QUOTABLE: “Each and every one of you has the power, the will, and the capacity to make a difference in the world in which you live.” ~ Harry Belafonte
Let’s start with cleaning out a few notes:
- A few weeks ago as we were heading out in the morning we passed something strange that harkened back to my childhood. There was a monk dressed in an orange robe walking down the road. He was barefoot and carried a walking stick and a small, cloth sack. I immediately flashed back to Kwai Chang Caine.
- Sign on a hardware store in Emmett, ID: “Sorry folks. No poop jokes this week. We left them behind.”
- Sign on a restaurant between Banks and Lowman, ID: “Eat here or we both starve.”
On Monday, July 15, it was time to exit the overcrowded, touristy area and head further east. We took US-20 almost all the way. In Picabo, we stopped at the Picabo Angler for a little leg stretch and drinks. Back home there are places where every convenience store has live bait and some fishing gear. I noticed that in this part of the country, however, things get a little more serious, and this store was crazy. It had a full bore professional angler’s shop in the middle of a convenience store with an expert on hand and a big case of lure options. You can spend a LOT of $$ on stuff to stand in the middle of a river and cast for trout! The next section of our route cut through Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. We stopped there on a previous trip, but it is a must if you’ve never been. It honestly looks like you’d imagine the surface of the moon or another planet to be. Three HUGE lava fields come together to cover over 600 square miles, which includes the 343,000 acres designated as the park. Walking out there and looking across miles of rough, black rock dotted with small vegetation is truly surreal. It almost looks like a giant blow torch scorched a huge chunk of Idaho.
We continued up to Arco, Idaho, where an entire mountain is covered by numbers. The Number Hill started in 1920 when the Butte County High School graduating class painted a giant “20” on the cliffs above town. Since then every class has added to the mountain graffiti, which is supported by the townsfolk. We stopped for lunch at Pickle’s Place, a basic diner, then checked out the memorial to submariners in the park across the street. They had a sail from the USS Hawkbill, which had unfortunate numbering, an MK-14 torpedo, and monuments to submarine veterans and the 4,027 crew members still on final patrol from the 65 submarines lost since they became a part of the naval service. It was a nice setup.
Arco, Idaho, was the first town in the world powered by nuclear power, which led to our next stop…the EBR-I National Historic Landmark. I wasn’t feeling very well, so while MW checked it out, I took a nap in Priscilla. He said the world’s first nuclear power plant was pretty cool. This walk through with exhibits was well laid out and had lots of information. MW always enjoys seeing how things work, and this was no exception. While only in operation for 12 years, EBR-I (Experimental Breeder Reactor-I) laid the groundwork for future nuclear power plants. It was the first reactor to sustain a chain reaction, produce useable amounts of electricity by splitting atoms, use NaK (sodium and potassium based liquid metal) as a coolant, generate useable power and all electricity for its own needs, and to produce electricity with plutonium. Did you know that a nuclear reactor breeds? Me neither. Apparently that means that it creates more nuclear fuel than it uses. It had never been done before until 1951 in this little building. Another little tidbit I didn’t know (seriously, there are LOTS of them)…the Air Force worked on developing a nuclear-powered aircraft engine in the 50s. While they were not successful in getting it in the air due to weight, their efforts advanced the science and changed what state-of-the-art was in nuclear materials for that time. Their two reactors, Heat Transfer Reactor (HTRE) No. 1 & No. 2 are also at this site. MW wandered around there a bit, then woke me up for the last leg which took us into Idaho Falls, then a short hop south to Shelley. Most of the day had been very hazy thanks to smoke from distant wildfires. We couldn’t smell it, but my eyes were killing me by the time we got set up.
Tuesday was a bit of a slow day. We dilly-dallied in the morning before heading over to Mick’s Home Cooking in Shelley for lunch, a basic diner that had homemade breads, pies, and other stuff. Pretty good stuff, and judging by the crowd that came in behind us, everyone knows it. After that we wandered around the Army Surplus Warehouse. A person could spend a couple of days nosing around that place! That was pretty much it except for taking a gander at the river, getting campground pics, and relaxing back at Priscilla.
