Lisa
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Ritter Island and Hagerman Fossils
Continuing on with our one day tour of Thousand Springs State Park, we stopped at Ritter Island which is the best place to see several springs forming waterfalls out of the canyon walls. We followed a curvy, narrow but paved road down to the island in the Snake River. There is a small parking lot…
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Beautiful Box Canyon
In the name of chasing waterfalls, we decided to see some of Thousand Springs State Park. It has six separate parks or units, and I had four of them on our list. This post will be the first two, then the second post for today will be the other two. We drove through rural roads…
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Shoshone Falls, ID
Shoshone Falls are the Niagara of Idaho…in the spring. We are here in the fall, and they are lovely but trickles compared to Niagara. We are chasing waterfalls for a couple of days. I said “we’re waterfalling” and Tony said that’s not a thing so I put in a proper verb:) We drove a short…
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Evel Knievel in Twin Falls, Idaho
We headed southwest to Twin Falls, Idaho for a two-day stay at the KOA just north of the Snake River Canyon. The city of Twin Falls is built on the south side of the canyon and has developed right up to the south rim. We finally passed through some farmland to see potatoes and corn…
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Craters of the Moon, Day 2
This park could be seen in one full day, but with Tony working, and me taking it a little easy, we chose to go back for a second day. Even so, we did not do the North Crater Trail or the Wilderness Trail. Plenty of hikes for everyone! We remembered where the sign for the…
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Craters of the Moon, Day 1
The National Monument park for Craters of the Moon is very nicely developed with paved, sometimes elevated walkways around this volcanic landscape. The land looks like huge earth-movers shoved piles of wet earth everywhere, and now the muddy mess remains. It’s not mud on closer inspection, but the youngest lava field in the US, except…
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Suggested Route Not Always Best
Leaving Bannack State Park to drive to Arco, Idaho, we had two choices: back-track to Dillon to catch I-15 or the scenic route, which was also the recommended route. I opted for the scenic route as I was going to be driving while Tony checked in with work. The first 12 miles out were on…
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Bannack Ghost Town, Part 2
Too many pictures – Tony says they won’t load, so I’m splitting the post:) The jails were built after Sheriff Plummer was elected. Before 1863, criminals were warned, banished or hanged as no one had time to guard a jail—too busy working their gold claims (had to be worked at least 5 days/week according to…
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Bannack Ghost Town, Part 1
In 1862, gold was discovered in a creek near Bannack, which quickly grew to be a mining town and short-term capital of Montana Territory. It was named for the Native American Bannock Tribe, but the “o” was read as an “a” on the US Post Office document. I heard the reverse happened to Ost, Kansas,…
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Big “M” on Big Butte is for Mining
We needed some pet and van supplies, so we headed to Butte, thinking we would then travel on to Bannack State Park. While in Butte, we changed our minds, which is an advantage to having no reservations made. After our shopping, we drove through the advertised historic downtown of Butte, which has many old historical…