Success! We managed to fill in all the gaps (even during the dreaded 4th of July week) with reservations for our stays leading up to our time at Glacier N.P. From St. George it was north for a few days’ return stay at the Springville KOA (Provo, UT). We wanted to drive the Alpine Loop and check out some of the trails off the loop, but weather gods were not looking favorably upon us, the Alpine Loop was actually closed (snow). So we settled on a little bicycle riding through downtown (the Provo/Orem area has very nice bike paths throughout the downtown areas). In fact, the trail along University Av (Hwy. 189) continues as the Provo River Trail. This takes one through Mt. Timpanogos Park, Canyon View Park, Canyon Glen Park, Nunn’s Park, Bridal Veil Falls, and into Vivian Park. We broke it up into 2 rides, about 25 miles and 10 miles respectively. Bridal Veil Falls was very scenic, as usual, and the Provo River was raging pretty good on this visit. Provo had a farmer’s market one day which we just had to attend. It turned out most of the “farmer’s market” was food tents (of the cooked/prepared type) and crafts. Jeanne managed to find the only booth that actually had produce for sale and appropriately ordered up some of their lettuce & kale.
Northward ho and into Jerome, ID for a couple night’s stay at the Snake River Elks Lodge while we waited to pick up our general delivery mail. The Elks Lodge is on an 18-hole golf course, very green, but otherwise the Jerome area is kinda dumpy, tons of farmland, not much to do. We had already checked out the Snake River area a few years back and this was mainly just a mail stop for us.
Next stop…Dillon, MT at the Countryside RV Park for a few days. Dillon sits in a big bowl surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The area is very large and green, with cattle ranching seemingly the big agricultural endeavor here. We are starting to see more interesting critters now. Near the ID/MT border we saw a massive Golden Eagle take off from its perch on a fence. We saw what we both agreed was a badger scooting along near the roadway. And we are now in the middle of prairie dog country where the little yappers go non-stop. Pronghorn deer are also becoming more common sights. Jeanne also identified our avian neighbors as Yellow-headed Blackbirds.
Our big outing for this stop we decided to visit Bannack State Park, home to the ghost town of Bannack, the first territorial Capitol of Montana. The state does a nice job of maintaining the 50-60 buildings still remaining. We the people are even allowed to enter many of the buildings, some of them still containing artifacts from the mining town days. It was an interesting experience, however the state does such an outstanding job of maintaining the town, it was “too clean” as far as ghost towns go. The ghost town of Bodie, CA, is still at the top of my all-time favorite ghost towns, nationwide.
Our last day here we drove the Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway between Wise River and Dillon. It was very scenic, however we missed out on the little side trip to the ghost town of Coolidge and the Elkhorn Mine & Mill due to the road closure. Oh well, we got to see critters (badger, pronghorn, deer) as well as receiving a very light dusting of snow.
So, we’re jacks-up tomorrow continuing our way north, hopefully with little to no snow. Until next post…
(Tech notes: My cyber-incompetence just drives me nuts sometimes, OK, most-times. It seems a few years back, leading up to 2015, I managed to make a whole bunch of photos disappear from my blog posts. The captions remained, just no photos to view. I don’t know how, but I may have figured out how to fix it, it took a lot of trial-and-error, not to mention a few bottles of bourbon and cases of beer. I will slowly but surely be working on replacing all the missing pix, so bear with me. I just hope I can get the right pix in the right spots…)