Wednesday we took a ride over to Blackfoot, Idaho, where our first stop was for lunch at Tommy Vaughn’s Grill. The standout was my Pulled Pork Tacos that were flippin’ awesome! I’ll definitely attempt to replicate that flavor. Next we ran a few errands, then checked out the main attraction. Did you know that there is a museum entirely devoted to the potato? The Idaho Potato Museum has a variety of displays, artifacts, and videos to bring the visitor up to speed on the history of potatoes. To start with, they originated in the Andes mountains and were grown as far back as 200 BC. There are ship’s manifests that document their arrival in Spain in 1570, and from there they spread around the world, finally arriving in Virginia via Bermuda in 1621. Today the Russet Burbank potato, which was developed to combat the Irish potato famine and is the perfect French fry variety, is king in Idaho. However, they also grow another russet, several reds, a couple of golds, and several fingerling varieties. About 300,000 acres of potatoes are harvested every year in Idaho, which is about 13 BILLION pounds of potatoes. According to the museum, the world’s most humble vegetable (their words, not mine) just grows best in Idaho, and the best Idaho potatoes come from the area around Blackfoot, which produces more potatoes than any other county in the country. Potato plants are annuals that grow more food per acre than any other major crop. In addition to the museum, there is a gift shop and cafe where, of course, potatoes reign supreme. Here are a few more interesting facts:
- The starch content, which varies by variety, determines the best use for a potato.
- Potatoes are graded, with only 30% in a harvest load showing up directly in the produce section. The rest are used to make other potato products.
- Potato plants flower and produce fruits that look like green tomatoes. They are poisonous!
- If you want to grow potatoes in your garden, you will start with seed potatoes. However, remember that nasty fruit from above? True potato seeds come from those berries, and that is what they use to come up with new varieties.
- Harvesting was no joke prior to the development of modern farm machinery. Workers strapped sacks to their belts and, bending over, loaded them until they weighed 60 pounds!!
- The potato was the first vegetable grown in space, germinated on the space shuttle Columbia.
North Bingham County Park was really nice. Located just at the edge of Shelley, Idaho, it provided easy access to Shelley, Blackfoot, and Idaho Falls. The park was divided into day use and campground areas. The former includes horseshoe pits, a playground, picnic shelters, a boat ramp, tennis and basketball courts, covered pavilion, a disc golf course, and a sports field. The campground has a pavilion, pet area, dump station (free whether staying or not), and fire pits. There is a tent camping area and a dozen pull-through sites, each with 50-amp electric, water, and picnic tables. There was plenty of over-the-air tv, and cell signals were also strong. We really liked the park. Despite being right by the road, it was pretty quiet, and the big shade trees helped with the heat. The only caveat would be that the trees could have used a little trimming. (We keep a hand saw onboard for just such times.) We would definitely stay here again. For this visit in July 2024, we paid $40 per night.
While in Idaho Falls, we passed a gas station named Stinker Station with a skunk as a logo. It immediately reminded me of our granddaughter Madolyn, who used to call a skunk a stunk, which I felt was appropriate, but I digress. I told MW that I just wouldn’t have a skunk for a logo at a convenience store. A little further down the road we passed a sign that said “Tourists – Do not laugh at the natives.” Well I had to look that up. It turns out that the two are linked. A man by the name of Farris Lind, who was widely known as Fearless Farris, created the gas stations. They were named because a competitor once called him “a real stinker” for his low fuel prices. The quirky road signs are designed to bring attention to the stations. Others include “Idaho’s Skunks are not to be sniffed at” and “With a later start you wouldn’t be here yet”. They reminded me a little of the old Burma Shave signs that I wrote about a few weeks ago. In any case, it turns out that Stinker Stations are not Fearless’ only claim to fame. He grew up poor during the Depression and ended up a multi-millionaire. He was also a fighter pilot, and later, a crop duster. As an older man, he developed polio and was paralyzed from the neck down, requiring a respirator to breathe. Even then, he never lost his sense of humor and ran his company from his bed. What a guy!
