6/4/2007
We left Salt Lake City this morning heading for Glacier National Park. We knew it was too far to make in one day, 625 miles, so we had planned on stopping at the
Wal-mart in Blackfoot, Id. When we stop at the
Wal-mart in Blackfoot the parking lot was so small and crowded we just got some groceries and left. On the way north on route 15 just a little way past
Pocatello, Id. we stopped at this rest area. It had a visitors center, rest rooms and this informative walkway behind the visitor center.
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View of some of walkways on this informative trail about the lava field. It explained that this lava field was not a result of a volcanic eruption but just from a crack in the earth and the lava oozing out.
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The lava rock.
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Some of the lava looked like it was a collapsed lava tube. From there we drove to the
Wal-mart in Idaho Falls. It had a much bigger parking lot, in fact there was already a
motorhome there parked for the night. We parked in front of them. I found out where the post office was and drove a few miles into town to mail some packages. The directions I got were great and very easy to follow the only trouble was that the post offices aren't marked very well. I drove done the correct street, Capital, but never saw the post office. When turning around to go back down Capitol, I got turn around, which I never use to do in my younger days. By the way Capitol is a one way street. Believe it or not I did ask for directions and finally found the post office and my way back to the
motorhome. It was still about 400 miles to Glacier so we planned to stop in
Missoula, Mt. the next day for a day or two. I knew they had a Smoke Jumper's school there that I wanted to see. I had read about it when I was doing my thesis on forest fires in Pennsylvania. I called ahead and made reservations for two days at Jim and Mary's campground in
Missoula.
6/5/2007
We left early Tuesday morning because we had about 325 miles to go and we usually don't drive that far in one day any more. On the way to Missoula we stopped at a small town called Spencer which is just a little way south of the Montana boarder in Idaho. The main attraction here is opals. There are opal mines in the area and of course a lot of places that sell opal jewelry.
They had some really beautiful stuff but expensive. Peggy however couldn't resist and bought a pair of earrings. When we got to Missoula we found our campground and registered in. It is a nice neat campground with lots of trees. Unfortunately trees are a no, no to those of us with satellites. How ever the gentleman that made the reservation the night before had asked me if we had satellite, so he had assigned us a site with a clear view to the southern sky.