Heading Home

Looking at the map before we left Craters, we found a small dot indicating a waterfall.  The Snake River cuts into the rock east of Twin Falls, ID.  Because of the heavy snows of last winter, Shoshone Falls sends cool mists over the land as the water tumbles down.

 We arrived at the right time of day, single and double rainbow in the spray.

We were part of the Father’s Day crowd but everyone took turns viewing these falls.

We are headed home now after a great trip.  We left CA in April with snow in the mountains; we return to 110 plus degree temperatures at home.

Both of us delighted in visiting with family, finding new places and revisiting others.  Thank you for traveling with us.  We will be heading out again in August to chase the eclipse.

Crater of the Moon, ID

We first started traveling in an RV twenty years ago.  Our first venture out, sans tow car but with bikes, was along the road we are now traversing to get home, Highway 93 to Craters of the Moon National Monument.  Back then we stayed in the park, rode our bikes to the various sites along the seven mile trail and did a night time ranger walk.  This was before we ever heard of a “blog” so our memories are in our heads and on printed photographs somewhere at home. This time we will share our travels and we will travel by car and on foot.

Craters was used by astronauts back in the sixties because it was thought the moon was of a similar surface.  The surfaces may be a bit alike, but where the moon’s craters were caused by being hit by meteors, this park has an entirely different origin, volcanic.  This is also a relatively young area with mounds of lave both 4000 and 2000 years old.  It seems that it is due for eruption again at any time but our trip was smooth.

We started our tour at the  Devil’ Garden, named by a preacher who though this must be what hell is like.  Actually the stark land is quite beautiful.

Deep black deposit of aa (rocklike) and pahoehoe (ropelike) lava tumble all around.

Craters and Volcanic NP in Hawaii are often studied and compared.

This witches broom is the result of dwarf mistletoe growing on a limber pine tree.  The mistletoe doesn’t kill the tree so much as poisons and weakens it.

In between are lovely beds of flowers in rose, white, purple and yellow.

Colorful rocks also added to the landscape.

We took a hike to Indian Cave led by an excellent young ranger (a grad student at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke U, where Cheryl also got her degree).  She explained that the plant life takes root primarily in areas where the wind has blown dust, building up a shallow soil base.

These rings were created by Shoshone Indians about 200 years ago but their actual purpose is unknown.

We went into the cave down many steep steps and over tumbled rocks.  We chose not to continue over boulders to the far exit but returned by the original entrance.

 Here we stand on the rocks.

On our previous trip we climb Cinder Cone but passed this time.  Look for the wee person at the top of the cone.

Going up Spatter Cone affords an excellent view into a collapse pit where there is snow on the bottom.

The contrast between the black lava on the surface and the snow on the mountains is dramatic.

Though the campground in the park is excellent, we arrived rather late in the day and stayed in another KOA.  This one earns high praise for the lovely lady who runs it and for the way she gets the campers to socialize.  Delicious free waffles and coffee in the morning and ice cream in the evening gave us opportunities to have delightful conversations with our temporary neighbors.

This car was “planted” near the campground.

Grand Tetons National Park

This is our third trip to the Tetons and we plan to stay a bit longer to explore the majesty of these towering peaks, the youngest on the continent and still growing.  The name was given by a French trappers who looked up at the tall, pointed triangular shapes and thought of women’s breasts, hence Tetons.

That this area is a national park is due mainly to John D. Rockefeller, Jr. of Standard Oil.  Some of the area was designated at national preserve by Calvin Collidge in 1909.  Decades later Rockefeller set up the Snake River Land Company and bought up thousands of acres to donate to the park service, but nothing happened.  He ultimately threatened to sell the land if it was not declared a national park.  In 1943 FDR created the Jackson Hole National Monument.  From that came Grand Teton NP

The Tetons are best know for two features, those pointed mountains and the wildlife.  This area is home to grizzlies, brown and black bear, moose, elk, deer and smaller mammals and hundreds of birds.  Insects also thrive here.  On our first night we attended an outstanding ranger talk on Grizzly 399, the most famous grizzly in the park.  She is famous because she has been sighted so often.  The ranger explained that much of her and her cubs survival success is owed to the fact that she understands being closer to humans keeps her family safe from male grizzlies who kill the young in order to create their own with the mother.  The ranger explained her “family tree” and that the survival rate of her young exceeds the average of 40%.

399 is the one visitors holding phone cameras and those with tens of thousands of dollars of equipment seek as they traverse the park.  We set out on our first day driving the southern roads and saw magnificent scenery but no animals.

Our walk also yielded no animals.  Later in the evening we joined a “bear jam” a crush of cars whose passengers are all searching for bears.  Many of these jams are false alarms or drivers arrive too late. We did see the ranger shoo off a black bear from the side of the road.

Then we took a side-road and found a crowd, mostly with those expensive cameras.  More importantly we saw grizzly 793 (tag number) and her two cubs.  The rangers demand people stay 100 yards from the bear (for their safety and ours) so our pictures are from a distance (and our cameras are more affordable) but we did see this wonderfully large beast and her playful cubs.

