Following one “mountaintop” experience after another after another in Wyoming, we didn’t know what to expect in Idaho.  It certainly wasn’t this!

My friend Crystal, who used to live in Idaho, told me it was one of those “don’t miss” places.  She was right.  It felt like paradise!

We really just spent some time taking it in its beauty.  The mountains.  The Palisades Reservoir.  The birds of prey and water fowl.

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The next day we rented kayaks and paddled around as a family for a bit.

I don’t have any pictures of our trek because I didn’t take the camera out on the water.  The weather turned choppy as we were out.  So much so that the Sheriff’s Department boat came and asked Cliff if we needed some help!  With great effort we fought our way back “home.”  After it cleared up again the boys wanted to go back out, but Cliff, Nadia, and I were still exhausted.  They spent quite awhile out there.  It was fun to watch.

 

Postcard caption: “I’m cooler than the Palisades!”

That evening Cliff & I took a walk together at sunset.  We got to see an osprey catch a fish, only to watch a bald eagle steal it!

With storms approaching, we decided that it was best to get out of the dirt campground.  We headed for Idaho Falls the next morning.  Lots of farmland, irrigated by the water of the Palisades Reservoir.  The man at the kayak rental place said that pretty soon it wouldn’t even be recognizable as a lake because of the irrigation.  Wow.

This picture is for my friend Laura and the other members of our Birding Club back home.  The eagle nests are everywhere out here, and they seem to prefer utility poles!

After replacing our radiator coolant tank, we took off to cross Idaho.  Oh my.  It was a L-O-N-G drive!  (See the featured image at the top.)

To give you another perspective, a stop at Hell’s Half Acre was the highlight of our journey.

 

(While I was trying to be dramatic in that last statement, I really do recommend stopping at Hell’s Half Acre.  It is an interpretive walk through lava flows in the high desert.  We embraced the exercise while we learned about geology, local wildlife, and human history of the area.)

Actually, our drive was so boring uneventful that we kept making excuses to stop!  And that only lengthened the amount of time we were there!  While there IS more to Idaho than potatoes, we weren’t prepared for our experience.

However, we enjoyed a sunset treat.  Shoshone Falls on the Snake River.  They said that it’s taller than Niagara Falls.

However, we never really saw the Falls (although we heard the roar!)  The RV parking was a long way from the viewing area, and we accidentally walked in the wrong direction!  We did see an amazing view and really enjoyed the short burst of exercise.

The children are inspecting what they call our “bug museum,” which is really the front grill of our motorhome.  There is another picture of them inspecting the bug museum (when they were supposed to be posing for a picture) when we visited the Badlands.

 

We came to love the Snake River.  It must get its name from how it snakes all around.  We must have crossed it and re-crossed it hundreds of times since we first encountered it in the Tetons.  It seems like a richly beautiful life-giving force in an otherwise desolate area.  A real picture of Psalm 1.

 

We even saw a field of corn close by.  We hadn’t seen that in awhile.  It was a cozy feeling after such a foreign drive.

After staying one sleepless night in the noisiest Walmart parking lot in America (Jerome), we set out to drive across the rest of Idaho.  Really nothing to report there.  Let’s just say that we were very eager to enter Oregon soon!

(As you can see, there’s a “bug museum” on our windshield, as well!)