Campground in Pocatello
The Pocatello KOA campground was simple and clean and quiet. Finding it at 10pm at night wasn't too bad other than the feeling that I was driving the wrong way into suburbia as the campground is past a section of housing just off Interstate 15 that felt like I was going to pull into someone's driveway and then suddenly the familiar KOA logo is there.
Good showers but no pool so the kids were a bit disappointed. The kids would not fall asleep (T and K that is as J is a fast sleeper). T had tried the above the cab sleeping area the first night but readily gave it up and took the sleeper sofa from then on.
Leaving Idaho
We left Pocatello Idaho and headed south to Utah on Sunday July 3rd via I-15. First missed stop -- J has a Guiness Book of Records and the entry for Idaho is the worlds largest man-made geyser. It is in Soda Springs - just about 40 minutes east off the planned south route so I had thought we would have time to make it. But since we stopped in North Pocatello rather than further south as I had planned we really didn't have time if we wanted to make it into Moab Utah for the night. So first bypass of something I had wanted to do. Moral of the story is you won't be able to do all that you plan and some new detours will pop up.
The drive south up into the mountains on I-15 is a bit steep but not too windy which was nice.
Entering Utah on a Sunday
hmmm I somehow forgot that having fun on Sundays is against the law in Utah.
I had planned on taking the kids to one of the family fun centers or waterparks along I-15 driving through Salt Lake City. I guess the city is a bit more, uh, conservative about allowing family fun on the sabbath than I had imagined. They were all closed on Sunday but would be open on the Fourth of July.
We stopped for lunch and the boys wanted to play so we let them play at a McDonalds playspace, which apparently the Lord approves of family fun at a large corporation but not at a waterpark.
the area we pulled off at was the exit for the Golden Spike historic site where the two sides of the transcontinental railroad met. But again it
was enough of a detour to defeat my itinerary. We had a long way to go still and I did not want to try to drive east from Provo through the mountains in the dark.
Everywhere along the freeway from Ogden to Salt Lake to Provo there are billboards for breast augmentation and nose jobs. Apparently the women in this part of Utah are in need of much bigger breasts and have horrible disfigurements on their faces.
Head East!
Just south of Provo is the small junction town of Spanish Fork where Hwy 6 takes you up into the mountains of central Utah. A short stop here to fill the tank and then up into the mountains. There were some very scenic valleys and streams running alongside the highway.
Eventually you drop back out of the mountains and get down into flatland at Price. We pushed a little further and stopped for dinner around 8pm at a quaint little steakhouse in the small town just pace Price. A good break and a decent steak. I considered just grabbing a spot at the tiny little motel RV park combo at the edge of town as it had a pool and the kids had been thinking of the waterparks we had planned at stopping at... But we decided to push on.
Darkness descended on the plains like a dark descending thing. The family didn't notice as they were watching Big Bang Theory episodes and some Firefly but little J decided to sit up front and help Daddy count how many cars we would pass going the other way between each mile marker (a pretty good game actually with a high score of seven and an average of about one).
Then the desert storm appeared in the distance at about 9pm or so. Great flashes of lightening lit the night sky. For J who loves all things weather this was a delightful break from the dark driving. The storm was never upon us directly but just at the right distance to be safely fascinating.
Eventually we made it to the Moab cutoff and just a short 30 min drive further to the entrance to Arches National Park. Two miles further is the bridge over the Colorado River and immediately after that was the entrance to our RV park. Quick setup for the night and we were now in striking range of one Utah's best destinations for our fourth of July adventure - the Arches!
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
2nd July - Across Idaho
Itinerary
Start - Trail Break RV Park @ Glenn's Ferry, ID [about noon]
End - Pocatello KOA @ Pocatello, ID [about 1015pm]
Distance ~ 242 miles
Map:
View Larger Map
After Friday's 620 mile trek I had hoped to slow it down a bit and see something worth stopping to see.
