Jerome/Twin Falls/Hagerman, ID

April 26: Today we hooked up the truck and traveled (again in the wind) to Provo, UT near Salt Lake City, UT to run a few errands. We were starving by the time we got settled in our overnight camping spot, and we both were in the mood for Chinese food. There was a highly rated restaurant called Feast Buffet, so we decided we will try it out. At first we were apprehensive because there was quite a long line, but luckily it moved fairly quickly and it gave us a chance to see how things worked. They offered a Mongolian grill setup and we watched multiple people pile up their bowls with raw ingredients and turn it in to the grill operator and after about 5-7 minutes it was ready and dished up for the person to pick up. They also had a salad/fruit bar, dessert station, and other hot prepared foods. We got our table within about 10 minutes and headed to the buffets to stuff ourselves with way too much good food! After we waddled back to the truck, we ended up going to a great store called 2nd & Charles that buys and sells used books, CDs, DVDs, instruments, etc. We each got a book and called it good. Next stop, Walmart… it’s always interesting the folk that seem to hang around Walmarts, and interesting to see it’s the same in this area, lol. We came to Walmart specifically to look at Blackstone grills because we finally came to the conclusion it would save us room to get rid of our Weber grill that never had enough cooking power, and Walmart had the best price. We chose the Blackstone Adventure Ready 20” grill. It features a height of 6” when folded down, which works perfectly for us. Sean got us back home and we took the pups for walk. We attended to a few chores and then settled in for the night. 

April 27: For some reason we both woke up before 7a, but we were being lazy. Finally, the pups told us they needed out to do business. After attending to them, we got some potatoes, eggs, and bacon ready to test out our new grill. The pups ate their breakfast while I put everything on a cutting board in an effort to get everything I needed to cook outside in one go. I placed the cutting board on the counter and went to check if Sean needed help setting up the grill, then I heard a noise inside, but thought nothing of it. Once we got the grill leveled, I went back in to grab the food and caught 2 thieves red-handed! Skittles had grabbed the bacon off the cutting board on the counter and I saw them both helping themselves to the last remaining slice of bacon on the floor!!! Licking their lips in satisfaction of their heist! They both ended up in jail for that transgression and their mugshot is below for your enjoyment. After we got more bacon out, we grilled up a fantastic breakfast while the thieves stayed in jail. We got everything cleaned and packed up, then took pity on the prisoners and let them out. We couldn't pass up a Costco fill up, so we found ourselves winding through Salt Lake City to get some cheap diesel, lol. Soon, we were on the road again. Today’s destination - Jerome, ID. We almost passed by a watercraft inspection station  on I-84, but luckily Sean pulled in and we got our inspection permit. Good thing we did because the Inspector said this is an enforced law for the state of Idaho and we would get chased down by a cop and told to turn back to this inspection station. Once we were "legal", we continued on our way. Like always, there was plenty of wind to fight against, and closer to Jerome it was raining. We eventually made it to our parking spot for the next few days at the Fairgrounds (can’t beat $20 per night). We quickly settled in and decided we needed some extra gear for kayaking, so rode the truck into Twin Falls. Once we finished shopping, we decided to see what we could of the area and visited Shoshone Falls and from there we found Centennial Trail and Sean had the wonderful idea to have us bike this path up to the Evel Knievel launch ramp site from his 1974 attempt to rocket himself across the Snake River Canyon. The trail was literally straight up 20+% grades for almost a mile, I swear… we both almost gave up and pretty sure I said I was, but we pushed on. We thought we got up the last steep section, but then there was another and another, lol. You could definitely feel the wind was worse in this section on the canyon rim and it wasn’t shy around us. If you could imagine the wind being so violent it almost blows you off a bike…it was nuts. We actually make it to the ramp and Sean convinced me to climb to the top with him. The wind was blowing the ramp dust and small rocks into our faces the whole while, but we make it! We didn’t last long at the top, lol. We actually stopped half way back down the ramp to hide behind some concrete for a brief reprieve from the wind. We headed back and it was getting late in the evening, so Sean suggested we eat out for dinner and soon found ourselves at Arctic Circle eating hamburgers & fries. I got a small shake which was similar to a Blizzard from Dairy Queen, but for some reason tasted much better. Sacrilege, I know…but it was good! We headed home and had a nice relaxing evening with the pups.

Thieves!

Costco fueling, Heather filling truck after motorhome was filled.

Fairgrounds Camping!

Shoshone Falls view from park.

Biking Centennial Trail from Shoshone Falls.

Directly across from ramp canyon shot.

