July 11 - 12, 2013 Henry’s Fork River, Idaho

We considered staying in Yellowstone a night. But it was full. There was one spot at Indian Springs campground that we tried, but it was too small., so we went into Idaho.

Undine Falls,  Yellowstone. The front door to the post office in Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone is flanked with these stone bears.

Elk lounging on the lawn around the Mammoth Hot Springs hotel. Liberty cap in front of Mammoth Hot springs is an extinct geyser cone.

Beryl Hot spring. It also had a fumerole shooting steam into the air behind it.  Elk along the  Madison river on the way out of Yellowstone.

West Yellowstone was a mass of hotels, restaurants, traffic, T shirt shops, amusements packed with people, so we only stopped to gas and even that was a chore with all the traffic.  The bus at the Henry’s fork campground in Idaho. John was so excited because only Idaho tags were here, we had escaped the Yellowstone tourists. It was kind of gray and drizzly here in Idaho so far.

The Henry’s fork river that runs along the campground. Fireweed and wet lupine leaves.

White mariposa lilies and a white Campion.  A yellow beetle that landed on the windshield and a Indian paint brush.

The old Big Falls Inn at Mesa Falls. It was built when the power company was going to put a power plant on the falls as an office. They never got the permit, so the plant was never built. It became a tourist attraction and stage stop and hotel for travelers going to Yellowstone park. It has also been used as a restaurant, dance hall and scout camp.  The building has been restored and it now the visitors center. John is sitting on the porch. The spotting scope is pointed at an osprey nest.

Upper Mesa falls. It was beautiful, rainbow, very green from the mist. Some of the campsites in this area have this great set up over the fire ring.  A moveable grill, smoking hooks and a table on the top.

The water park in Rexburg, Idaho. We really went so I could ride the historic, 1900”s carousel. Look, no hands, and I am going so fast that I am blurred!

The Legacy Flight Museum in Rexburg with vintage military aircraft. There were 3 P-51 mustangs-including Bob Hoover’s world famous ‘Ole Yeller’, a TBM-Avenger,  PT-17 Stearman,and the P-63  Kingcobra- it was in the repair shop  and we got to go look at it. It is one of only 3 airworthy left in the world. And many more, plus a section with memorabilia. These all still fly.

We stopped at this root beer place in Ashton, Idaho for a root beer float. The Henry’s Fork river back at camp. The Henry’s fork has been called the  best trout-fishing stream in America. One if its sources is Big Spring, where 120 million gallons of water bubble up into the river each day.

We did not get time to visit the spring, the near by sand dunes or the Farnsworth TV museum in Rigby which honors former resident and inventor of the first television picture tube Philo T Farnsworth.  You can only visit so many museums in a day.