We got a very late start out of Glenn's Ferry.
We drove east and crossed the Snake River and saw huge windmills all over.
We were going to just head NE to the Craters of the Moon but saw a sign for Hagerman Fossil Field and just decided to take a detour.
Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument
Along the Snake River is a part of the Oregon Trail and an area rich in fossils.
We stopped at the tiny National Park station in Hagerman (on the corner of North State Street and East Reed Street) which has a tiny museum with a fossil horse and a place for the kids to dig in the sand to find and identify some horse bones.
We went a ways south and across the river and then a sharp west into the fossil park but not enough to really get into the fossil fields as the best area was under reconstruction (area to the far NW).
It took a couple of hours to get back on the road heading east into the small towns of Wendell, Shoshone, and Carey and back north east to Craters of the Moon.
The fascinating part of doing the RV trip in 2011 is that despite being in the middle of very isolated rural Idaho my HTC Evo had enough signal to act as a wifi Hotspot for the netbook and ipad so two of the kids were on the Internet for much of the repetitive parts of the drive. The middle son had fun watching Big Bang Theory on the little TV.
Craters of the Moon National Park
A few miles NE of Carey and maybe 15 minutes out from the park entrance you see the lava field landscape for the first time and it is pretty amazing. Suddenly the landscape goes black and rocky after endless miles of standard prairie and small farms.
We made it to Craters visitor center 20 minutes before the center closed (6pm). It is also small but a good spot to hit the bathroom and grab a map and get a free cave permit.
A small diorama really helps explain the massive lava which is not really from a volcano but from cracks and fissures over a period of 16 to 10 million years ago. As the continental plate moved west the releases continued sporadically. Eventually the area we now call Yellowstone is now above the spot where all these cracks are...
The caves are really lava tubes and you need a permit as there is a disease that is affecting the bat population in these parts so they don't allow you to visit the caves if you have been in other caves with your shoes etc
Even if the the visitor center had closed the park is open 24 hours a day and surprisingly has a small tent and RV campground right near the entrance.
There are several stopping points on a seven mile loop road into the park.
A couple of the deeper spots are temporarily closed as the road is under reconstruction (5 and 6 on the park map)
The two areas we stopped at were the Cinder Cone (4) and the Caves (7).
The Cinder Cone was a must. A ten minute hike that is slightly steep gets you to the top with an amazing view. T and K went up with me with T leading the way. Don't forget to take water (we forgot) and we were glad to have our wide brim hats.
The hike down was easy.
The Caves (spot 7 on the map)
Winding around the Cinder Cone and back towards the entrance was our last stop with a small parking area for maybe twenty cars and five RV pull thru spots.
The trail from there to the caves is about a quarter to half mile but it's a crazy up and down winding paved trail that goes right over the jagged lava rocks and fissures.
There are four caves all of which are treacherous. This is not for sandals! Bring water flashlight and good shoes.
Indian Cave is by itself and was a fun lava tube.
Apparently park sign writers are often hungry when thinking of how to describe park features...
There are lots of skylight holes where the roof has collapsed so not really a dark cave but still treacherous as lots of sharp shifting rocks to climb up and down until the exit hole.
S and T and I explored and had fun. Oddly there were pigeon like birds and no bats. The birds seemed to be guiding us through the cave like junior park rangers.
We made it all the way to the end without mishap but then S had a minor mishap climbing out with a small bump to her knee.
Crossing back to the paved path you are guided by some rock cairns as you walk back parallel to the tube on the surface.
It was about 820pm by the time we made it back to the RV.
There was a kids park ranger program at 8pm at the campground but we just missed it.
Craters to Picatello
From the park it's about 14 miles to the tiny town of Arco to the NE.
Then turn SE and eventually on to the I-15 south through Blackfoot and around 1015pm into the Pocatello KOA RV park.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Start - Trail Break RV Park @ Glenn's Ferry, ID [about noon]
End - Pocatello KOA @ Pocatello, ID [about 1015pm]
Distance ~ 242 miles
Map:
View Larger Map
After Friday's 620 mile trek I had hoped to slow it down a bit and see something worth stopping to see.
