Snake River Geocaching

For our last day in Idaho, we decided to get out and do a little geocaching.  I located several down in Swan Valley along the Snake River, so we packed a lunch and headed south on Idaho 31. 

The road took us through farmland and ranch land, with mountains in the background.  It is really beautiful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our first geocache of the day was just a few miles outside of Victor.  We found the designated parking area, and set off on foot to find the cache.

It was only about a 1/2 mile hike, but all uphill, and we were following a creek . . . so we made plenty of noise and kept an eye out for bears!

We didn’t run into any bears, but we did see lots of beautiful wildflowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We reached the location of the geocache, and started searching.

The clue was “under a tree”, and that really didn’t narrow it down much!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bryce found it!

After signing the log and dropping off one of our Florida Gulf Coast shells, we walked back to the car and continued to the Caribou National Forest, along the Snake River.

This is such a beautiful river . . . there is an amazing view around ever curve!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our first geocache on the river took us to the Fall Creek Campground.  We drove to the end of the campground loop, and parked on an empty site.

This will be a good spot for lunch, too!  We followed the GPS along the bank of the river – in some spots, REALLY close to the edge!

 

 

After just a little bit of searching, Tom found this one!  What a clever hiding place!

With another success, we walked back to the car and had our lunch, and then Nicolas and Bryce decided to check out the water.

 

 

 

The next geocache took us back towards the entrance of the National Forest, to the Fall Creek Waterfall . . . which we didn’t even see as we drove in!

This was a beautiful waterfall, and we never would have known it was there if it hadn’t been for geocaching!

The description on this geocache was actually a little confusing regarding the container, and the actual location . . . so the owner said it could be claimed with a photograph if we weren’t able to sign the log.  We never found the log, so we included a photograph when we logged the find.

We were glad we stopped at this one – it’s beautiful!

 

This is also a very popular spot for fishing, and we saw several boats in the river around the bottom of the waterfall.

Back at the entrance to the National Forest, we found one last geocache – and this time it was Nicolas’ turn to find it!

That makes 4 out of 4 in Idaho, and we really enjoyed our day by the Snake River!

Back in Swan Valley, we stopped off for some “famous square ice cream”!

We weren’t sure what square ice cream was, but it just turns out that when the owners ordered some ice cream scoops from “down south” they were square when they arrived.  Rather than send them back, they made them work!  Actually, they were a pretty cool device – like a square barreled grease gun which they pushed into the ice cream tub to fill, and then the pulled the trigger to push the ice cream into the cone.

And then you have a square ice cream cone!

The ice cream was really good, too! 

 

Tom and Nicolas had to try the “Idaho Huckleberry”.  They said it was really tasty!

 

 

It was pretty hot when we got back to the RV, so we all went over to the pool for a couple hours to cool off.  We had the whole pool to ourselves!

It was a wonderful afternoon, and a great way to spend our last day in Idaho!  We’ve decided that we really like Idaho, and we’ll just have to come back and explore some more of this beautiful state!  We had a great stay at Teton Valley RV Park!

Tomorrow we move up to West Yellowstone, and I know we’ll have a really busy week there!

Golden Spike

We were on the road from Moab by 7:30am on Tuesday, and it was already hot!  I was surprised to see how desolate Utah is once you leave Moab.  We took Highway 191 north to I-70, and then to Highway 6 . . . and only passed 1 or 2 gas stations!  Quite a difference from MI where there’s a gas station and a McDonald’s (or something similar) at almost every exit along I-75!

We stopped in Price and topped off both the truck ($3.56/gallon) and the car ($3.37/gallon), and then made our way up Soldier Pass through Price Canyon.  this one isn’t in the Mountain Guide, but it’s a really LONG steady grade . . . probably only about 4%, though.  We didn’t have any trouble with the ascent, but it surprised us!  Highway 6 took us to I-15, just south of Provo, and traffic was pretty heavy all the way through Salt Lake City.  Once we cleared the congested area, we made a quick lunch stop at Subway, and then arrived in Brigham City around 1:30pm.

It’s still hot here, but not as hot as it was in Moab, and we have a nice shady spot for the RV!

We didn’t have a lot of things we wanted to see while we were here, but one definite stop was the Golden Spike National Historic Site.

We had a leisurely morning on Wednesday, and set out after lunch to the Golden Spike Historic Site, with a few geocaches along the way.

Our first stop was the little town of Corinne . . . which really wasn’t much more than a roadside stop!

 

The geocache clue said to “ask the Muleskinner”, so we knew the cache was going to be somewhere on this sculpture!

Tom ended up finding this one – our first find in Utah!

The next geocache was near a “benchmark”, but we weren’t really sure what a benchmark was!  Bryce searched,

but Nick ended up finding this one!  Now we know what a benchmark is, too!

One more geocache before we reached the historic site, and again it was a find for Nicolas!

Lots of prizes in this one!

We had finally reached the Golden Spike site, and were surprised to see that one of the engines was on the track!

We had arrived just in time for the meeting of the engines on the track, and the Rangers in the Visitor Center told us to go on out to the track and come back in afterwards to pay, or in our case, show our National Park pass.

