Follow Ed Heimel and Chris Klejbuk as we explore the USA and Canada. Trips began in 2013. See sidebar. Since Jan. 2013, over 220,000 miles traveled and 1100 days on the road. Over 700 blog posts written. 2023-We are closing in on 350th National Park unit. Photo below is Pacific Ocean by Big Sur, CA
The last day frequently gets left out. Once you are home, as we are now, the blog post is less urgent. And honestly, less exciting. Rain was forecast for the long drive home on Thursday, a continual heavy rain. We changed our plans, cut short one of the nights at Badlands, took one last series of walks at Badlands Wednesday morning, and headed for Mitchell South Dakota. Staying here would shorten our Thursday drive in the rain by three hours.
For the unknowing, Mitchell has been home to the Corn Palace for 125 years. Inside a gymnasium used by a local college and high school. Outside, an exterior covered in 325,000 ears of corn in 13 different types of corn kernels to present a mural to the world. The theme changes so each year the exterior is different. The interior also has a series of panels describing the Corn Palace and its history.
One final night at a Hampton Inn and Thursday we were off for home. The rain was a bummer for driving but much was much needed moisture for this part of the country.
Next trips not set yet but possibly the end of the year including the southern tip of Texas and back up the Mississippi River, next fall to the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and a spring trip either to southern California or southeastern U.S. This trip: nine states, 48 days, and 8,420 miles.
Tomorrow, October 12, we should be back at home in Saint Paul. Our blog posts are a little behind so we have a some catching up to do. We were completely out of Internet and cell service at our lodging in the Badlands National Park last night.
Our last posting went up before we went for dinner Monday night in Buffalo Wyoming. You may recall that earlier on this trip we went out for dinner in Mackay, Idaho at a small bar. The people were lining up for darts competition that evening. Monday night, in the saloon at the historic Occidental Hotel in downtown Buffalo, it was trivia night. We did not compete, but the first topic of the solar system would have shown our lack of knowledge on the topic, and we probably would have greatly displeased two relatives.
Tuesday morning we drove to Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The only intermittent stop was at Wall drug in Wall South Dakota. There may be those among you, particularly younger than us, who do not understand the significance of Wall Drug. Wall Drug grew from obscurity to a major destination by the use of plentiful and humorous billboards along the highways in South Dakota. Their initial marketing tool was free ice water. Recognize that this was in the early 1930s when cold water on a hot trip in a slow car across South Dakota to Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills was extremely eye-catching and valuable. They still offer free ice water, and five cent coffee today. There is much more to the story, but I have changed my style to minimize the writing, so look it up yourself.
Badlands National Park in southcentral South Dakota, has wildlife, fossils, and glorious landscapes that show the erosive affect of time, wind, and water. The Badlands get their name from the lack of water and the desire of Native Americans and settlers to avoid it. The topography is American prairies with a wall of eroded rock separating the prairies into a higher and lower natural feature, with the beautiful eroded rock separating the two sections of prairie. We drove the loop road from Wall through the park, which alternates between the higher prairie and the lower prairie.
This is not our first time here, but thought it worthwhile to visit again on the way home. We spent the night in one of the cabins located inside the park. This morning, Wednesday, we did some more walking around before departing for our one more night on the road before reaching Saint Paul.
View of Mammoth Hot Springs from the upper level terraces
Buffalo, WY Oct. 9
It is 6 1/2 weeks into our 7 week road trip. I am finding it easier to use fewer words and more pictures as the trip comes to its conclusion. Plus, there really is less to write about. We are taking it easier also.
Sunday we continued our stay at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. Both because we wanted to relax and enjoy the area and because my legs and hip were acting up, we stayed just in the Mammoth Springs area. Watching elk was a primary activity that was easy to do and enjoyable.
As we were leaving this morning, this elk just wanted to say goodbye to Chris as she stepped outside our cottage door.
Monday we continued the drive towards home. Due to road construction in Yellowstone, we took a different route up through Montana and avoided the eastern part of Yellowstone. We are spending the night in Buffalo Wyoming before continuing to Badlands National Park tomorrow.