Very top of the ramp.

April 28: Today was kayaking day in Snake River! I was a bit nervous to get back in the kayaks due to our mishap in the Colorado River in Utah. Sean of course was not anxious at all, lol. We drove into a rural area to Blue Heart Kayaking where we were set to launch our kayaks and this company would let us launch and then shuttle one of us back to our truck. They told us a popular route people usually take with a laminated map and lanyard and let us on our way. We launched off the boat launch beach area and my nerves instantly went away and it felt like second nature to be out on the water again. There was a current, but not nearly as strong as we experienced in Utah. It was still very cloudy and a few breaks in the clouds and our phones said the air temp was around 55 degrees. We thought it would be too cold, but turned out to be a perfect temperature, especially once the sun came out. Our first stop was to a small waterfall spill way into the river from Box Canyon. The water was so clear and created an outflow current that was very strong and a fun ride for a short time. There were so many pelicans and geese around. Next sight to see was Blue Heart Spring. It was tucked in to a small oasis between the lava rocks and silty islands that had gathered in the corner of this section of the river. The water, again, was super clear and at certain areas matched the color of the kayaks. We spent a good 15-20 minutes exploring this area. Soon, we were off following the current of the river and had fun looking at the different houses and properties that lines the river bank. At one point we saw a beaver hanging out with some mallard ducks, but he was too quick I couldn’t get a picture of him. We were surprised to find shells in the rocks and I grab one that was the size of my palm! We continued our way downriver and soon found our way past Ritter Island (suggested by the kayaking company to travel backwards due to strong currents) and turned to travel the inside trail between the island and the shore. It was amazing to see why this area is called Thousand Springs. There were so many springs spilling out of the canyon side into the river! Crystal clear water with strong currents were everywhere. We battled our way through the currents and often beached ourselves due to the shallowness of the area. At a couple of points we had to get out of our kayaks and drag them 50ish yards to the deeper water. Immediately after the shallow area we got to the strong currents from a power plant and rode that current for the rest of the way around Ritter Island, briefly stopping to get a picture of Lemmon Falls. Only thing left to do was get across the river to the opposite bank to get to shuttle pickup spot. We were there just in time to see our ride arrive. I was volunteered as tribute to ride the shuttle to our launch site and get the truck and drive back to Sean. We loaded up quickly and made our way to the small town of Wendell. We rewarded our challenge today with a shake from Arctic Circle, lol. Sean got a banana shake & I got a Reese’s shake. Sean inhaled his shake! He was done before I got 1/4 of mine eaten. Now that we were full of our reward, we headed home to take care of puppy needs and get dinner prepared. Sean made a request for sautéed jalapeños and I figured homemade burgers sounded good and would give us more use on our new Blackstone. I know what your thinking, hamburgers 2 nights in a row? Arctic Circle didn’t have the best burgers and left us wanting more… I had some leftover poblano peppers and cut up some small potatoes for pan fries. So we had poblano burgers with fries and Sean had his sautéed jalapeño. We feasted, then we turned in for an early night.

Box Canyon

Blue Heart Spring just beyond the island.

Barely caught a Mallard in flight

Part of Thousand Springs

Too shallow to paddle!

Lemmon Falls

April 29: We planned to go to Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument Visitors Center to view their fossil collection and see the famous Hagerman Horse, but for some reason they were closed and then also closed Wednesday as well… closed in the middle of the week??? Weird. A grounds keeper sought to help us and suggested to visit Malad Gorge State Park. We were able to sneak a view of the Hagerman Horse through the window. We ventured on and made the best of what we could. We decided we would go to Malad Gorge and so glad we did! Beautiful views and who knew this gem was hidden right off I-84! We walked the path to view the gorge waterfall and went beyond the pavement on a small trail to view another waterfall and to our surprise another gorge looking area with a pretty spring! We hiked to the end and viewed the dam and then back we went. Next, we drove to a Snake River overlook area and supposedly there was the Oregon Trail to view as well, but we couldn’t figure out if we were driving on the previous site of Oregon Trail or if it was off the side of the road in a valley. The only sign is one pictured below for begin and one for end. We cut our losses and headed to Wendell for lunch. This time pizza was on the menu! Papa Kelsey’s Pizza & Subs was a great choice! After lunch, we went to pick up the pups and took them to Centennial Trail in Twin Falls to walk around and see some more viewpoints. We were looking for base jumpers at the bridge, but none when we were there. This side of the trail is much more enjoyable than the East side of the bridge, in my opinion. We took the pups to Petco to get them some more food and let them pick out a treat. We traveled back to the motorhome and kicked back and relaxed a while. Then, I made us some poblano & beef enchiladas with rice. Not to brag on myself, but those enchiladas were the best! We walked the pups and watched the fairground happenings. 

