We left The Grand Teton Mountains behind this morning in the rain. Therefore it was not a good time to get photos. I did get a few as I was trying to get photos of the lightening – but didn’t work out – I did get the cloudy dark sky though:
Going through some mountains on our way to Idaho.
Idaho Falls is that a way:
It stopped raining by about noon which is when we got to the campground that we are staying at in town – this is a “town” campground which means it is crowded, but we are only here for two nights so it is ok. The laundry is right next door – only one camp site between us and the laundry – convenient – and is going while I type this.
We drove around after setting up camp and found the old house we lived in for six months back in 1973, new roof and different color (use to be light green) but it is still there:
And here is the apartment we lived in for about six months in 1977, we actually tried to get the same house as we did in 73 but it was not available, we had liked the landlord and the neighborhood was kid friendly and a fenced back yard, too bad someone else was renting it.
Weird how we did not remember the addresses but by driving around and making this turn and that we found both of them. We will drive past the house in Arco and take a photo of that one too in couple days. It is amazing how much this town has grown in the amount of stores and shops!! Whole new areas have been built just like everywhere else I guess. All the chain stores and restaurants. Whole new neighborhoods and shopping centers, including a large mall. When we were here it was still a small town of about 39,000. Now it is a little over 50,000.
I forgot to bring a sewing lamp with me and the lightening for sewing is much to be desired. We went to Michael’s and I found this magnifier/light. It works on electricity or batteries. It clamps to the table and can also turn this way and that.
Clamps to the table:
Loosen the metal piece and turn it the way you want and then tightened it down. I normally do not use a magnifier – but I must admit even with my new glasses close up work is putting a little strain on my eyes. I will need to train myself to use it. The light shines down from 3 LED lights under the magnifier.
We will be out taking photos of the falls that give this town its name and other things tomorrow.
(written in actually time for a change, not scheduled)
A long time ago with the girls when they were kids we took the tram ride to the top of one of the mountains in the area. We decided to do it again.
The building that you start at and get on the tram – it goes up to the mountain in the distance that you see in this photo:
Some of the view at the top:
We were about half way up the mountain when another tram is coming down – this is the top of that tram:
More of the mountain at the top:
This sign gives you the information – I don’t think they it is normal to have up to 100 people on these – maybe in an emergency? There were barely 25-30 on the ones we were on and saw others arrive and depart with the same. We knew it would be cold and windy at the top and we had jackets with us. It was 56 degrees but the wind made it feel like 30 or so. Some people came up with tank tops – shivering here thinking of what they must have felt like – ice cubes perhaps!
To the very top:
Today we saw 4 more moose and got photos of two of them. Will post those later, I need to get the photos from Mike. I took some too – but well you see there is a difference between a telephoto lens and a Nikon Cool Pix 
a big difference! I will show it to you later.
(this written on evening of 19th)
There were so many photos I thought I would post a few more and schedule them for later today the 19th. Today (the 19th) we are taking a tram ride to the top of the mountain over by Teton Village. We did this years ago with the kids and thought it would be fun to do it again while we are here. I will post those photos tonight or tomorrow.
This is one of the boats that ferries people across (for a fee) Jenny lake cutting 2 miles off of your hike. What a beautiful setting this is:
Part of the beginning of the trail close to the boat dock:
Looking at the water rushing down from Hidden Falls through the trees:
Many years ago when the kids were young we were able to get close to the water in many places to set and rest, have a picnic or whatever but now parts of the trails are fenced off and this is why:
Another view of the roaring river:
All for now, will post more later. We are taking a picnic lunch with us and will be out for a good part of the day.
