2017 - September

We continued our week in Cody, WY with a visit to the Old Trail Town.  It is a gathering of historic buildings and relics since 1967.  The buildings date from 1879 to 1901 and were all moved here.  Three of the “Hole in the Wall” Hangouts are here.  Butch Cassidy, Kid Curry and the Sundance Kid all frequented three of these buildings.

Our next stop was the Heart Mountain World War II National Historic Landmark site.  This is the site were more than 14,000 Japanese Americans were confined during World War II.  It was once the third largest city in Wyoming which is a pretty sad statement.  It was a very emotional and educational visit.

We sat outside the Irma Hotel and enjoyed an evening western shoot out reenactment in the street. 

We took a day trip into Yellowstone from Cody to see the southeast side of the park and had dinner with our 2^nd cousins and their spouses.  We had a wonderful dinner celebrating Tammy and Randy’s Anniversary with Tim and Sandy.

During the day we made stops at Fishing Bridge, Lake Village, Bridge Bay, West Thumb and ending up at Grant Village for dinner. 

On our way in we had a beautiful observation point over Yellowstone lake, we never realized it was so large.  It is the largest lake above 7,000 feet in the US.

The Lake Village Hotel reminded us of a small Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island. 

The Bridge Bay area had a very nice marina.

West Thumb was full of hot springs and mud holes.

From Cody we drove the rig through the East Entrance of Yellowstone, through the park to West Yellowstone.  It was a fun drive in the Motorhome with wildlife along the way.  

Our next stop was at Canyon Village, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  We did a very refreshing morning hike along the canyon. It was In the 30’s. 

That evening we met Jerry’s 2^nd cousin’s again at the Chuck Wagon Dinner experience.  We had a great time riding the wagons out to the dinner.  We enjoyed a big buffalo heard right by the chuck wagon eating area.  The Cowboy Coffee cooked over the open fire was the best coffee we can remember.  The steaks and cowboy food were awesome.  It was very dusty but that’s wagon riding. 

The next day we headed up to Mammoth Hot Springs and the north entrance with the Roosevelt Arch.  We did the Mammoth Hot Springs area before meeting up with Belinda’s cousin Debbie and her husband Steve originally from West Virginia.  Debbie was a wonderful tour guide of Fort Yellowstone.  Then we had lunch in Gardner and saw the North Entrance with the Roosevelt Arch Yellowstone Entrance. 

Our next sight in the park to see was the Old Faithful area.  Which included Old Faithful  and the Fountain Paint Pots.  Lots of geysers, hot springs and mud pots during our hikes around the area.  The Grand Prismatic was an awesome site, probably one of the most photographed in Yellowstone.

Our last stop in the park was the Norris Geyser Basin.  By then we were geyser, hot springs and mud potted out!!  It was beautiful but we had definitely seen a lot over the 5  days in Yellowstone.   

 While in West Yellowstone, WY we took a day trip over to Mesa Falls and Big Springs in Idaho.  It was a very scenic drive to it.  Mesa Falls had a beautiful rainbow waiting for us in the morning.  The Big Springs had Johnny Sack’s cabin.  A hand built cabin by Johnny Sack from Germany in 1929.  It is an amazing National Historic Place and well worth the drive. 

We did the Big Spring river hike, a wonderful nature hike.  The big spring produces 120,000,000 gallons of water a day to downstream rivers which is amazing for such a small area. 

Our next move was to Jackson, Wyoming, home of the Grand Teton mountain range.  We spent 5 nights in the area exploring the Grand Teton and Jackson Hole ski resort area. 

Our hike to Hidden Falls along string lake and Jenny Lakes was one of the most awesome hikes we have taken.  The scenery and wildlife were great, the moose topped it off.

We had two wonderful meals in Jackson, the BIN 22 had great wine, cheese, and tapas.   The Blue Lion had amazing meats and appetizer tastes. 

We took the Teton Village Tram up to the 10,400 foot peak.  Nice views but cold and windy. 

We moved to Pocatello, Idaho, about an hour south of Idaho Falls.  The drive from Jackson Hole to Pocatello was breathtaking through the mountains and along the river.

On our way to Craters of the Moon National Monument we stopped at the EBR-1 Atomic Museum.  Unfortunately the Museum closed after Labor Day but the Atomic Heat Transfer Turbines were on display outside and very interesting to see.  There is a Radioactive Waste Management facility just out side the EBR-1 area.  

Our first stop was the Craters of the Moon National Monument.  The Monument and Preserve encompass three major lava fields and about 400 square miles of sagebrush steppe grasslands to cover a total area of 1,117 square miles. All three lava fields lie along the Great Rift of Idaho, with some of the best examples of open rift cracks in the world, including the deepest known on Earth at 800 feet. There are excellent examples of almost every variety of basaltic lava, as well as tree molds (cavities left by lava-incinerated trees), lava tubes (a type of cave), and many other volcanic features.

