From the Traveling Harrington’s.
Please email Olivia@bobheck.com or fredharrington@yahoo.com with comments.
Sunday, August 17 found us rolling retracing earlier steps north to New Meadow passed the Alfalfa fields we learned were on their fourth cutting. Some of the hay is being shipped to Japan! Also we saw lots of bee hives and wondered if they were needed for Alfalfa. Jack? We headed east to McCall and Ponderosa State Park. We stopped about noon. Then Olivia went to an arts and crafts fair and saw beaded zipper pulls that would make a neat craft project.
On the way back she took the scenic route to get this view of Payette Lake. Our campground is close to the water’s edge on the other side of the lake.Monday, August 18 we followed three of Idaho’s scenic byways, the Payette River to the Wildlife Canyon to the Ponderosa Pine Byway. The Payette River falls fast and was all whitewater for 25 miles. We saw a good cross section of Idaho from broad meadows, both in valleys and on top of the mountains.
Close to Lowman we stopped at this hot springs. The whole side of the valley had springs seeping out and draining to the river. Sadly, in the Ponderosa byway there had been at least one major forest fire and it was just beginning to start reforesting. We came out at Stanley Idaho at the
foot of the Sawtooth Mountains.
The National Forest Service has offered any landowner the timber to build these log fences if they are willing to give up their barbwire fences. It make the landscape much more desirable.
We found many forest camp grounds around Redfish Lake. It was named because, long ago, there were so many Chinook Salmon it made the lake red. Now there are very few salmon. Thanks to hatchery efforts, they are making a comeback. We noticed lots of trees down in the campground. When we asked the hosts they said on July 3 with full campgrounds a microburst of wind hit the area and over 100 trees were knocked down. Two of the campgrounds are still closed because of the damage. Also the pine beetle has been active and they are losing more trees.
About supper time we noticed a haze around the mountains and again we were told there was a forest fire near Fairfield about 100 miles south of us. The sunset was orange from the smoke. We had originally planned to go to that area to a United Methodist Church camp to volunteer for a few days. As we drove closer to this area we contacted them and were told the camp closed last weekend. We are glad there are no campers there and we later found there was no damage to the camp.
Tuesday, August 19 we followed the scenic road through Sun Valley and picked up a CD by mile markers telling us about each town, the country side, history, plant life, and stories of the area. The CD’s are a great way for travel information and we wish other states/cities would do this. It is free, just return at the end of the trip. We learned about how Sun Valley was discovered and the features they were looking for to compete with Europe’s ski slopes. Dry powder, sunshine all the time, below 6,000’ and so on. We also passed the cemetery where Hemingway is buried. He lived the last part of his life in this valley. Prosperity was very evident in the ski towns we traveled through. These ski towns get some tourism in the summer, but evidently they make most of their money in the winter.
Our day’s end destination was planned to be the campground at Crater’s of the Moon National Park. This is a huge lava flow that has been created over thousands of years. It covers a large part of southern Idaho. When we arrived at 1:00 pm, we visited the information center and could see
the campground across the road. It was 86 degrees and didn’t look desirable. We decided to drive 100 more miles to Rexburg. This proved to be a good choice because it was cooler when we stopped, we toured the town. Also, we would have a shorter day the next day to get to West Yellowstone, Montana and hopefully a camping spot early in the day.Again we passed hayfields, mostly irrigated and haystacks of huge square bales of hay. We estimated forty long, two wide and four tall. Over 300 bales in a stack. There would be multiple stacks in a place, then ½ mile later the same, and so on and so on!
Finally we saw Idaho potatoes growing along the roadside. Fred was wondering if Idaho really grew potatoes. Now he knows they do.
We chose to eat out and found a local Mexican food place. It was good. After our meal, we drove around town in the direction of the large white building on top of the hill. It was very visible as we entered town. As we wandered through the neighborhoods of nice large new houses to reach the building, we passed a branch of Brigham Young University. We had guessed it to be a Mormon building. Sure enough it was the Latter Day Saints Temple. From there to the trailer we passed four Latter Day Saints churches. This area of Idaho is heavily populated with Mormons.
Wednesday, August 20, found us at West Yellowstone before lunch and shortly after in the forest camp just north of town. This park has nice big and long spots and about half have electricity. Imagine that – a forest camp with electricity! We found several options and settled into one. We rested, played on the computer, and made tortilla soup for later. At mid-afternoon, we went to town for information on Yellowstone Park. The weather is nice, cooler than we have had and we are able to enjoy the fresh air with the windows open. Four days on the road and moving each night tired us out and this is a good place to rest as well as see the many sights in this area.
There are multiple commercial trailer parks around Yellowstone and we are so glad people chose to stay in them because that leaves the pretty places for us.
This is a short letter for our blog because we know visiting Yellowstone and Tetons National Park will be full of exciting things. Stay tune for Letter 24.
Please email Olivia@bobheck.com or fredharrington@yahoo.com with comments.
Love to all,
Fred & Olivia
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