Idaho - West side

Hagerman

Rolling hills and valleys on our trip

September 27, 2015 was moving day to Hagerman, ID. We had a new development on this trip. The propane gas alarm started beeping and continued to do so every 32 seconds for 3-1/2 hours - talk about torture! What ever the problem is needs to be fixed and soon!





We stayed at the Hagerman RV Campground, it is well maintained with fairly decent sized lots, again a little short but at least there was room for our car this time. The laundry room and bathrooms were clean and the Wi-Fi was good. Hagerman is a small town, but lots to do within an hour in each direction.

Malad Gorge State Park was just up the road from us and what a treasure we found. As you drive to the park you are going through fairly flat land and you can see for quite a long ways across the fields. As you are walking to the Devil's Washboard overlook the whole area appears to be flat until you hit the bridge and the land opens up in this amazing river gorge with waterfalls, spectacular rock formations and jewel like green water.

There is an aqua-duct along side the river that diverts water to two Idaho power plants. Electricity has been generated by the Malad River since 1911. The canal system was completed in 1948. Even with this diversion, the network of springs in the Malad Gorge produce 600,000 gallons of water each minute and keep the river flowing throughout the year.

There is animal life here based on the scat we saw, but we never did actually see any animals. We did come across very large ant hills and a few lizards.

Woody's Cove waterfall

You are provided with a brochure that takes you on a self-guided driving tour with overlooks, each handicap accessible, to stop at that give you different views of the gorge and three waterfalls to enjoy.

Woody's Cove Overlook
Top - the gorge leading to the valley and interesting rock
Bottom - Mielikki finding some shade

The stop at Woody's Cove gives you a breathtaking view of Hagerman Valley as well as the waterfall.

Mother Nature never ceases to amaze us and our trip to Twin Falls just confirmed that! The Snake River runs through the northern end of Twin Falls with the Perrine Bridge crossing it.
The first crossing of the river was by the I.B. Perrine Ferry in 1903, then a wagon bridge replaced the ferry until a rim to rim bridge was built in 1927, also called the Perrine Bridge. The current bridge construction was started in 1973 and completed in 1976. It is 486 feet above the river, 1,505 feet long and 78.6 feet wide. It can withstand winds up to 80 mph, not something Nancy wants to test.

The Snake River area is done very nicely. There is a walking path above the river that goes under the bridge, also a beautiful park and golf course down on the river.

We think Big Foot walked on the gorge edge

The river gorge twists and turns all over the place with waterfalls and large rock formations scattered about.

There is a small rock butte to climb that offered great views of the park, golf course and bridge.

Rock Creek Park, is just outside of Twin Falls and gave us a great place to walk and stretch our legs.

Sawtooth National Forest has some beautiful mountain ranges and the road takes you through a number of small towns. Some are just a store or two, others like Hailey and Sun Valley are big tourist areas.

There is a warm springs in the park that has a water fall down into pools where you can sit and relax in the warm water. We didn't have bathing suits with us so just our feet went in.

There are small creeks through out the park, and lots of pine cones for Mielikki to play with.




On our way to the park we came across a road sign that directed you to "Rock City". Sounded interesting so we thought we would check it out. A 4-wheel drive vehicle would have made the trip down the road a little easier. At times we were riding angled on our side because of the ruts. It was a wild but fun ride and the rocks were pretty neat.

Boise, ID was our big city trip this stop. There is just something about traffic, tall buildings, lots of people and city noise that makes Nancy feel right at home. After driving through town and exploring some of the river parks we toured the Old Penitentiary.

This wasn't the original plan, we were going to hike to Table Rock, but we discovered it was a bit more strenuous than we wanted and we were in the parking lot of the penitentiary so we figured we would check it out. This type of place usually effects Nancy emotionally and energetically so we avoid them, but this time it didn't and there were some great photo opportunities.

 Life in prison, especially in the early to mid 1900's was no picnic.

The rose garden

There was a beautiful rose garden that seemed so peaceful until we read the sign.






Nancy has a fascination with doors and window architecture and this place did not disappoint.










The walls of one room are filled with large drawings of tattoos. It was interesting reading about the different meanings of each one.
 

The cells are now worn, dingy and have peeling paint. Probably weren't much better back in the day.

One of the rooms you tour is the laundry room. When Nancy was a kid one of her chores was ironing the sheets on a mangle iron. One this size would have made it much quicker!

The guard towers were actually quite pretty. There is also a small women's ward on the property that had 10 cells in it. Most of the crimes were for adultery or theft. There were a couple for murder.



While we were traveling across Idaho, our daughter was traveling across Scotland with her in-laws. One of the stories she shared was of the sheep-herding demonstration they watched. This monument to the sheep industry in Idaho reminded us of that.

Following the Oregon Trail next. 

Till we meet again...

Happy Trails to you!

Tips and things we have learned along the way. 

~ Share the duties. Sharing the responsibilities of chores is always important when you live with someone and that applies to life on the road too. Living in a small space makes it even more important. We each have our "assigned" tasks for setting up and getting ready to pull out. Les does most of the outside set up and take down with assistance from Nancy on the leveling jacks and loading the car onto the tow dolly. Nancy does most of the inside set up and take down. This way we are both done about the same time and either settled in or ready to hit the road. We share the day to day chores as well, Nancy doing the cooking, Les doing the clean up. We take turns with the cleaning and the laundry. This way neither of us feels over loaded with work and that makes us both happy campers.