We made our way around to Twin Falls to see the I.B. Perrine Bridge, 486 feet above the Snake River Canyon.  It is the only bridge in the U.S. that allows BASE jumping year round without a permit. 

We stopped at Shoshone Falls and Twin Falls along the Snake River.  Shoshone Falls plunges 212 feet into the Snake River, it is one of the tallest waterfalls in the U.S.  It is fullest in the spring, unfortunately it was just a trickle this time of year. 

We drove back into Idaho Falls to see the Idaho Falls Greenbelt area.  They have done a wonderful job with their waterfront and the walking trail around it. 

On our way from Idaho Falls to Blackfoot the Rest Areas on I-15 both the North and Southbound Lanes have a wonderful hike through Hell’s Half Acre.  This is a large volcanic area, the ¾ mile trail was concrete.   The trail was a good representation of all the volcanic features that we saw in Craters of the Moon.

On our way back we stopped in Blackfoot to see the Idaho Potato Museum.  It was a very nice little museum that was very educational and had nice potato café with great food.

Next was the Museum of Clean in Pocatello.  The museum was developed by Don Aslett, a world renowned professional cleaner & author.  This is a very unique museum with everything you ever wanted to know or see about cleaning.  We saw quite the collection of vacuum cleaners. 

Our last stop in the area was Lava Hot Springs.  They have 5 hot pools that range from 102 to 112.  We spent 5 wonderful hours soaking in the pools.  It was a great way to finish out several weeks of hiking.

Our next step was Salt Lake City, Utah.  We took the Salt Lake City Trolley tour which gave us a good history and perspective of the entire city.  One of our stops was the Capital Building where we witnessed the end of a Naturalized Citizenship ceremony.  It was very emotional to see our newest citizens and their families go through the experience with the joy and pride they felt.  It sure makes you appreciate what we have that so many of us take for granted. 

We spent 3 days learning about the Mormon faith and history at Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City. 

Our first stop in Temple Square was the Sunday morning “Music and the Spoken Word” by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at the Salt Lake Tabernacle.  It was an awesome experience, very beautiful.  The Tabernacle is celebrating 150 years this year.  The organ has 11,623 pipes, 147 stops and 206 ranks.  It was amazing.  The choir is the longest continuous broadcast in the world.  We toured the North Visitor Center which has the impressive 11 foot marble Christus statue.

The next day did a tour of Temple Square which included the Tabernacle, the Assembly Hall and the South Visitor Center where there was an excellent model of the Salt Lake Temple. 

Next stop was a tour of the Beehive House (Brigham Young’s home) built in 1854. 

We had lunch in the Lion House, built in 1856, once part of the residence of Brigham Young.

After lunch we toured the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  Joseph Smith was the founder of the Latter Day Saints movement.  Originally built as the Hotel Utah in 1911, the inside was very impressive. 

Our last stop for the day was a tour of the Conference Center.  The 21,000 seat theatre where the Mormon conferences take place twice a year and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs during the summer and other times throughout the year.  It is the largest theatre in the world with no obstructed views.  There also is a four acre roof garden of trees and flowers that was amazing. 

Our last day at Temple Square we visited the Family History Library and the Church Museum.

The Family History Library has the world’s largest genealogical facility.  We spent 3 hours building and learning about our family tree.  It was a fun experience, one that could become addicting.  We now have accounts that we can continue working on.  If you are interested you can go to www.familysearch.org and start your own account for free.  They have most of the same information that Ancestory.com has without any fees.

Our last stop was at the Church Museum.  This provided a lot of the information and documents of the Mormon history. 

If you are ever in Salt Lake we would recommend spending 2 or 3 days at Temple Square learning about the faith and history of the Mormons.  It was very educational and enlightening.  

We took a day trip up to Park City, Utah in the Wasatch Mountains.  Our first stop was the Utah Olympic Park where the 2002 Winter Olympics were held.

While there we went through the Alf Engen Ski Museum and the Eccles 2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum.  Both had many displays and history information with some of the props used at the ceremonies.

After the museums we were able to watch athletes practicing the freestyle ski jumping into a pool and freestyle snowboarders jumping into a huge airbag. 

After the Olympic Park we headed into Park City.  Our first stop was the Park City Museum, they had nice displays of the areas early mining history.  It was interesting to learn that when the mines were going out of business the owners decided to convert to skiing.  A very inventive way to transition a business.  They actually had a “skier subway”, they used one of the mine shafts to transport skiers with a lift to the top of the mountain instead of ski/chair lifts. 

We had lunch and walked around town.  Park City is a very typical tourist town with lots of shops and eatery’s.