Idaho - Day 17 - Pocatello, to American Falls

Willow Bay Resort, American Falls

Sunday, 17 July 2022

Google told me that even taking the non-interstate route would be less than an hour's drive, so I stopped in Pocatello to visit a couple of places I'd passed on my way to the repair shop on Friday.

I went to a grocery store, and then drove around the corner to the Old Town Bark Park, which I found on the Google map of the town.  This turned out to be a really nice dog park, very large with lots of trees.  I talked with several folks - all men, for some reason, who were all there with 2 dogs each.  Some kind of trend in Pocatello, I guess.

From there I drove through what they call Old Town, which looks about like you'd expect such an area to look - older downtown buildings that are still very much being used.

This time through town, I noticed a sign saying Pocatello is the Gateway to the Northwest.  It didn't seem like an entry to Idaho's northwest so I looked it up.  It got that nickname from travelers on the Oregon Trail that came through a mountain gap just south of town.  It was also known as The Gate City.  Founded in 1889, the town was named for Shoshone Chief Pocatello, and there's an extensive display about him at the local visitor center, which I found interesting.

Chief Pocatello

Because he was a Shoshone leader, the exhibits included information about the tribe.

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You can see their territory was substantial.

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Note that it was land taken away from the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes
(i.e. the Fort Hall Reservation land) that created the town of Pocatello,
named for the chief of the Shoshone Tribe.  Now that's irony (at least).

From the visitor center, I drove back through town, this time passing by Idaho State University (founded 1901).  Their mascot is Benny, the Bengal - as in, Bengal tigers.  And I followed these paw prints for more than a mile to the campus.

We also stopped for a walk at Constitution Park, which was a large grassy area with a lot of large trees, clearly (because of the way they were placed) having been planted years ago.  I had trouble finding a parking place because the parking area was almost full with 6 US Forest Service vehicles.  I counted at least 20 employees taking a break under the trees.  It seemed like an odd scene - especially on a Sunday - but that's what I saw.

Pocatello has a Greek Orthodox Church.  The sign in front of it said so.

And then we got on the road.

today's route

You can't tell from the map, but I took surface roads the entire way, and that turned out to be a big mistake.

At first it was fine.  The first 10 miles or so was on a regular county road that ran between the interstate and huge farm fields.  

Actually, that's what the next 8 miles was too, except that road was almost entirely through tribal reservation land and it wasn't paved.  Or graded.  It was a washboard gravel road for most of the way.  I kept going because I kept thinking it would get better, but it never did.  Dext kept looking at me reproachfully, and I sure couldn't blame him.  Everything in the RV got jolted around.

This road too ran between farm land and the interstate, and all the farm land was tribal owned.

I took this photo of the bales of grain because I'd been seeing piles like these everywhere I drove.  I don't remember seeing anything like this in other states - elsewhere, when I saw piles of grain bales it was either in someone's barn or at a transfer yard.  In Idaho, these piles of bales are in people's fields - like these are.  Massive amounts of them.  Of course, Idaho has some long winters so the cattle would need more supplemental food than those in southern states.  But I didn't see this sort of thing in eastern Washington or Oregon or Wyoming.  It's a mystery to me.

Fire danger today is Very High, according to a Forest Service sign I saw.

An Idaho license plate read "GRCHY 1" and the back window had a picture of the Muppet Oscar (the Grouch) peering out from under a trash can lid.

I finally left the gravel road and got to American Falls, pop. 4,457.  I had trouble finding information about the actual falls, which apparently exist but are nearly inaccessible unless you're a very athletic person.  So I went on to the campground, which was at the end of a road alongside a large lake.  I think that was the American Falls Reservoir, considered the largest reservoir on the Snake River.

I never did find the office for this campground, but luckily I found someone who worked there.  Luckily because the space I thought I was supposed to have was occupied by someone else, so this young woman called the office, and told me I'd been assigned a different spot, which turned out to be much better than the first.  The new one was pull-through (vs. back-in) with large trees (vs. none) and was on the end of a row (vs. surrounded by others).  So I didn't complain.

But because I never found the office, I also didn't figure out where the showers were or what the wifi password was or even how to get a map of the campground.  It was really hot, so neither Dext nor I was particularly interested in long walks, which was lucky because I wasn't sure where we could walk to.  But the shade was really appreciated.

One of the other RVs had a slogan painted on the back: "It's never too late to live happily ever after."