Thursday before hitting the road MW got on the roof to make sure everything was okay. During the night the wind picked up, and I thought it sounded like a limb scraping up there. Of course, he slept through it! He ended up cutting a couple of the low-hanging branches because they were going to drag over the a/c and antenna. We finally hit the road about 8 AM, heading north through Idaho Falls, then east on US-26. This took us along the Snake River and the Palisades Reservoir, where there were tons of large bird nests…ospreys, eagles, etc. We saw a few hunting and in nests, but I couldn’t catch pics. We crossed into Wyoming, and at Alpine turned south on US-89. At Afton, we stopped for lunch at Fathom Restaurant, which had foods from the Asian continent and little from the US and was REALLY good. (If you’ve never had Indian Butter Chicken, stop now and find someplace that makes it. Heavenly!!) We also checked out Dog-Eared Books, a really nice, well-organized, new/used place. (Yes, MW walked away with a couple. It’s an addiction, people!) Back in Big Jake, we continued south to WY-89, then took US-30 over to Kemmerer and the Riverside RV Park. It had been a beautiful, partly cloudy day for the most part, with just a little haze in places. The scenery was just spectacular, and you can see in the pics why I absolutely LOVE this part of the country.
One bad discovery after we got parked today…someone hit our tailgate. At least that is what we think. It had to have occurred on Tuesday or Wednesday, and neither MW nor I can recall backing in where we were remotely close to anything. Plus, we have a backup camera that clearly shows distance. We were in the middle of big parking lots a couple of times, though. Guess we’ll be driving around looking like amateurs! LOL. Stuff happens.
Friday started with an early morning walk to town, where we were surprised by a buck walking out of a neighborhood street. There were also magpies hanging out around the campground, a nesting platform that a couple of ospreys were fishing from, and a lot of swallow nests under the bridge. We stopped at Fossil Fuel, a coffee shop in town, for breakfast. I was a bit disappointed…only full-sugar sodas (I don’t drink coffee) and my muffin was dry and hard. (I’ve been to several coffee shops over the years who don’t sell sodas at all, but a few just picked on DIET sodas. I asked about it once and was told they aren’t good for us. Hmmmm. So apparently that giant, full-fat, triple syrup, extra caffeine, warm milkshake all those folks are drinking is a health food. Who knew!!??) After the nice walk back, I got myself together to head out and do chores. The laundromat, Sparkle City, was a couple of miles over the hill in Diamondville and very nice. (If you are in the market for a laundromat, it is for sale.) Plus, I was completely alone until my stuff was almost dry!! I managed to get a little bit of writing done there, then headed over to Taco Time, the only place not covered up with festival traffic (more on that later) to sit in the corner and continue. That lasted for about an hour before I cried uncle. It was FREEZING in there!!! I went back to Priscilla to warm up. The last time we had rain was back in California near San Francisco, so when strange drops of water started coming down sporadically from the sky, we weren’t sure what it was at first! LOL. We had sporadic thunderstorms roll through, but nothing that spit out too much water. It was nice!!
