Southern Idaho did hold many surprises starting with the Snake River. Now, the Snake River is to Idaho and Wyoming as the Trinity is to central Texas or the Mississippi is to Louisiana. I just didn't expect it to come with its own deep canyon. We arrived in Twin Falls by crossing the Perrine Bridge, named for Ira Perrine the first guy to utilize the Snake River Aquifer to enhance agriculture. Southern Idaho is the location of the famous Idaho potato. I was thrilled to see potatoes being harvested and cleaned right in the field. Ok, Ok, so it doesn't take much to entertain me, but this area is filled with farms, farms, and farms growing alfalfa, potatoes, and soy beans. I know this because we inadvertently toured farm country looking for the Niagra Springs, which Drake is convinced no longer exist.
We packed in the attractions (of course) which made the heated spring fed pools a special treat. Two notable places were the Malad Gorge which was the original route of the Snake River. Millions of years ago, the Snake was re-routed by volcanic action. The other fun place was the National Fish Hatchery where we met a woman whose job is cutting off fish fins. We also saw the Shoshone Falls. This is the site of the big annual Shoshone salmon catch up until the start of the 20th century. The fish were dried and stored and used to get the Shoshone tribes through the winter time. This practice was stopped by the damming of the Snake River. These 200 foot high falls are currently at 'low water' because of the time of the year, but they were big enough to throw up a rainbow when they struck the water. Just as the buffalo kills in the 19th century destroyed the western Native American way of life, the 20th century damming of the western rivers destroyed the salmon runs which were a vital source of food for significant numbers of tribes. Seeing these falls which no longer support salmon, was a mute witness to the end of a culture. 
Did I tell you that we both got new bikes? We did a little shake down bike ride on the path bordering the deep Snake River canyon, and we actually saw idiots jumping off the bridge (the bridge in the above picture) with parachutes on their backs. I talked to one of them, and his answer to "Why do you do this?" was "It's fun." Why do adrenaline junkies never recognize their disease? The Australian guy I talked to told me this bridge is famous, and is the only place he knows of in the entire world where you can jump off a public bridge with a parachute on your back. He explained that he started para-sailing, and bungee jumping, moved on to jumping out of planes, and then discovered the fun of jumping off a bridge. Even he admitted that 'night jumps' tended to be really hair raising. The 14 year old girl I was watching this idiocy with couldn't understand why I thought it was so stupid to do this. Notice how murky my pictures look? No, it's not poor photography - it's smoke. It's been really disappointing to be a tourist in Idaho and Wyoming over the past couple of weeks because of the massive wildfires burning in central Idaho. Southwesterly prevailing winds have been spreading smoke for the past two weeks. We woke up the last week in Logan to discover the crystal clean air looking more like summer air in Fort Worth. The wildfire smoke had arrived. This is very serious. Entire communities have been threatened. One small town has been on the verge of being engulfed by a fire that's only 5% contained for the past week. The smoke isn't expected to dissipate until October when the firefighters estimate the three major fires will be put out. In the meantime, the crappy air has been obscuring the beauty of this area, and messing up the trip. However, acts of God (the fires were caused by lightening) simply have to be tolerated and made the best of by us mortals.
On to the Craters of the Moon which is a left over lava field from a series of volcanoes that erupted in this area of Idaho millions of years ago. This is a national monument which would have been more impressive if we hadn't been to the Volcano National Park in Hawaii. My favorite part of this little side trip was observing what is the first thing to start growing in this part of the world on the lava and cinders. It's this lichen. 
Southern Idaho was very different than what I expected. It's dominated historically by the end of the Native American culture, and by the wagon trains that moved through the area in the mid 19th century. You can still see the wagon ruts as the trails became completely defined as if they were interstate highways. We saw the Oregon/California Trail museum and visited the City of Rocks, a famous stop over by the trains. The 21st century land is dominated by farming. Acres and waves of corn, hay, soybeans, and potatoes. This seemed more like the Midwest than the far West. The people were friendly, but more contained with a live and let live attitude. Tourism is less of a big deal here than in Wyoming. I got the impression that these people are too busy wringing a living from the land to mess with tourists scouting out the 'attractions'.
As always, the pictures tell more of the story:
https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2012Idaho?authkey=Gv1sRgCNDP84Xyvp6Rcg#
To tour the City of the Rocks see these pictures:
https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2012UtahCityOfRocksIdaho?authkey=Gv1sRgCIjE3MSJl_KUiAE#
1 comment:
Jan, I think I finally met someone, you, who takes as many if not more pictures than I do. I've never taken time to see the fish hatchery, or stop and take pictures of the falls. Your writing reminds me of a travel magazine. Have you tried submitting to any publications? Fun to see pics of City of Rocks. We shot some of the same formations but I never shot one flower. I"m one of those persons referred to in your past blogs, who doesn't know the names of trees or plants. Hey I learned about four wild flowers at girls camp.
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