As you all can probably tell Mike and I love historic places and we both love history. When I was going to college I was majoring in it. Although I never finished a degree most of the class credits I have were in history. I will be trying to get some quilting and sewing done on this trip I just haven’t found much time for it. We have not watched any tv since we left home and mainly just been looking at sites, traveling, and then both of us blog! Mike posted maps on his blog of were we have driven and I have cut and pasted them here:
our first part of our journey west
the second days drive
across Nebraska
The last place we stopped yesterday was Fort Laramie Wyoming. The fort was used for about 50 years in the mid to late 1800’s protecting the travelers and the telegraph lines going through this part of the country before treaties were signed and kept with the Indians. I must say that I do not think the Indians were treated right but that is something that took place before our time and I had no say in the matter. If the pioneers had not continued to forge to the west we do not even know what would have taken place in the history of this part of the country.
The fort was crumbling from disuse when the park service took it over in the 1930’s and renovated the buildings. Some of the photos might not look clear this is because they have glass over all entrances to the rooms so that you can see in the rooms but cannot go into to them. It really ruined taking photos for me, but I can understand why they can’t have the rooms open to the public.
an 1800's style barracks
I loved this tree - it was not tall but very wide, I have no idea how old it is - there are not a lot of trees in this area, one of the branches is so low but so long that they have it supported on one end so it won't break off.
a quilt on a bed in one of the officiers house. I do not think this was an actual antique quilt - I couldn't get real close to it but it just didn't look really old - maybe it was but very well taken care of? The fabric showed no signs of age to me other than being a little faded.
I took more photos of the quilts on the beds but because of the glass between me and the quilts they didn’t turn out well. Mike took photo’s with his camera too and his camera is better. When he goes through his I will see which ones to take and past here.
a snake we saw at Scottsbluff - it is up against the wall - not a rattlesnake but do not know what kind it is
a woven coverlet - brought from Ohio by family on their way west
a shiney new doctor kit - wouldn't you love being treated with this equipment!
the flooded North Platte River in this area of eastern Wyoming. We had intended to camp in the parks in this area and found out a couple days ago that the area was still flooded and has been for over a month I think. Instead we are at a KOA for two nights as there are many things in this area we wanted to see but did not want to have to search for a campground in the area that was not flooded. All of those trees in the distance are standing in water.
Today was a very long day – we hit the road at about 9 this morning and didn’t make camp until 7 this evening. Much longer day than normal. But we did not really drive that many miles – 250 miles. We had so many places we wanted to stop at to see on the drive so we had many many breaks.
We traveled a good long way on Highway 26 in Western Nebraska. This follows the Oregon/California/Mormon Trails. If you do not know these 3 trails pretty much followed the same path for a good distance before they break off from each other. One of course heading to Oregon, one to California and one to Salt Lake City area of Utah.
We stopped to read plenty of the road side historic signs along the way today. Here is a photo of one sign we saw today which explains itself:
one of the first of two women to travel by wagon train to Oregon
Chimney Rock - a marker that people were told to look for on the trail to go the right direction
Chimney Rock is a really famous marker out west – it used to be larger – due to erosion it has gotten smaller in the last 150 years since people used it as a marker for the trail. They have a nice visitor center/museum here and we spent about an hour here and had lunch too.
Our next stop was Scottsbluff another place in history where there are still deep impressions in the earth from the thousands of wagons that came through this area. We were here for close to two hours. In most places contrary to what is shown in the old west movies and tv shows the wagon trail was not always one long line of wagons but spread out all over the place so people were not constantly eating the dust of all the wagons in front of them. In Scottsbluff the trail narrows and it was more of traveling in a line. Because of that the wagon ruts were deep in this sandy soil and although due again to erosion you can’t see the actual ruts you can see where the soil is cut deep into almost ravine type of areas now.
this is one of those deep cuts into the soil.
Scottsbluff with a recreation covered wagon - one of three set up here.
one of the replica wagons not packed as full as I am sure they were. The child here is playing the part of the child going west - she didn't appear to be too happy about doing this it was hot out.
from on the top of Scottsbluff you could see this hiking trail from up high. This trail goes to the visitors center. You can ride a shuttle bus to the top and ride back if you want. If walking if you look at the end of the trail you will see a tunnel - that is for foot traffic - I have no idea how long it is - maybe one day we will walk it but not today - we were already realizing we would get to camp late.