Malard Gorge State Park

You can see the foot bridge just below the I-84 Bridge. 

Hidden spring in another gorge. 

Twin Falls Bridge, site of frequent base jumping.

Fairground happenings

Moab & Area

April 22nd: After leaving Canyon of the Ancients NP Visitors Center, we hooked up and headed out with our next destination Moab, UT. Of course there was wind on our travel day, but nothing horrible, thankfully. We pulled in to our campground and settled in fairly early in the afternoon. Itching to get out and be active, Sean and I unhitched the truck and headed in to Moab in search of their bike path and a bookstore. Traffic through town was horrendous! Seems there are too many people visiting for the infrastructure to handle safely. We found our bookstore and hunted down a parking spot which had us walk by a food truck park. There was a specialty hot dog food truck that caught our eye and we planned to come back after our biking adventure. Back to the task at hand, we made our way to the bookstore and each found some books to read later. We finally made our way to the bike trail. It’s a beautiful path that goes into Moab, along the Colorado River, up to Arches NP, and many miles beyond. We parked at Lion’s Park Trailhead (very nice facilities) and headed East along the River to its first ending shortly after Goose Island Campground (further down the road it starts back again, but neither of us were wanting to ride on the road to get there). Backtracking, we next headed North to Arches NP and stopped at the sign to take a photo (we had already been through this park on a prior trip) and then back to the truck. In total, we logged over 9 miles on the trail. We worked up quite an appetite and loaded up quick to make it back to our found treasure of specialty hot dogs! We fought traffic and waited patiently for a parking spot only to find that our food truck was closed! The audacity!!! It was 6:20pm!!! Now we were both frustrated and hungry and trudged back to the truck. Once back in truck we came up with a plan to make our own specialty hot dogs at home with chili, cheese, mustard, pickles, and jalapeño! Sean grilled the hot dogs and I got the chili heated and everything ready and we had the best meal on the picnic table with the mountains as our audience in the background. 

Wilson Arch

April 23rd: Sean planned to take us on an off-road approach to Canyonlands National Park via Long Canyon Trail. To get to this trail, we took Potash Road (beautiful views) that follows Colorado River and turned onto the trail. The trail was quite easy to navigate in our truck and again the views were beautiful. Sean was really wanting to use his drone to capture us while driving, so I drove us a little way while he used his drone and below is a video that he took. Once in Canyonlands NP, our main goal was to drive Shafer Canyon Rd down its many steep switchbacks to White Rim Rd and stop for lunch at Gooseneck Overlook Trail. We packed some PB&J sandwiches and ate while sitting on a rock overlooking the gooseneck shaped land below us and looking for other signs of life in the vast landscape. After some time, we loaded back up and headed back to Grand View Point Rd and first attempted to stop at Mesa Arch, but there were WAY too many people, so we headed to our next stop Aztec Butte Trail. Before we got there, we ventured to another area called Green River Overlook. Another viewpoint that makes you feel small. Once we satisfied our curiosity, we headed over to Aztec Butte Trail and hiked about 1.5 miles and nearly half of that was straight up! We saw a couple more Native American ruins and again a stellar view. Once back to the truck, we decided to drive to the end of the road, but were disappointed that there was no view you could see Green River without hiking many miles. So, we headed to the end of Grand Viewpoint Rd and the view did not disappoint! We headed home on the pavement this time and spent some time with the pups and had a pizza for dinner.

  

Green River Overlook

Aztec Butte Trail

Granary Ruins

Native American Ruins on top of Aztec Butte

View on top of Aztec Butte Trail. 

