Sue

Day 18-Idaho

We drove to Malad Gorge State Park which has an overlook to the Malad Gorge, interestingly enough.  There is a footbridge crossing the gorge so we got a really good look at the volcanic rock lining the gorge, then walked a trail along the gorge to an overlook that showed the falls.  There is a huge spring coming out of the rock downstream from the falls, with vegetation growing in the water.

We followed a cryptic map on the brochure to an area a quarter mile up river to the Malad Way Station, where a bridge had been constructed that was used by early Oregon Trail emigrants.  We found the bridge abutments that can still be seen but wandered around looking for the wagon ruts.  We think we found them, but as we were traversing areas of the state park, at one point I was in the lead and Scott said he thought we had run out of trail and I was following a deer or buffalo trail, so we retraced our steps.  Later we researched more on the internet and found a better map which would have been nice to have when we were out hiking in the blistering sun.

We then drove the Thousand Springs Scenic Byway and saw the springs pouring out of the cliffs, although not as much water as when we had been there in the spring.  But it’s still a beautiful area.

We also found Niagara Springs State Park which has a beautiful spring, quite large, coming out of the rock face and winding all over.  It was so cool there by the spring and so gorgeous with all the vegetation.  There’s also a really nice park there.

Day 19-the last day

We came home from a great trip!  We traveled a total of 4010 miles and stayed in two countries and three states.  So fun and so awesome to have all that time together!

Day 13-Montana

We stayed in Butte last night and decided to visit the World Museum of Mining, which is on the “Hill”. Butte was once called the “Richest Hill on Earth”. The new part of the city is below the hill and as you move up the hill, the city gets older and the top is full of mining head-frames. The higher part is a National Historic District and I was intrigued by the architecture as we went to the museum, so I had Scott drive up and down the streets uptown to look at the businesses, homes, and churches. And I fell in love with historic Butte. The buildings are awesome!  What a treasure trove of late 19th and early 20th century Western architecture. We finally made it to the museum, which is right next to Montana Tech and sits on the site of the Orphan Girl Mine with a 100 foot head-frame.

In the museum entrance building there is a doll museum which was donated by a woman who dedicated much effort to getting the museum started.  She spent her whole life setting up dollhouses and collecting dolls.  There were intricate and detailed houses and replicas of Butte buildings, as well as a huge replica of Sherlock Holmes’ 221 Baker Street digs.  Displayed there were tons of action figure dolls of almost every 1970’s TV show you can name, plus all the comic book series, and a huge collection of Star Trek figures.  The picture shows half of them.  We had a ball going through looking at everything and all the kids who came through were entranced.  There was also a great collection of minerals that included a phosphorescent room with minerals that glowed.

There was a mine tour and Scott went on that so he could go underground and see all the cool stuff in the mine.  I wandered some around the grounds where there are all kinds of machines and ore cars displayed for visitors to see what it was like during the heyday of copper mining.

The museum also has an entire town, Hell Roarin’ Gulch, set up around the mine’s head-frame.  The buildings are all authentic Butte buildings that have been moved there, restored, and furnished in the time period.  We thoroughly enjoyed wandering the streets and looking in the windows, and the buildings were packed with period details inside.

We spent much longer there than we planned because it turned out to be so awesome! Next we visited Virginia City which is a real town of restored buildings with stores and restaurants, plus other fun stuff to see and do.  We bought some candy at the candy store and I got some glass earrings of white daisies that are really unique.  It was fun to wander around the streets and then we headed to Gardiner for our trip to Yellowstone the next day.

Day 17-Idaho

We visited Craters of the Moon in April a couple years ago and it was still covered by four feet of snow. We were allowed to hike in as far as we wanted on the main driving road which turned out to be not very far because the wind was blowing hard and it was freezing, and most of the park was covered in snow, as I mentioned. So we said we would return again in the summer some day and this was it. It’s an eerie sort of place with lava fields all around and it’s so quiet that we could hear the wind blowing. Not blowing vegetation, just blowing. We saw great examples of aa and pahoehoe types of basalt and lots of interesting features. Scott the geologist was in his element. He was explaining faults and rock types and squeeze-ups and I don’t know what all to me and it was great!

There are several cinder cones there which are created from the small cinders that fall from a huge volcanic incident. One cone is extremely large and visitors are allowed to climb its very steep sides to the top where there is vegetation growing. Did I mention that it’s very steep? We felt like we were walking straight up, and even all the miles and miles of hiking we had done didn’t get us in shape for that climb. The view from the top was awesome, however, as we could see all over the park.

We visited the Snowcone area where there is a cinder cone with a hole that is filled with ice all year long. Scott went farther on the crater trail there and I hung out in the parking lot reading the park book so I could regale Scott with fascinating facts. That was the only hike I didn’t go on so I managed pretty dang well on this trip, thank you very much! Although Scott tried hard to help me reserve energy and not get too worn out each day.

Next we hiked the Tree Molds Trail which went pretty far out in a lava field but was so interesting. Trees were overcome with hot lava and burned, but the lava cooled and preserved the shape and texture of the trees in the cooled rock.

We really loved seeing Craters of the Moon and enjoyed our visit to this spectacular area.

 

 

Day 16-Idaho

We have been told by many that we should visit Yellowstone Bear World in Rexburg, so we decided to go since we were in town.  It’s a great opportunity to see bears up close, especially if you are close behind the special tour that allows people to feed the bears and they are begging by the truck and wandering around.  They have a rare white elk and cute little baby goats.

We visited Massacre Rocks State Park, which is named for an incident along the Oregon Trail where 10 white emigrants were killed by Native Americans.  There is a geology trail and we hiked that to see the rock formations and learn about the geologic history. Also in the park are some very well-preserved wagon ruts on the Oregon Trail and you can hike to see them.  We drove from the visitor center to a parking area by the interstate and then hiked quite a ways, went through two tunnels underneath the interstate to get to the other side and the ruts.  It’s a deep swale in the prairie that’s easy to see and interesting to think of all the wagons that traversed that area.

We drove a couple miles farther on to Register Rock, which is part of the same state park and is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Many emigrants scratched their names into the rock for posterity and it’s now protected by a pavilion so that you can still view the signatures and dates.