What we also saw was carpets of flowers, yellow, purple, rose and white.  These arrowleaf balsamroot are everywhere and make the land seem golden.  Deer and pronghorn antelope are especially fond of them.

On our last day in the Tetons, Jerry decided that he wanted to take a 4 mile ranger led hike to Swan Lake.  Although there was a great deal of bird life in the area, we saw no swans and the lake is largely covered with lily pads.  The flowers have not yet bloomed and, when they do, the pads will fall to the bottom of the lake leaving room for the waterfowl.  The ranger showed a picture of the Tetons done in the 1800s by an artist from the Hudson River School that, up a few months ago, hung in the Oval Office.  No one knows if it is still there.  

To everyone’s surprise, one group of birds we saw were pelicans.  Everyone thought that these were salt water birds but the ranger explained that many of them come to the Tetons because they have acquired a taste for trout and they journey here in the spring to spend the warm months in the park.

There were also many ducks, a robin and Canada geese.

Scenic Drives

Scenic drives are all over the map.  We chose one headed toward the Grand Tetons.  We drove through the Powder River Canyon with sandstone walls on each side of the road.

This road took us to Buffalo, WY another small town that has kept itself lovely.

Since 1879, the Occidental Hotel has been the place to stay in Buffalo.

Such famous personages as Ernest Hemingway, Theodore. Roosevelt, the outlaw Tom Horn, etc. have their photos in the hallway.  The one that caught Anna Lee’s attention was Owen Wister. He always reminds her of a special junior high English teacher (another story for another time).

Crazy Woman is all over the place, river, businesses and the town center.  There are many different stories for the source of her name but the truest one is that she is still around.

The town is also known for Wahoo Frontier Toppings, a maker of sauces, jams and ketchups.  Samples are now on board.

The next scenic drive criss-crossed over the winding Wind River.  To our surprise in mid June, we found ourselves driving over the Continental Divide in a light snow storm.

Even the deer in the meadows seemed surprised and photo shy.

Devils Tower

We hemmed and hawed about this destination and, fortunately, decided to go.  It really is a beautiful piece of rock.  It was America’s first national monument, designated by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.  We listened to an excellent talk by a young ranger who is a high school science teacher in Kentucky (a bit ironic if you think about it).  He explained the various theories about Devils Tower and said the most accepted theory is that it was an igneous intrusion of magma into the tube of a volcano that was beneath an inland sea.  Fifty million years of erosion have exposed it.

It is 867 feet base to summit.  As it cooled, it formed 4, 5, 6, and 7 sided columns  600 feet high and ten to twenty feet wide. The 6-sided are the strongest and least likely to crack and drop.

After the talk we walked the mile plus trail around the tower.  Seeing the tower surrounded by giant boulders that have cracked off the columns makes one feel quite small.

This deer was grazing nearby.

A native story tells of a giant bear chasing some boys.  They reached the spot of the tower which lifted and saved them.  The columns are scratches from the bears claws.

Native Americans continue to visit the tower for secret ceremonies and to tie prayer cloths on the nearby trees.  Hikers are asked not to photograph the cloths.

The campground we stayed at was right outside the national monument giving all of us a fairly close view of the tower.  Every night the campground presents the same movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  It was fun to watch the tower on a large tv screen while the real thing loomed above.  Unfortunately, rain forced us to leave in the middle of the movie.

There is something about the tower that is moving.  About 4000 people climb it each year, we were well satisfied with our walk.

Hot Springs, Day 2

The other natural destination in Hot Springs is Mammoth Site, the location of at least 60 ancient animals, all male.  The guided tour goes right into the site that was uncovered by a construction developer who sold it at cost to the organization that now manages the site as a research facility.

One of the skulls was of a short faced bear, a very rare find.

A key feature of this town is the early 1900 sandstone buildings.  These are well preserved and used as businesses and offices.  The 1893 four-story school house is now a museum filled with a wide selection of items used from the mid 1800s to the 1960s.

The exhibits are nicely arranged by categories such as toys,

kitchen items and are displayed in the former classrooms.

This is the bed President Coolidge slept in at the Game Lodge in Custer.

This picture is made of nails from buildings that have been torn down.

One room was dedicated to Caroline Case Goddard, an amazing woman for her time.  She was a college graduate who then attended the Chicago Art Institute, was a friend of Amelia Earhart, and was an active leader of the community.   Items from her home fill more than one room of the museum.  This is one of her crazy quilts

and these were her fashion designs.

Anna Lee is sure glad she didn’t have to endure these hair dryers.

This is a model of the Hall homestead, built in the mid 1800s.  Many generations later the family continues to reside there.

While the history was good to learn, it was fun to find toys we played with as children, household appliances from our own time and graduation pictures from the years we graduated.  I guess we qualify as “antiques.”

We needed a break from all this touring (actually we spent two days doing it), so we paused for delicious ice cream at Gus’ Best Ice Cream, a well-deserved name.  We also went into the meat store because our freezer was empty.  We’ll let you know later if our purchases were good ones.