Arco, Idaho – Sunday, October 9, 2011
Last night it was 30 degrees. We seem to be in a weather system that is moving the cold along with us as we go south. But it’s bright and sunny out and will no doubt warm up nicely as the day goes on. How’s that for optimism?
It’s back to I-15 and we continue our trek south. Whoa! Look at the size of that buffalo!
Turns out it was a metal statue, but still it was pretty impressive.
The further south we go, the more snow we’re seeing. That must have been a pretty good storm that moved through here late last week.
We both see the sign at the same time and had apparently been thinking the same thing from our studies of the route that lay before us. The sign is for Craters of the Moon National Monument. We take the exit and hole up in the small town of Dubois for about an hour while we have lunch and discuss our next move. EJ makes a few phone calls to Orange Park and Frank gets some information off the internet about the Park.
We learn that it’s a 120 mile detour, but in a 10,000 mile trip, what’s 120 miles? It’s getting late in the afternoon, and the Park is west of our present location so off into the sun we head.
The speed limit on the road is 65mph and we like to cruise at 60mph. Two semi trucks, each pulling two trailers loaded with huge round bales of hay go blasting by us like we were standing still. That gets exciting on a little narrow country road.
We go through the little town of Arco and we see these holes all over the side of this one big hill. Not sure what they are and why they are numbered. Mines, maybe??
We pull into the Park at 7:30pm, the sun has already set, and it is starting to get real dark. We find the campground, make a couple of circles around it to choose our site. EJ gets on the walkie-talkie and guides Frank into our camping spot. There are big piles of lava rock that have to be maneuvered around to get into our spot. Can’t wait to see this place in the daylight.
Two major milestones today. First, we passed 10,000 miles on our trip so far. Second, we broke our 40 nights in a row of no camping fees. Even though we will be dry camping, we will have to pay $5.00/night with our senior park pass. I think we can handle that.
| BG Miles Today | 257 | BG Total Miles | 10118 |
| Eat Out total $ | 1375.36 | BG Total Fuel $ | 5759.23 |
| Entertainment total $ | 1401.63 | Total Camping $ | 1167.03 |
| E Miles Today | 0 | E Total Miles | 2958.31 |
| E Total Fuel $ | 626.44 | Day # of Trip | 131 |
No comments:
Post a Comment