|
|
|
September 26, 2007
We took Cal Glover's (Callowishus Park Touring Co.) advice today and drove south to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. While on our van tour of Yellowstone, Cal said the road to Lava Hot Springs was good, scenic and without much traffic. He recommended a dip in the mineral baths there. He was so right. The drive down from Jackson was pleasant and the colors were spectacular.
|
|
|
|
We had most of the RV park in Lava Hot Springs to ourselves. After setting the trailer up we walked to town to see the public hot springs. There are 4 or 5 different pools. The cost is only $5.50 each. We decided to take a dip and walked back to the RV park to get bathing suits and towels. We took the truck back to town to enjoy the baths and have dinner at a local diner after. Just as we arrived at the public hot springs parking lot a tour bus loaded with Korean tourists stopped in front. As we watched, at least 87 people got off the bus with towels and bathing suits in hand. We decided to look for the diner instead. |
| We turned a corner and
discovered the Lava Hot Springs Inn with mineral baths open to the public
for $6.00 each.
For most of the evening we had the Inn's 5 pools to ourselves. The coldest pool was 44 degrees and the hottest was 107. The others were in-between. We enjoyed them all. Both of us were "loose as a goose" when we went to have dinner. |
|
|
|
|
September 27, 2007
We stayed another day to spend more time enjoying the mineral baths. Went to the public baths this time. No pictures attached but they had small gravel rocks on the bottom which massaged your feet. A beautiful day again. Rain is forecast for tomorrow afternoon so we'll move in the morning.
September 28, 2007
The countryside at 4000-5000 feet was full of hills and fall colors as we drove to St. Charles, ID on the shore of Bear Lake. The lake is large (48 miles around) and is half in Idaho and half in Utah. The afternoon was sunny so we drove four miles south to Fish Haven to see if they had a grocery store but no luck. We drove on the north shore of Bear Lake and the North Beach State Park was closed. The lake is quite low at this time of year so the beach was very wide. Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge is a short distance across the bar north of Bear Lake. We enjoyed some swans as they fed, preened, and swam around.
|
|
|
|
September 29, 2007 The forecast says rain and snow flurries for today so we'll stay here another day instead of driving. There was a rainbow over the mountains this morning. It can be better seen by clicking on the small picture for a large view. |
|
September 29 - October 2, 2007
| Ice on the truck windshield in the morning
and a forecast that includes snow on the ground later this week convinced us it was
time to move south. The first day we drove across Bear Mountain Pass and
through Logan Canyon. The mountains were absolutely aflame with yellow and
red but our camera was not in the truck. It was awesome!! We
spent two nights in Logan and celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary
there. We ate a delicious meal at Ruby Tuesday's. There was an antique car club at the park in Logan and this is one of the many cars that were there. |
|
| The next day we
drove 220 miles to Fillmore, UT and on the next day went to Leeds, UT. Now
we're about 25 miles from the Utah border and 2,000 feet lower in altitude so we
will stop for a week and let our mail catch up with us. The forecast here
is for a very cold weekend as a winter storm is moving down here from
Alaska. That's ironic.
The fall colors on the trip down here were so good that we couldn't resist putting more pictures on the site.
|
|
|
October 2 - 9, 2007 We explored the ghost town of Silver Reef, UT and spent some time at the old Wells Fargo Stage Coach stop which is now a museum and arts shop. There are a lot of new homes on the Reef where the silver miners lived in late 1895 for about 10 years. We went south about 4 miles to Washington where we shopped for groceries and miscellaneous supplies. We also went to St George where Karen went to church at the Shepherd of the Valley Methodist Church. We visited St. George another day and had ice cream at a neat parlor with delicious double dips. We also rode out northwest of SG to Santa Clara and Ivins--two areas where tremendous development of new homes is taking place. We visited the gift shop and the Toucan amphitheatre of the Red Rock area. Weather has been cool at night and sunny for the week we've been here. Trees in the RV park are still green and local color has been provided by the red cliffs in the area. Today being Columbus Day the post office was closed so tomorrow we'll pick up the mail and head southwest the next day. Before leaving the area we explored the (nearly empty) Quail Creek reservoir and the Red Cliffs Recreation Area. |
|
|
Quail Creek Reservoir |
Red Cliffs Recreation Area |