I will give more photos tomorrow of the last stop we made today which was the old Fort Laramie in Wyoming. I almost lost my camera today! We took the shuttle bus to the top of the bluff and walked on a few of the short trails to see the overlooks and then took the shuttle bus back to the museum/visitors center. When I got in to the museum I realized I did not have the camera. I had left it on the seat. The driver had mentioned to us that after he dropped us off he had to drive to town to get gas! We had to wait an extra half an hour before he got back so I could retrieve my camera. One of the rangers called the driver on his cell phone to check and see if I had left it there and sure enough he said yes.
Back in 1991 was the last time we had been to Scottsbluff and we being the only passengers on the shuttle had gotten to talking to him and told him of our trip back then — the kids to this day still refer to the trip as the “trip from hell” – need I say more. Picture Chevy Chases “Vacation” movie LOL anything that could happen did happen. The part that had to do with Scottsbluff was that we locked the keys in the minivan with the engine running!! We had left home pulling a 13 foot trailer with the pickup truck and got 20 miles from home and the engine blew – took the mini van instead, had to replace the radiator on the trip – had two cracks in the windshield from flying rock, flat tires, and then on the way back home about 100 miles from home someone ran into the back of our camper and pushed in the back about 2 feet – then claimed bankruptcy and had no insurance after they told us they did!! We saw 13 states and 2 Canadian Provenience’s that trip. No wonder the kids call that 3 week vacation the vacation from hell! LOL
When I got my camera back from the driver of the shuttle he was laughing and said “I hope this is the worse thing that happens this trip” I do too!!
Wouldn’t you just love to live in this! OMG I don’t know how the sturdy pioneer woman did it!! We drove over to Ash Hollow today – I have many photos so I will do several blog post with them. This post will be just on the sod house With two doors and no windows I’m not sure how the pioneer woman got her sewing done – she must have been almost blind from eye strain within a few years of living here. Maybe she put her rocking chair (if she had one) outside by the door when she was working on her sewing so she would have more light?
The little sod house - so nice and cozy I'm sure. Made from cutting the ground up into squares or oblong pieces and stacking. Inside is muddy and damp, dirt dropping I imagine and bugs crawling.
the inside of the "house"
I looked up at the roof and saw these cactus - I thought it was really weird to have cactus growing on the roof.
then I walked around to the back of the house and looked up and saw the roof was covered in prickly pear cactus!
While we were looking and taking photos another tourist came by so I had him take a photo of Mike and I in front of this house
for some unknown reason (to me that is) in this part of the country it is not uncommon to see boots placed on fence posts. The property by the sod house had a whole string of boots on the fence post. Anyone know the reason for this tradition?
I will do one or two more post on Ash Hollow – like I say I have a lot of photos. I will get behind on posts at some point I am sure. So far we have had a cell signal strong enough for internet at all places we have been – I’m sure sooner or later there will be several days in a row without it.
Tomorrow we move on and will be at the end of Western Nebraska. We will see Chimney Rock and Scotts Bluff National Momument. Depending on where we find a campsite we might also be seeing historic Fort Laramie in Wyoming.
An update on the quilting front I am about 2/3′rds done with one applique block – wonder if I will get done with it by the weekend. I have not spent much time at it. We have been taking walks as often as we can, we are trying to get in shape for hikes in the mountains later this month. I think we did 2 miles yesterday (one walk) and 3 walks today for a total of about 4 miles.
July 7, Wednesday
What a neat park this is. We camped at this park 32 years ago. We were living in Idaho at the time and my youngest brother and sister ages 12 & 14 stayed with us for 2 months visiting. When it was time for them to go back to Arkansas my parents met us at this park to pick them up – it was about half way and neither of us had time to go all the way to either pick them up or bring them home We spent a day or two camping here if I remember right. Our two girls were about 5 & 2 1/2. I wonder if they remember it – we never camped here after that – plans just never worked out for it. The park is exactly as I remember it from back then.