Kemmerer, Wyoming, is famous for several things: 1) In 1898, a man named James Cash Penney went to work for Golden Rule stores. He was good at his job, and caught the attention of owners Guy Johnson and Thomas Callahan, who offered him a partnership in a new store in Kemmerer. He moved to town, invested $2,000, and got down to business. The store was successful, and he helped open two more, before the Callahan/Johnson partnership fell apart in 1907. Penney then jumped on the chance to buy them out of those three and continued opening new stores. Five years later there were 34 stores in operation, and by 1913 he moved the headquarters to Salt Lake City and and incorporated under a new name…J. C. Penney. By 1924, Penney was making somewhere around a million bucks a year. The 1929 market crash did a number on his personal finances and his health, but he managed to keep the stores afloat. While seeking treatment for his health issues, Penney became a Christian after hearing the hymn “God Will Take Care of You” in the hospital chapel. After that, he directed his stores to be closed on Sundays to allow employees to attend church. Today you can shop at the original “Mother Store” in downtown Kemmerer and see the modest house Penney lived in just down the street. Another interesting note about the man…he had a hand in molding another entrepreneurial star. While visiting the store in Des Moines, Iowa, Penney trained a young man on wrapping packages economically. That man was Sam Walton, and you all should know how that turned out. Too cool! 2) Fossil Butte National Monument is just a few miles away (we’ve been before, so didn’t hit there this trip), and this area, both within and outside of the park, has produced hundreds of fossils that are displayed all over the world. The coolest thing, though, is that you can go fossil hunting with a few of the locals who run leased digs on area ranches. The three-toed “Dawn Horse” found in 2003 by Jim Tynsky (who owns a fossil store in Kemmerer) and a second horse found in 2015 by the Oliver brothers, Jason and Brock, were both amateur finds. Coincidentally there was a show on PBS during our stay in town about the “Dawn Horse”. People think that most fossils are found by school and museum programs, but the vast majority are actually found by amateurs. 3) For the last 30 years Kemmerer has hosted the Oyster Ridge Music Festival, a 2-day bluegrass and craft festival that packs the park. As luck would have it, the festival was the weekend we were in town, AND they provide free shuttle rides from the local campgrounds to the park. Bonus!!
Saturday we headed out early to take a drive around southwest Wyoming, but our first stop was a Miners Memorial Park just over the hill in Diamondville. I had no idea that coal was first recorded in this area in 1843 and has been mined here since 1868. In fact, Kemmerer, Diamondville, and nearby Frontier all came to be due to coal and railroad interests. The original mines were the traditional, underground versions, but today there are local strip mines. On August 14, 1923, the Frontier No 1 mine exploded, killing 99 local men. Miners Memorial Park, the memorial statue, and nearby murals honor coal miners in general and the 99 miners. After checking it out, we turned southwest on US-30 to see the countryside. My first memories of this state are of the beautiful, rolling grasslands to the northeast and the forests, giant mountains, and deep gorges of the Yellowstone territory. This part of Wyoming, though, is not like any of that. It is pretty much a sage desert with some grazing cattle, rolling hills with lots of snow fences, buttes, occasional rivers with grassy valleys, and small towns.
We also started seeing a good bit of oil production cropping up in areas. Our next stop was the Granger Stage Station State Historic Site in Granger, Wyoming. Built in 1862, this was a stage stop on the Overland Trail. A “Home Station” it provided meals, lodging, wagon parts, and repair. These larger stations were spaced about 50 miles apart with smaller stops for fresh horses between. The Pony Express and Oregon Trail both passed through here, too. Originally owned by Ben Holladay, this station and the associated line was purchased by Wells Fargo in 1866. As soon as the Transcontinental Railroad was completed just a short time later, the stage operations were shut down. Today the main building and what’s left of the corral are there. The surrounding town is a really run down town and looks almost dead. There was a beautiful building on the way out that was deteriorating. It must have been fabulous in its prime.
We continued southeast to the interstate where we checked out Little America. This is a huge complex with fuel, a gift shop/convenience store, restaurant, hotel, and RV park. We browsed for a bit and had some lunch before heading back to Big Jake. They must be doing something right based on the crowds, but lunch wasn’t it. Parked beside us was a guy just standing around with a giant owl on his arm. He told me that the raptor was famous and had been in more than 70 movies! Not sure if I’m buying that, but he did have a lot of polaroid pics of an owl with various celebrities. Who knows? I might have met a movie star!! Next we paralleled I-80 east over to James Town, then turned northwest on WY-372 to US-189 back into Kemmerer. The land was very wide open and beautiful, but was dotted with a variety of giant plants off in the distance and what appeared to be oil storage tanks. Along the way we saw lots of pronghorn, several prairie dogs, and rabbits. The coolest thing, though, was a Golden Eagle sitting atop a phone pole looking for lunch. The last time we were in this area, we got shots of a Bald Eagle sitting on a fence post, so there must be a LOT of eagles around here. We passed this one, then turned around and came back. He looked at us several times, but didn’t fly off. He was a pretty darned big bird!!