We got a very late start out of Glenn's Ferry.
We drove east and crossed the Snake River and saw huge windmills all over.
We were going to just head NE to the Craters of the Moon but saw a sign for Hagerman Fossil Field and just decided to take a detour.
Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument
Along the Snake River is a part of the Oregon Trail and an area rich in fossils.
We stopped at the tiny National Park station in Hagerman (on the corner of North State Street and East Reed Street) which has a tiny museum with a fossil horse and a place for the kids to dig in the sand to find and identify some horse bones.
K and J at the Museum in Hagerman in front of the horse fossil
We went a ways south and across the river and then a sharp west into the fossil park but not enough to really get into the fossil fields as the best area was under reconstruction (area to the far NW).
Viewpoint on the Snake River
Viewpoint on Snake River
An actual part of the Oregon Trail along the Snake River
It took a couple of hours to get back on the road heading east into the small towns of Wendell, Shoshone, and Carey and back north east to Craters of the Moon.
The fascinating part of doing the RV trip in 2011 is that despite being in the middle of very isolated rural Idaho my HTC Evo had enough signal to act as a wifi Hotspot for the netbook and ipad so two of the kids were on the Internet for much of the repetitive parts of the drive. The middle son had fun watching Big Bang Theory on the little TV.
Craters of the Moon National Park
A few miles NE of Carey and maybe 15 minutes out from the park entrance you see the lava field landscape for the first time and it is pretty amazing. Suddenly the landscape goes black and rocky after endless miles of standard prairie and small farms.
We made it to Craters visitor center 20 minutes before the center closed (6pm). It is also small but a good spot to hit the bathroom and grab a map and get a free cave permit.
A small diorama really helps explain the massive lava which is not really from a volcano but from cracks and fissures over a period of 16 to 10 million years ago. As the continental plate moved west the releases continued sporadically. Eventually the area we now call Yellowstone is now above the spot where all these cracks are...
The caves are really lava tubes and you need a permit as there is a disease that is affecting the bat population in these parts so they don't allow you to visit the caves if you have been in other caves with your shoes etc
Even if the the visitor center had closed the park is open 24 hours a day and surprisingly has a small tent and RV campground right near the entrance.
There are several stopping points on a seven mile loop road into the park.
A couple of the deeper spots are temporarily closed as the road is under reconstruction (5 and 6 on the park map)
The two areas we stopped at were the Cinder Cone (4) and the Caves (7).
The Cinder Cone was a must. A ten minute hike that is slightly steep gets you to the top with an amazing view. T and K went up with me with T leading the way. Don't forget to take water (we forgot) and we were glad to have our wide brim hats.
T just before starting the hike up the cinder cone
Daddy and K before the hike
The hike up
The view from the top was great
K at the top
Daddy at the top looking NE
There was a really cool tree up on top of the cinder cone.
The hike down was easy.
The Caves (spot 7 on the map)
Winding around the Cinder Cone and back towards the entrance was our last stop with a small parking area for maybe twenty cars and five RV pull thru spots.
The trail from there to the caves is about a quarter to half mile but it's a crazy up and down winding paved trail that goes right over the jagged lava rocks and fissures.
There are four caves all of which are treacherous. This is not for sandals! Bring water flashlight and good shoes.
Indian Cave is by itself and was a fun lava tube.
Apparently park sign writers are often hungry when thinking of how to describe park features...
There are lots of skylight holes where the roof has collapsed so not really a dark cave but still treacherous as lots of sharp shifting rocks to climb up and down until the exit hole.
S and T and I explored and had fun. Oddly there were pigeon like birds and no bats. The birds seemed to be guiding us through the cave like junior park rangers.