Very tall cotton woods are throughout the park, it is also on a lake which is much higher than normal this year – but luckily no flooding right here.
our campsite among the trees
another view of the park.
another view of our site - love that curved tree.
The day started very cloudy and dark once again, it rained heavily for a time last night. Thought it might rain again today during the day but it didn’t. Might rain this evening but it almost looks like it is clearing up finally. I had a sweat shirt jacket on almost all day – only got up to 68!! Tonight to dip to 54 wow – what a relief from the heat earlier in the week.
Here is a photo of Mike and his dad. The next time we visit him they will be in Oregon, they had their house up for sale for sometime and it sold the morning of the day we got there. They will be moving in a month to Oregon where 3 of their children live and the youngest daughter and her family will be moving back there as well at the same time. (they being Mike’s dad, his step-mom, youngest sister and her family).
Mike is the tall one (younger too LOL) he sure is a lot taller than his dad - his mom too. Supposed to be some tall ones on his mothers side of the family somewhere - all I have met on dad's side are short! Mike and his dad both have the same nose though and I guess the same hair too!
We will be at this campground tomorrow too and will drive around and see some sites. Mike spent a bit of time in his childhood in and out of this area and wants to look at some places he remembers. Also we are close to Ash Hollow and will check it out – it has been years since we had been there. We are going to be visiting all kinds of historical places this trip that have to do with the Oregon Trail and this is one of them – photo’s tomorrow I guess next visit to his dad will cover more Oregon Trail territory – we have been over part of it but not for a long time.
On Monday July 5th we spent about 6 hours driving across Nebraska. Nebraska is pretty farm country but there is not much to vary the scenery after awhile!! Corn field after corn field, hay field after hay field!
Here are some photo’s I took while Mike was driving – we did have some interesting clouds to look at.
we left Indian Cave State Park around 9AM and beat the rain out of the park but shortly after it started to rain. Then after an hour or so it just looked like this! Really neat looking clouds
a little further down the road and it still looked like this!
by late morning the clouds where breaking up and the sky was blue in patches with pretty white clouds. Here is one of those hay fields!
another field
Now this is one interesting site to see. You are driving down the interstate at Kearney, Nebraska and here is this arch across the interstate. About 3 years ago Mike had heard about it and we did stop to see it then. This is a museum and over look. You can walk across the arch on the inside and there are port holes that over look the interstate – they also have radar detectors stationed at each so you can see who is speeding and who isn’t! Cute. Here is a link to a site that tells you all about it. We didn’t stop this time but last time we did take about a 2 1/2 hour rest stop by touring the museum and seeing all that they had. Great history of the area and all about the Pioneers trip to the West through this country.
Great Platte River Road Archway Memorial- museum and overlook
We had intended to camp two nights at a campground near by while visiting with Mike’s family but the campground didn’t look very nice and the campsites were so sandy we thought we might get stuck so we drove to Mike’s dads house instead to find out where else to camp. He has a wide drive way with a shade tree right next to it and he said there was plenty of room so we are parked in the driveway hooked up with electricity and spending most of our time visiting anyhow so this is working out ok for two nights. This is a very small country town and no one minds about a camper parked in someone’s driveway!
We leave tomorrow (I am writing this Tuesday evening) in the early afternoon to continue our trip west – we are only driving a couple hours (or less?) to a state park by a lake. We have been there before and it is nice with big shade trees. We will be there for two days – I do not know if we will have a cell signal so if you do not hear from me for a couple days that is why.
I have been working on one applique block and maybe I will have something to show at the end of the week? We will see – I have not gotten much done since we left our house for sure.
