Our Travel Blog
A 30 mile dirt road from Alma, ID took us through the high desert to the Utah border on a section of the old California Trail. We didn’t see a single vehicle, gold miner heading west for fortune or a family with their covered wagon seeking a better life, but we did pick up a new batch of dust and experience the quiet desolation of the high desert these hardy people walked across.
Camp Rock was a big milestone on the California Trail here on the Idaho Utah border. Travelers, including the ill fated Donner Party, used axle grease from their ox carts to mark their passage. Weather and Time has erased most. Hopefully, they found the better life they were walking to!
A rock climbing place known around the world, a pleasant rest stop for travelers along the California Trail, an area that has its own energy and ethereal beauty. All of this describes the City of Rocks.
Traveling from Oregon to Utah, Darrin looked at the map, found the cool name City of Rocks, and declared we needed to stop there. Five nights later, we finally left.
These pictures do not in any way represent the majestic otherworldly spirit of this place. They are a mere human representation of Mother Nature.
Are you brave enough to step off a bridge spanning the 486 foot deep canyon that Evil Knievel attempted to rocket himself across in 1974?
Me? Hell no.
For the individuals that come from all corners of the world to legally base jump off the Perrine Bridge over the Snake River Gorge in Twin Falls, Idaho the answer is Woo hoo! Lets go! And they do. Jumper after jumper strides across the bridge to the middle with their tiny little parachute packs, steps over the railing….and jumps.
Me? I am very content to stand on the canyon rim and take photos.
I was 14, and like every teen age boy in America, was glued to the TV! Evel Knievel was going to jump the Snake River Canyon in a rocket powered motorcycle! Rocket powered! History has shown Evel Knievel to be a deeply flawed man, like all of us, but during the early 70’s he was an American hero, at a time when America desperately needed heroes. The jump was a bust on that day, and only the earthen ramp can still be seen, but for a period of time many a kid jumped, and crashed, their Stingray bikes on a homemade wooden ramp due to Evel Knievel! (before bike helmets had been invented!)
The ruthless bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 created such fear that overnight anyone in America of Japanese descent suddenly became the enemy: neighbors, schoolmates, and local business owners all became possible spies.
Darrin and I often talk about how resilient we have become during this journey due to the constant change of moving from place to place and basically living outdoors in all types of weather, all kinds of environments, at all elevations, and around all types of animals and people. Today, we were once again humbled when we visited the Minidoka Relocation Center just north of Twin Falls, Idaho.
In 1942, months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive order 9066 which forced over 120,000 west coast persons of Japanese descent into ten prison camps, Minidoka Relocation Center was one of the ten.
Hastily built, Minidoka housed approximately 10,000 individuals of Japanese descent from Alaska, Bainbridge Island, Washington and the west coast of Oregon. Placed in a deserted corner of the Idaho high desert, the tar and green wood structures of the camp gave the incarcerated individuals very little protection from the bitter cold winters and blazing hot summers.
What stuck with Darrin and I as we walked around the remains of Minidoka was the resiliency of the people incarcerated there. The camp had very little privacy, the bare necessities of a civilized life and weather unlike anything they had experienced on the west coast, yet they built a life in the camp. They created activities to relieve the boredom, turned the high desert into farmland for fresh food, and turned the tar covered barrack cubicles into homes.
The historic site said the Japanese had a saying, “Shikata ga nai” which means “it can’t be helped”. I guess in modern slang it would be similar to “shit happens”, so make the best of it and carry on. Once again we have come across people who have more resiliency then I could ever imagine. Sometimes it is really a struggle not to pass judgements on the past. We weren’t there, we didn’t walk in their shoes, but what the hell. How can such awful things happen in a supposedly civilized world.
Traveling around the west, we noticed that the hay bales come in two sizes…extra large and small. Today, we had the chance to chat with a farmer when we stopped at a small coffee shop. We asked him why there were 2 sizes of hay bales. To our surprise, he told us they were the same hay bales. We were totally confused until he explained that they bale the hay in large bales but then put them through the Balinator to shrink them for winter storage. When it is time to use the hay during the winter months, they just reverse the process, and voila they have the full size bales and all that nice fresh hay for their stock.
If you believe this story, I have some ocean front property in Arizona I’d like to show you🤣.
We are in Glenns Ferry, Idaho in a tiny RV park. The heat has finally broken a bit from the 100’s down to the mid 80’s. WooHoo!!! After a month of wild camping we have showers, water, cell service, and wifi! We be living large!
And it is harvest time in Idaho. Trucks loaded high with potatoes, beets and onions are rolling by our park in a steady stream. We even have neighbors in our park, Ismael, his dad and their families, who travel up from Texas with their trucks to haul the spuds! Ismael’s truck is the Spudnik!
Bruneau State Park in Idaho says it has the tallest single-structure sand dune in North America rising 470 feet above the surrounding dessert…we had to check it out.
Huh…not sure it was worth the 30 mile drive out of our way. But, we did enjoy the detour drive through the beautiful farm valley along the Snake River which we would have missed. It is funny how one thing leads you to another when you have no plan and a full tank of diesel.
Scotty came through and beamed us out!
We made it to Idaho!
The weather broke and is now in the 80’s so we came down out of the hills for showers, laundry and some TV.