S & T inside the Indian Tunnel cave
We made it all the way to the end without mishap but then S had a minor mishap climbing out with a small bump to her knee.
S sitting at the exit.
T at the top of the exit
Me climbing out of the exit hole
Crossing back to the paved path you are guided by some rock cairns as you walk back parallel to the tube on the surface.
It was about 820pm by the time we made it back to the RV.
There was a kids park ranger program at 8pm at the campground but we just missed it.
Craters to Picatello
From the park it's about 14 miles to the tiny town of Arco to the NE.
Then turn SE and eventually on to the I-15 south through Blackfoot and around 1015pm into the Pocatello KOA RV park.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Saturday, July 2, 2011
1st July - Long haul to Idaho
Whew!
We ended up leaving Maple Valley at about 830am on Friday July 1. We went up highway 18 to I-90 and were off!
There wasn't too much traffic over the pass but there was some construction after the summit as they shut down lanes down to one.
On the way we stopped for a quick stretch after leaving Ellensburg.
We made it to Kennewick around noon to meet up with the wife's parents for lunch and gas and wal-mart shopping.
We made about 250 miles on that leg of the trip and exactly $100 to refill the tank.
We didn't get out of Kennewick and back on the road until after 315pm so we had a long way to go still.
Crossing into Oregon was fine and all smooth driving until after Pendleton. What appeared in the distance as a small hill turned into a very very windy feisty knuckle crunching adventure when driving something that handles more like a bus.
Oregon Blue Mountains do not look like the cascades do so I was deceived...
We made it up to dead mans pass at over 4000 feet and stopped for a rest break.
We pushed on through more mountains and passed into Idaho by 8 pm after 250 miles again.
Another fill up once we crossed into Idaho...
and a further 120 miles to Glenns Ferry for our first rv park and stop for the night.
We ended up leaving Maple Valley at about 830am on Friday July 1. We went up highway 18 to I-90 and were off!
There wasn't too much traffic over the pass but there was some construction after the summit as they shut down lanes down to one.
On the way we stopped for a quick stretch after leaving Ellensburg.
We made it to Kennewick around noon to meet up with the wife's parents for lunch and gas and wal-mart shopping.
We made about 250 miles on that leg of the trip and exactly $100 to refill the tank.
We didn't get out of Kennewick and back on the road until after 315pm so we had a long way to go still.
Crossing into Oregon was fine and all smooth driving until after Pendleton. What appeared in the distance as a small hill turned into a very very windy feisty knuckle crunching adventure when driving something that handles more like a bus.
Oregon Blue Mountains do not look like the cascades do so I was deceived...
We made it up to dead mans pass at over 4000 feet and stopped for a rest break.
We pushed on through more mountains and passed into Idaho by 8 pm after 250 miles again.
Another fill up once we crossed into Idaho...
and a further 120 miles to Glenns Ferry for our first rv park and stop for the night.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
30th June - The Great Adventure Begins
Renting an RV for the Family AdventureThe last day of June 2011 and a busy day for everyone. The RV that we are renting is a 2005 Four Winds 5000 (28'). It is called a "Class C" RV as opposed to the big rigs that are "Class A".
We found it from a nice couple that have owned it for a few years and just started renting through a website dedicated to individuals loaning out their RVs - http://privatemotorhomerental.com
The actual vehicle is this listing: http://privatemotorhomerental.com/content/vehicle?vid=396 which includes a layout of the interior and several photos.
After having researched several RV rental options for the past few weeks, this worked out well considering it is a major holiday weekend and most commercial RV rental options were either completely booked or cost more.
The boys were very excited and spent today packing while momma had to work and I worked and travelled up to Bothel to pickup the RV. After work we stopped at Target and Safeway for some last minute items and got home just after 7pm.
We packed until about 10:30pm and called it a night hoping to get an early start over the pass in the morning.
Any bets on whether we'll make it over the pass before all the other RVs pile up trying to do the same thing?
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