We are now on the last stretch of our trip before meeting up with our tour group for our Alaska / Canada adventure. It’s almost the end of May, and we’ve had some challenges booking campgrounds due to the upcoming Memorial Day holiday weekend. We finally have an itinerary, though, so we can get underway.

As we headed toward Pocatello, our first stop in Idaho, we traveled over some beautiful mountain roads with steep hillsides covered in mostly yellow wildflowers. It was a lovely section of highway. Again, no photos as we couldn’t stop easily, but a nice memory nonetheless.

When we arrived at our campground, the owner was quick to let me know that they had beer and wine for sale in the camp store. Definitely not in Utah anymore!

We took a quick hike with Gracie up a trail that was primarily a mountain biking trail. We saw several riders on the trail as we climbed. It was not easy hiking as the bikes had worn deep ruts into the trail in several areas. But when we reached the top we had some nice views of the town.

The next day we traveled to Twin Falls. This is a lively town on the rim of the Snake River Canyon.

To get there, you cross the canyon on this engineering marvel of a bridge:

The bridge is named for Ira B. Perrine, an early settler and big promoter of the area. His vision was to irrigate the area with water from the river, turning it into productive farm and ranch land. His statue is in a small park overlooking the bridge.

There is a nice visitor center at this park, too. We stopped in for a break and to look around. There is a good-sized map of the world at the entrance, with different color pins you can stick into the map to indicate where you came from. We added one to the several that had been placed in Connecticut, and Des also added the first one for Guyana!

If the Snake River Canyon and Twin Falls rings a bell for you, maybe it’s because you remember that the daredevil Evel Knievel attempted to jump over it in a steam-powered rocket in 1974. This is the fiftieth anniversary of the event, duly noted with tshirts and other souvenirs in the gift shop.

We made our little detour into Twin Falls to see Shoshone Falls, and we kept going in that direction after our stop at the bridge. When we got there we found we’d need to go down a steep, narrow, winding road to actually see the falls. Since we were still towing the trailer I wasn’t sure I wanted to tackle that road, but a passing park employee assured us we could make it. So we went ahead.

The falls really are worth the drive!

From Twin Falls we traveled to Caldwell, just west of Boise, where we stayed for the night. The next day we headed north to the town of Kamiah, on the Clearwater River. This area is full of history, being the homeland of the Nez Perce tribe, and also on the route the Lewis and Clark Expedition took on their return trip to Missouri in 1806.

Something you notice when you look at this vast expanse of land is the absence of trees. I don’t know for sure that forests covered these areas completely at one time, but it’s likely that there were more trees here in the recent past than there are now. It’s a strange thing to see.

Our campground in Kamiah was across the street from this piece of the Nez Perce National Historical Park. This park has sites located throughout the Nez Perce Reservation that describe things of importance to the tribe over its history. This one, called Heart of the Monster, is the place where the tribe was thought to have been brought into the world.

There are also many markers for the Lewis and Clark Expedition here. This one, for the Long Camp, tells the story of an encampment that the group made along the Clearwater River for about 6 weeks on their way back to Missouri.

There is also a marker here for Asa Smith, a Congregational minister who set up a mission to the Nez Perce in Kamiah in the 1800’s. Mr. Smith served congregations in Massachusetts and Connecticut before becoming a missionary. He was stationed for a while in Hawaii as well.

As Memorial Day Weekend drew to a close, we made preparations to travel to Coeur D’Alene. This is the spot where our tour group will gather and begin our 60-day odyssey northwards to Canada and Alaska.