Day 7 - Heyburn, ID to John Day, OR

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Day 7 - Oct 14, 2014 Heyburn, ID to John Day, OR

625 miles, 3 National Parks and 2 States

Idaho and Oregon

 
There was a pretty interesting sunrise on our way out to City of Rocks.  It lit up the mountain side and enhanced their red colors.  We were thinking that this was gonna be another one of the special days.  But sadly as the day goes, it was not to be... 

 
Let's just say that the maps do not do very well to warn you that you have to go through 30 very rough miles of unpaved road to get here depending on the in route you take...  And the visitors center is not actually in City of Rocks but in town - completely unmarked.  We again spent quite a bit of time trying to find it.  This was a very frustrating way to start the day.  Although, the rock formations were interesting.
 

Old graffiti from western travelers on the Oregon Trail.   Looks to me like it was a younger guy being funny JV Attaboy :)  

Shannon would call Hagerman's a lake recreation area instead...  Ryan's take is that it is a conservation area.  Anyhow, the visitor's center was not open but they did at least leave the stamps outside. Didn't get to learn much about this area except that we are not much fans of Idaho National Parks to this point... This one again was unmarked with little detail and we saw nothing but rolling hills.  And again Pretty much there is no point to visit because the only info you will find is online.  Had we not found a maintenance man, we would have never found the visitor center miles away from the 'park'. 
 

We did find the Peter's Gulch and the Snake River to be far more exciting than the fossil beds.  Tons of birds of all sorts in and around the Snake River.  There was also a really large windmill farm in the upper plains past the park. 
 


 
 
Poor Idaho, being that we live in Hawaii, Volcanoes National Park has soooo much more to offer than Craters of the Moon.  We went in and watched the movie about the park, and at one point they showed a letter from a former Idaho senator begging to turn the land into a national park.  It really seemed quite pathetic to us after our experience with the Idaho parks.  But I have to say, I love potatoes! And we did see some pretty scenery, so we'll being going back to give Idaho another chance in July of 2015 on the motorcycle, so check back! 
 

 
 
Scenery did get prettier as we headed for Oregon




This has to be an Ohio native...Go Bucks!




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