Massacre Rocks State Park, Idaho

It was a long and somewhat trying day yesterday. Let's hope it's the most trying day of the trip. We're wiping the slate clean and driving on this morning, having had a good night's sleep, several cups of coffee, and improved attitudes.

As you already know, we had to have a flat tire fixed first thing yesterday morning. What you don't know is that the night before, we'd noticed this.

Yes, that's water leaking from a screw at the front step. What the...? As it turns out there's a plumbing access panel in the upper right corner of the image below. Opening it up, we discovered a slow leak and a broken plumbing fitting. Okay, so no problem. There was, within a half-mile radius of the RV park, a Les Schwab, a McDonald's, and a Home Depot. We could get the flat fixed at Les Schwab, get some breakfast at McDonald's (because we now could not use the kitchen sink), and then pick up a plumbing fitting at the Home Depot.

First, though, some slow-stitching. I made my first yo-yo without using a yo-yo-making tool. Ta-Da! Sadie wanted to model it for you.

And just to prove I could do it again, I made another. Sadie modeled that one too. This is what happens to you when you're a stitching cat.

All-in-all, I managed five yo-yo's of the 12 I need. So, we took care of the morning's business and then got on our way. It was flat and brown yesterday, without a whole lot to break-up the scenery. This was the view out the windshield.

This was the view out my side window.

In several hours, we reached our final destination, having taken a wrong turn because some road construction confused our navigation unit.

Mike is a good trailer backer, and he has a back-up camera mounted on the top of the camper. Still, we've been making it easy on ourselves by booking pull-through sites when possible. This was our site for the night. Nice.

But this is when knowing a lot about electricity doesn't work to your advantage. When we plugged into the power here, it kept flipping the circuit breaker on the park power outlet. Mike got out all his tools, hemmed and hawed over it for a good half hour. Finally, he said it didn't make sense why it was happening. Everything was working on their pole and on our camper. It was very close to time for the visitor center to close, and so I called them from the site to explain the problem. "Oh," says she. "I'm about to close, but come on down, and I'll give you a 'pigtail' that will take care of the problem."

In trailer lingo, a "pigtail" is basically a short extension cord that plugs into your power cord and then into their outlet that works some kind of electricity magic. With their pigtail, the problem was solved. We laughed about how a little too much knowledge can be dangerous. Only by that time, we were hot and sweaty, having been trying to figure out this problem for a good long time in 92 degree heat and humidity. Oy. We just wanted to sit and relax and drink margaritas, and this day that started out stressfully was ending the same way. Not only that, Mike still needed to fix the plumbing.

So while he did that, I was able to get Smitty out on his leash for a short walk. He first took a good dust bath, and then found some tufts of grass. These were not to his liking, being dry and overcooked, but he chewed on them just a little.

He was pretty bold for his first time out of the camper on this trip.

That's a handsome hunka mancat right there.

The juniper bushes all around were loaded with juniper berries. It's a shame no one is going to turn them into gin.

Back inside, Sadie was cooling her tummy furs in the draft of the air-conditioner.

When it cooled off later in the day, she could be found enjoying the catio.

After we'd cooled off and enjoyed some tasty refreshing beverages, we decided to get out for a walk and see what makes this place worthy of state park status. Walking up the road and toward the Snake River, we found a fenced off area. Here was the explanatory sign.

Looking on, you can see these little wart-like rocks with the orange tufts.

Walking on, we hoped to find a way to get to the river, and we thought this was a very good indicator.

Before we go on, I feel a need to warn you about how you could die out here. Please follow me, and be careful. And get those notions about cliff-diving out of your head.

Along the way, the sage brush was beginning to bloom.

Also, these little wild asters...at least, I think that's what they are. The flowers are about the size of a nickel.

It was only supposed to be three-tenths of a mile, but it seemed as if we walked a lot farther than that. When we finally reached a good view point, this is what we saw. Looking right...

Looking left...

Here's a pano from where we stood. Remember that you can always make the images larger by clicking on them.

We walked for quite some time, and eventually reached the river's edge. It was a little rocky, and so we weren't actually able to get to the water, but I certainly wanted to dip my bare feet in.

I'll just show you a few more images of some of the places we stood and gazed out. The river was calm and inviting.

Eventually we came to a wildlife viewing area. This sign was present, but we didn't see wildlife of any kind, save for one little duck.

And here's some information about the geology of this area. Idaho is a very volcanic place. The sign was large with small print, and so I've cropped it into smaller sections you can read if you're interested.

The geology is interesting enough, but what about that name, you ask. Massacre Rocks is so named because of series of skirmishes that took place between settlers traveling the Oregon Trail and the Indians that inhabited the area. In a series of battles, some 10 settlers were killed from a combination of several wagon trains. The park literature claims "massacre" is a bit of an overstatement, but I'm happy not to have been there.

There was also this sign, and it's a little hard to read. Basically, there was an enormous flood.

In its wake was left a waterfall. The notch you see in the canyon wall below is where water once fell over into the river.

We were coming to the end of our walk, but the setting sun was making some pretty colors on the landscape.

This was a good stop-over place for the night, but a little close to the interstate. We left a fan on last night to cover the noise, and that helped. I've indicated where the interstate is in the image below.

We didn't walk this trail, but I'm including the sign because it describes the indigenous peoples who once lived here.

All along the way on both sides of the road and every place we've stopped, we've seen these desert sunflowers in bloom. It's hard to get a good picture of them because they are blowing in the wind.

You might recall in my quest to use our CSA veggies just before leaving, I roasted a pile of them and made this Roasted Tomato Soup with Broiled Cheddar. The soup was made and frozen, and then we had it for dinner last night. The soup was so good, with just a hint of spice. I did my bread a little differently since I don't have a broiler in the camper. I sliced a hoagie roll crosswise into half-inch slices, then toasted them in the oven at 350 degrees for five minutes. Then, I flipped them over and sprinkled them with grated cheese and toasted them for an additional five minutes. When I floated them in the bowl with the soup, it looked like this.

It was really good. We ended up just cutting up the croutons. It was a little like eating crackers and soup with a little cheesy goodness thrown in.

Today we'll be on our way again. We should end up in Vernal, Utah, by the end of the day. We're approaching our first ATV stop where we'll spend six days. Between here and there, we'll have one night in Vernal and then two nights in Canon City, Colorado, before reaching Taylor Park Reservoir. Since there won't be many amenities at Taylor Park, we're stopping for groceries tonight, and we also need to pick up another plumbing fitting. When Mike fixed the leak, he discovered another identical fitting, which we completely expect will also break along the way. It'll be good to have the fitting available if we need it.