On Saturday we started our days drive from Joplin Missouri. For our lunch time break we found this prairie rest stop in Kansas. There was a short trail to walk and it had numerous signs along the way with historic happenings listed. Also if you looked closely you could spot all the different kinds of wild flowers that grow. There was plenty of them.
This rest stop is 29 miles from Fort Scott, Kansas – it is part of a designated national wild life refuge. At the end of the little trail that we walked here is a pond that looked like it never goes dry and there was a lot of plant life and supposed to be a lot of birds and what not although we didn’t really see much. That is our motor home in the parking lot there all by itself – we almost had the place to ourselves. One big semi truck in the parking lot and one or two cars up in the upper level where the cars park.
This is some type of mimosa plant, the leaves are the same as on other varieties of that plant I have seen but the flowers look different, the blossoms were larger and had a kind of reddish center in them.
I don’t know what these are – some kind of poppy maybe? I know I have seen this when we travel to the west but I don’t have my book handy. I will need to get the flower/plant book out and start looking through it once again to get familiar with names of the plants once again.
This is the rest stop building, fairly new and nice design. We have found that a lot of places over the last 5 or 10 years have spent more time building new buildings and updating rest stops to make them nicer for tourist.
We had no internet connection on Saturday or Sunday so I will be posting this blog post when I can. You will find this trip that what I post at times will be several days after the fact. I’m not sure when I will have internet service this trip so I will be scheduling some posts in advance to post on certain days.
Here we are at our first stop along our journey. We did not travel far today and are barely out of our home state of Arkansas. Tomorrow’s drive will be about the same distance, slightly longer and we will be further from Arkansas and camping the weekend in southeastern Nebraska. It was very hot when we got here as expected and little shade for the camper. We turned the A/C on after we got set up and then went to find some air conditioning for a walk. We are on the outer edges of Joplin Missouri. It was too hot and sunny to really do anything so we just found a mall and walked two miles inside it. This evening we will probably walk around the campground a little and look it over.
Malls are not something I enjoy all that much anymore. There was a time when I did a lot of mall shopping – now I tend to only shop when I need something. But malls do come in handy on hot days when you have traveled for a good part of the day and just want to walk and stretch after sitting for long spells. Ok — it was only a 5 hour trip today including the stop for lunch but that is long for me. I do not like to sit for hours on end in the vehicles. I am constantly up and down all day normally – sitting for hours is not what I like.
When we first moved to Arkansas – in the central part of the state it was a long drive to NW Arkansas to visit my family. The interstate 540 was not there then. We would drive on old highway 71 which is known as scenic – but very twisty and curvy up through the Boston Mountains. (serpentine curves) After the interstate went in it cut the 3 to 4 hour drive down to 2 hours and 20 minutes nice! Seeing as we used to enjoy parts of the highway we decided today as we were on no schedule to cut over to the highway after we were well up into the mountains. There is a rest area that is quite pretty and would be just right for lunch. Then we would drive the 20 miles through the tiny towns back to the interstate 540.
The old rest area was given a face lift and we were pleased with what we found. Now there is a loop trail – only 1/3 mile but nice for a walk after lunch. There is an area where you can cut down to the river and walk along side of it.
I didn't think to take my camera when we started the loop trail so Mike took these with his phone.
some of the water - we got our feet wet when crossing sections. It felt good!!
the trees are so pretty the way they overhang the river. This river is called the West Fork of the White River. The water was very low today but still enjoyable.
These benches are now scattered throughout the park.
It was really nice seeing this old rest area again and it really looked more like a picnic ground than a rest area. It used to be packed with the big semi-trucks – which is the reason it took so long to travel the road (besides the steep curves of course) – there would be so much truck traffic that it made it not enjoyable to drive this route – now that we have driven a few sections of it over the years we might just do the whole highway next time we go to visit the family.
I did get a little applique done today – I will post a photo in a day or two after some progress is made – now I am going to get my shoes on and see about a walk around the campground.
