Idaho: When in Jerome

We woke up Wednesday morning at a Best Western in Jerome, Idaho, population 7,780, plus the three of us. We could have stayed in the booming metropolis of Twin Falls, but Frank insisted that we stay in Jerome so we would be closer to the destination for the day:  The Hagerman Fossil Beds.  Why we didn't just stay in Hagerman, I don't know.

We left Jerome with no more than a blink, and headed to nearby Hagerman to find the National Park Visitor Center to find out about the Hagerman Fossil Beds.  The Fossil Beds are a large archeological find, but you can't actually walk around there, since the land is too unstable.  The Hagerman Horses were prehistoric forerunners of modern horses, the equus simplicidens, probably the link between prehistoric and modern horses.  The Fossil Beds are famous because there were a group of about 26 horses found in one spot, but they are not sure why they were all congregated there together.  The Park Ranger said that they thought it could have been a flash flood that did in the horses, but no one knows.  Horse history is not exactly my cup of java, but Frank was intrigued by this, so we drove out to the site to take some pictures.

The Fossil Beds are actually in a lovely spot, with a gorgeous river canyon vista surrounded by farmland.  The site is along the historic Oregon Trail, so we traipsed around looking for some white markers that showed where the Oregon Trail had been.  In some spots in the rocks, you can still see ruts made by the iron wagon wheels of the early pioneers.  It reminded me of the ruts in the stone roads at Pompeii, made by chariots during the Roman era. It's pretty amazing that the settlers made it across this rugged terrain.

Frank wanted to stop at 1000 Springs, where you can see waterfalls that jut out of the hillside.  It looks like a colander shooting water out of holes in the mountainside.   Unfortunately, road construction thwarted our plans, and we had to see it driving by on a bumpy gravel road, after waiting half an hour for a pilot car to escort us down the road.  There is a park where you can view the falls, but we couldn't get to it, so we kept on moving toward Twin Falls and the famous Snake River Canyon.

We drove on to Twin Falls, Idaho, and got out at the scenic overlook next to the Perrine Memorial Bridge. The falls in Twin Falls are evidently not much to see now, due to a dam, but the name remains.

One mile east of the bridge is the spot where Evel Kneivel attempted to jump the Snake River Canyon in 1974.  You can see the launch pad from the bridge.  Evel failed to complete the jump, but modern day daredevils use this bridge for base jumping and bungy jumping.  We didn't see any jumpers, just some beautiful, breathtaking scenery. 

We made our way through some backcountry roads to try to find the location of the Hunt-Minidoka Internment Camps, but never found it.  This bucolic farmland was once the site of a WWII Japanese internment camp, where thousands of Japanese-Americans were held prisoner during WWII.  It was a sad and lonely vista, with not many houses around.  We drove down several unpaved roads, but couldn't find the memorial.  Some of the land was charred, so we speculated that it could have been burned in a grassfire, or maybe we just didn't hit the right road.  The directions and the map given to us at the National Park Visitor Center in Hagerman seemed to contradict each other.  Maybe they just don't want visitors to see this sad part of our history.

We drove on through the Idaho farmland, down the interstate to Pocatello, where we had dinner at a Red Lobster along the highway.   

Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to eat a famous potato in Idaho. Even the license plates advertise "famous potatoes", but I forgot.  I did, however, have Idaho fries and sturgeon, which ought to count for something.