Places Visited:
Idaho: Sun Valley, Ketchum,
Haley
June 9, 2007.
We are staying at Three Island Crossing State Park located in the town of Glynn's Ferry. $4 entry fee plus $21 for RV site with water & elect. Very nice campground and it is full. Mature trees with good shade and green grass. If by chance the campground at Three Island Crossing is full there is a nice campground at a winery located at the front gate to the State Park. They were $20 for FHU and they had shade. Point being----they would be a good alternative and some would like it better than the state park since is was $1 cheaper and it had FHU.
While in this area we had to venture in to the "interior" of Idaho. By interior I mean the mountains. We are camped in Glenn's Ferry and want to visit Sun Valley. The only way for us to reasonably do that is to take a day trip in the Saturn up to Ketchum & Sun Valley through Haley. The ride from our campground took us through Gooding and Shoshone then Haley. Between Shoshone and Haley we drove through a really rugged lava field. As you can see the road had to be cut through this lava field. It is really nasty stuff.
In Sun Valley we stopped at Sun Valley Lodge constructed by the Union Pacific Rail Road in 1936 as the first Destination Ski Resort in the United States. It was a refuge to many famous movie stars and authors. Earnest Hemingway was buried down the street in Ketchum.
Joyce says these flowers are lupin.
This is the Sun Valley Lodge constructed in 1936.
In the pond outside the front door a pair of mute swans and their three young were claiming ownership.
This male mute swan was challenging us from being near "his" pond.
The swans had a nest in this "Swan Suite". I liked the special touch. This is the second time we have seen mute swans this week.
We were told that this is the most photographed pool in the world. It was one of the amenities at Sun Valley Lodge.
This is the ice skating rink at the lodge. Someone said this ice rink was once used in the Olympics. I can't remember if it was Olympics in the 1940s or 1960s. Feel free to fill in the details if you know.
Not long before we took this picture professional skaters were practicing their routines.
This is the back side of the lodge taken from the ice rink.
While the lodge looks like it is made of wood it is actually poured concrete that has been painted to look like wood. Faux concrete if you will. It was done by pouring the concrete in rough wooden forms so that the concrete would have the physical features of wood. The concrete construction was intentional to make it fire proof.
Another ski resort in town was this River Run complex located in Ketchum. It is a beautiful place as well but not nearly so highbrow.
These glass windows face the ski lift and provide a wonderful dining area.
This is the view of the lift area from that outside dining area.
Joyce took this picture of the top of River Run's ski lift from across the valley so you can see the wide ski area accessible from the top lift.
We went home via a different route. South of Haley we turned west on US 20 to Fairfield where we turned south on SR-46 to Gooding.
This route took us along Magic Reservoir and the valley where Goodale's Cut off on the Oregon Trail made another route between Ft. Hall near Pocatello and Ft. Boise near Boise, Idaho.
Goodale's Cut-Off followed US-20 where we were traveling. To me this was a much better route than the Oregon Trail Route along the south side of the Snake River. While there is some lava rock there is not nearly as much as on the south side of the Snake River. There is even some green grass along this route.
Joyce took this picture as we neared Fairfield on US-20 looking to the northwest.
At Fairfield we turned south on SR 46 and climbed out of the valley we had been following. Near the crest, as we climbed out of the valley we stopped in an overlook where Joyce took these pictures looking to the North. Those mountains with snow on them are around Stanley.
That is SR-46 looking north toward Fairfield.
After we left the overlook we ran through an area where locust were crossing the highway. I can see where "grasshoppers" in this quantity could cause widespread crop damage.
Until next time remember how good life is.
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Mike & Joyce Hendrix
mikehendrix@isp.com