Finally back at Priscilla we relaxed for just a little bit, then took the shuttle downtown for the music festival. The festival is supposed to be bluegrass, but when we walked up, a bluegrass band was playing hip-hop. I like some bluegrass, and I like some hip-hop. The combo was just weird to me, though, but some folks seemed to like it. We checked out all of the vendors, stopped in at Tynsky’s to look at fossils, and of course, had fair food. MW was a HAPPY camper!
THAT’S GOING TO BE A HARD NO: While walking around the square in Kemmerer, I saw a sign that said “Come In For An IV”. What?? Apparently there is an entire business set up around mainlining vitamins, minerals, and the like via IV. Now, I’ve had quite a few surgeries in my life, and the IV is almost the WORST part! Why in the world would I voluntarily have that done? I’ll just take my vitamins and minerals in liquid and pill form, thank you.
Sunday we headed over to Grace Baptist Church where Pastor Richard Hartman gave a great sermon entitled “A Healthy Body”. It was about the church body and what we can do as Christians to make that a happy, healthy environment. We enjoyed the message and the people. Afterwards we planned to grab lunch at the Place on Pine next door, but despite confirming they would be open yesterday when we walked by during the festival, they were closed. Plan B was El Jaliscience Mexican Restaurant, but they were also closed. There weren’t many options for Plan C, so we ended up at Pizza Hut. It wasn’t too busy when we arrived, but by the time we left, it was full, and there were only two people working…one in front, one in the kitchen. They were hopping, though! Afterwards we walked over to Arctic Circle next door for a little Sunday treat.
GRACE: The young lady working at Pizza Hut had a leg brace that went from her ankle to her upper thigh, and was hobbling around like crazy. In chatting, she revealed that she had ankle surgery about a year ago, and they left a tourniquet on for too long, damaging her thigh muscle. Now they are treating her with meds, but said she will most likely never get full use of her leg back. Wow! She must have been 19 or so. The remarkable thing, though, was this: She told her story with no bitterness or resentment in her voice and worked her tail off taking care of the entire, crowded dining room alone. She was upbeat, smiling, and committed to doing a great job. What an attitude! Very few people get through life without accumulating a sack of rocks…emotional, physical, mental, financial, etc. Some are foisted upon us, and others are self-inflicted. Some are in plain view, and others are well-hidden. No matter the situation, I hope that I can carry whatever rocks continue to accumulate in my sack with the grace demonstrated by people like this young lady and Fearless Farris above. Let go, and let God!
Riverside RV Park was pretty good and, with the exception of the raucous festival crowd coming back in the wee hours, very quiet. Situated on the Ham’s Fork River about 1 mile from downtown Kemmerer, Wyoming, it affords easy access to everything in the area including Fossil Butte National Monument. They have level, gravelled pull-through and back-in sites that are full-hookup and can accommodate even very large rigs. There is also a tent/boondocking area that they use for special occasions like the festival. The office is unmanned, but the owners live right there and are pretty much available all the time. Note that it is a basic place, though, with no bathhouses and only port-a-potties for bathrooms. Cell signals are strong, and there is plenty of over-the-air tv, too. For this visit in July 2024 we paid just under $53 per night. (Sorry no pics. Didn’t remember until we were well down the road.)
Well, this week is finally written, and I’m working hard on catching up. Next up…Badlands (Not Those), A County Fair, And A Gatling Gun! See you on the path!!
Talisa
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