April 24th: We needed a lazy day, so we decided to take it slow and eventually we would go kayak the river to get some exercise. Sean made us pancakes and eggs on our camp stove griddle (we are still indecisive on getting a Blackstone) and lounged around with the pups. After lunch, we decided it was warm enough and headed to Lion’s Park to launch the kayaks. We had a wonderful time, although fighting against the current was a challenge it was not horrible. We stopped at Goose Island Campground for a rest and bathroom break and soon headed on. There was a small island in the river that we were trying to get to, but proved to be too far for our “lazy day”, so decided to let the current take us back to the launch point. We held onto each other’s kayak and kicked back, lazily meandering down the river. The current kept turning the bow of our kayaks the opposite direction of where we were heading so Sean was intermittently correcting our direction and due to this we decided that fending for ourselves would be best. We could see our stopping point in the short distance! Almost there! I see Sean shifting in his kayak and wondered what he was up to, then all of a sudden he flipped his kayak over and he and all his items went spilling into the river! I paddled as fast as I could to him while he was trying to hold his phone above the water and was able to grab it and laid it in my kayak. He was struggling a bit to grab his paddle and kayak and swim, so I decided to try and grab the end of his kayak to drag it to shore, then I FLIPPED OVER TOO! The water was sssooooo cold! I couldn’t think or talk, and felt like I couldn’t breathe! After a few of seconds of shock, all I could think was I lost Sean’s phone and my right shoe was gone… We both finally made it to the near shore both dragging our paddles and kayaks. Sean was already flipping his kayak over to drain the water once I settled on the rocks dreading the fact that I just lost his phone that he entrusted to me to keep safe. I flipped my kayak over and saw the flash of his phone’s cover slide to the bottom! I grabbed it and felt immediate relief that I didn’t lose it!!! I let him know I had it and quickly placed it in my fanny pack that carried my phone the whole time. All items were accounted for, minus my shoe. We tried our best to drain the water from my kayak, but had trouble for some reason. I happened to look past Sean and we sat on the rocks contemplating how bad this situation could have been (losing truck keys, wallets, phones) and I saw my shoe floating against the rocks! Sean went over to grab it for me and we decided to head for the launch point which was about 1/4 of a mile away and was super sketchy in my water riddled kayak. I felt I was going to tip over with every wind gust and wave. Luckily, we made it to the launch point without tipping over again! After draining all the water from the kayaks and getting loaded back up, we were exhausted from the stress of the whole situation of potentially losing phones and such. We headed home thanking God the whole time. After getting in dry clothes and taking care of pups, I cooked us some pasta w/ marinara and we ate around our fire pit to warm up. It was an early night for both us.

Post flip picture.

April 25th: We loaded the pups and ourselves in the truck with a route planned to take us to Gateway, CO via Onion Creek Trail in Utah. We passed many trail goers at the staging area and entrance to the trail, and got many funny and intriguing looks as our truck made its way down the trail. This trail is so pretty and offers many beautiful views and you can’t forget all the water crossings (Sean’s favorite part). We took Onion Creek Trail to Hideout Canyon Trail/BLM 100 to Polar Mesa Trail to Dolores Triangle Safari Rte/Gateway Rd to Castleton Rd. Sean was able to get some more drone footage. At nearly the end of this drive, we stopped at Bull Canyon Overlook & Dinosaur Track site. Dinosaurs are my favorite, so of course we had to stop and check it out! They had some well preserved tracks and you were free to roam the area to look for more and find your own area to overlook the canyon. Part of the route we planned to get to Gateway was closed for construction, so we ended up heading back to Moab by way of Castleton Rd. We passed many trails and viewpoints for the Castleton Towers in Castle Valley. We realize there is so much more exploring potential and that will always draw us back to this area. After our adventures of the day, the truck was quite dusty and we went to the local manual car wash and were surprised to find there was a line. Everyone had the same idea. Honestly it didn’t take long for the line to move along. While Sean was doing to grunt work, I was inundated with weather warnings for Tornados and Severe Weather for the area near our property back home in Texas. I got a call from Tammy (Sean’s mom) checking if we were aware and I was tracking the radar of the storms now that we had gained some cell service. This had us stressing a bit, although all we could do was hope and pray that everything would be okay. We watched that storm for hours as it sat there stationary over the area and waxed and waned and spit out a tornado (luckily in a field, not near our property). Our neighbors checked in with us and kept us updated on the severity of the storm. Once back to the motorhome, we took the pups to play ball and in Skittles case, find a stick and chew it. At one point I petted Skittles and immediately pulled my hand back because it felt like I got a sticker or cactus spine in my hand, but nothing was on me. I inspected her fur closer, but again nothing. She seemed unbothered, so I went to pet her again thinking it was a sticker that I knocked off her and it happened again. I asked Sean, “why does it hurt to pet your dog? I feel like I keep getting cactus spine or stickers.” He goes to pet her and pulls back immediately as well and says, “Ahhh!” I touched Skittles and also touched Sean and shocked us both, lol! We both look up and noticed giant power lines running the space above us and realized Skittles is electrified, but grounded because she’s not wearing shoes. We decided to vacate the area and take the pups on a long walk around the RV park. We started to load up all our outside items in preparation for traveling the next day.

Named Snakety-snake

High Voltage lines that electrified all of us.