor which is now a National Historic Landmark. Who knew? The 1000 Springs area has waterfalls just pouring out of cliffs-all over the place. So cool.
We’re up for another exploring adventure soon!!!
(Click on a photo to see them all larger in a gallery)