The Jupiter was already in place, and as Engine No. 119 arrived, the Ranger explained the historical significance of their meeting.

 

The Central Pacific Railroad started in Sacramento, California, travelling across the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the Union Pacific Railroad started in Omaha, Nebraska, travelling across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains.  Over 4 years later, the two railroads met at Promontory Summit, Utah, and on May 10, 1869 the final spike was placed in the rails, joining the two tracks and completing the Trans-Continental Railroad which linked the east coast to the west.

 

The Jupiter arrived from California,

and Engine No. 119 from Nebraska.

Unfortunately, the original engines were scrapped when they were taken out of service in the early 1900s, but these replicas make several trips daily during the summer to the spot where the golden spike was placed.

 

Nicolas was always into trains when he was little, and he had a great time talking to the volunteers about the engines and how each one operated – one burned coal and the other burned wood, or so he tells me!

While he and Tom were busy there, Bryce and I found the answer to the virtual geocache . . . we are 4 for 4 in Utah!

 

After the demonstration, we went back into the Visitor Center to present our pass and watch the video of the construction of the railroad.  On our way out, we drove the 2-mile auto tour over the actual railroad grade.

The laborers had to cut through these mountain grades, and used the rock to fill in the valleys so that there would be a level surface for the track-layers.

This arch is referred to as “Chinese Arch” in acknowledgement of the thousands of Chinese immigrants who labored on the railroad.

 

It was a great day, and a nice visit to an interesting historic landmark!

Geocaching, Tubing and a Cattledrive

We’re having quite a stretch of hot weather here in SW Colorado, so on Sunday we were looking for a way to cool off . . . since the pool here at the RV Park still doesn’t have any water in it!

There’s a company in the nearby town of Dolores that runs rafting trips on the Dolores River.  Tom talked to the owner on Friday and he said he’s done taking rafting trips out (water level has dropped) now, but that the river is at a perfect stage for tubing.  He rents tubes for $15/person/day, including transportation between the put-in spot at the north end of town and the take-out spot at the south end as many times as you want.  Both spots are public parks, though, so you can also  take your own tubes on the river if you have a way to shuttle back & forth.

We decided to take our tubes and give it a try, but we made a few stops on the way to pick up a few geocaches.  Our first stop was Summit Lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicolas and I went in search of the geocache,

and Tom & Bryce caught up with us after they checked out the lake.

 

The extra clue was, “Think like a marmot”, which didn’t help much since we weren’t really sure if a marmot lived in the trees or underground!

Finally, we moved a suspicious pile of rocks and found the cache!

On this trip we actually remembered to bring along some Florida shells so that we would have something to place in the caches!  We were hoping to find a travel bug in this one, but it was already gone, so Bryce just took a toy (which is STILL entertaining him!).

 

When we arrived at the lake, we saw some kayaks, which turned out to be our neighbors from the campground.

As we got back to our car after finding the geocache, they were just coming in for a break,

and they invited the boys to take the kayaks out for a spin.  Tom and Bryce went first,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and then Nicolas went out and Tom tried one of the inflatable kayaks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom said that the inflatable kayak felt more stable, but it moved slower through the water.

They were only out in the kayaks for a short time, and then after chatting for a bit we continued toward Dolores.

We had two more successful geocache stops,

 

and then we arrived in Dolores.  We stopped in the park to have our picnic lunch and get the tubes inflated, and then headed upriver to find a spot for them to launch.

 

I decided to do the shuttling, and let them make a trial run.  The water was running pretty well, and it was refreshingly cold!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After dropping them off, I drove further downriver to catch some pictures of them as they moved along.  At this point, they had only been on the river for a few minutes and Bryce had already flipped once!

It wasn’t big whitewater, but there were quite a few small rapids that they had to navigate through!

I continued downriver, and after waiting a few minutes, they caught up with me again.  I had a good vantage point for watching them go through a rapid!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bryce had taken a “short cut” and ended up behind them quite a bit!

But, he caught up and made it through the rapids just fine!

From there, I went down to the “beach” at the end of the road to wait for them.  This is what they call a beach in Colorado!  There were quite a few people enjoying the hot Sunday afternoon!

I sat on the rocks with my Nook, and waited for them to come through the final rapid.  Nicolas was first again,

followed by Tom and Bryce . . . and Tom didn’t quite make it through this last rapid!

He recovered, though, and enjoyed the ride!

It took them about 25 minutes to go from the park at the north end of town to the beach, and Tom said it was enough!  Nicolas, however, was ready to go again!  Bryce took some convincing, but he finally agreed to go one more time.

Tom took them back to their launch site, while I stayed at the beach to read.  On the 2nd time around, they both flipped over a couple of times, but they had fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They got dried off in the sun, and after a quick stop in town for an ice cream, we headed back to the RV Park.  We were almost back to Mancos, when we came across this group . . .

Some of the cattle tried to make a run for the open field, but the cowboys and dogs herded them back to the group!

It was quite a sight to see all this cattle walking down the road – a first for the kids and I!  Tom had run into another cattle drive while he was out on a motorcycle ride on Friday, but I was glad to see one so I could get pictures!

Back at home, we had some visitors in the evening!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a very full and very fun Sunday!