The pictures below are in chronological order so they show sights from around Mammoth Hot Springs and then our drive to Buffalo. Enjoy.
Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, Oct. 7
Our Yellowstone location has changed. We are now at Mammoth Hot Springs in the northwest corner of the park for two nights before continuing our return to Minnesota. Artists Paintpots and Norris Geyser Basin were the primary stopping points today before checking in.
Once again, the blog post will consist primarily of pictures. Enjoy.
Ed and Chris, Mammoth Hot Springs, Oct. 7
No Internet in our cabin. Have to work in the big room at the lodge..
It took us an hour and a half from our hotel in Island Park, Idaho to park and be at the Old Faithful visitor center at Yellowstone National Park. I had forgotten that Island Park is half an hour west of the entrance to Yellowstone. There was a 10 to 15 minute wait to get into the park as the rangers processed the entrance fee for the cars lined up. The fog made for a slower than normal drive, but by the time we reached the Old Faithful area, the skies were blue and the day began its beautiful unfolding.
We walked around Geyser Hill, that area close to Old Faithful that is home to so many small and medium geysers. We made it back to Old Faithful in time for its 10:40 eruption. After a quick lunch, we went on to visit the thermal areas along the Loop Road stretching from Old Faithful to Madison Junction. This includes the Lower Geyser Basin, Firehole Canyon, Midway Geyser Basin, and Fountain Paintpots.
Once again, the rest of the blog is pictorial. I am not going to go into details about calderas, hot spots, magma, etc. Just sit back and enjoy. The hardest part has been done already, winnowing down to the photos to be included.
Today was a scenic travel day. No museums. No natural science buildings. No informational tours. Just driving along the east central scenic byways of Idaho. Leaving Soda Springs, we passed the phosphate mines and processing facilities. The fall colors were just the aspen yellow, not the rich red and orange of yesterday. Most of the route was in the valleys between mountains. We saw the west side of the Tetons with their snow capped peaks. We crossed the Snake River several times. No gravel roads but multiple rural roads that had no shoulders and no center lines. Roads that were so minor they did not show up on any state map.
The only sites of any significance were Upper and Lower Mesa Falls. Lower Mesa Falls is 65 feet tall while Upper Mesa Falls is 114. The two waterfalls are the last prominent waterfalls on the Snake River to resist human control.
Our lodging for the next two nights is a Springhill Suites in Island Park, Idaho, just west of West Yellowstone. Tomorrow will head in for a day of seeing the sights of Yellowstone National Park.
For the rest of this blog post, we will just make it a pictorial journey.
Suddenly it was fall in Idaho. And thankfully so, since several of our planned activities bummed out.
Until now, we have not seen any true fall colors. A little bit here and there, nothing dramatic, and not a lot of it. Then we left Pocatello. We were to spend some time in south east Idaho. We had a short hop down Interstate 15 and thought we saw some nice red colors far off on the mountain slopes. We left the Interstate and headed for our first destination of Paris Idaho. It would take us over Emigration Pass. Thankfully, these were gentle ascents through the mountains, and we finally saw deciduous trees brilliantly adorned in fall colors.
Paris, Idaho had a temple of the Latter Day Saints that was able to be viewed as part of a guided tour. The website indicated tours were offered during the summer, but other locations indicated that data was outdated and tours were still being offered. In any event, we were going to check it out. The town is small, only about 500 people but the temple goes back to 1888 with a Romanesque style. We arrived, saw the outdoor building where the guides would wait for people, but the building was empty, and no tours were offered today. Disappointment number one.
To soothe our disappointment, we went back to a small store that we noticed on the way in. El Camino Donuts. A small shop in a small town but they had wonderful donuts. We talked, of course, with the owner who had moved here two years ago with his artist wife. She has a gallery inside the donut shop. They had moved up here from Albuquerque where he had made donuts before. The style and flavors were excellent. There were soft chairs to sit in, so we had donuts, coffee and milk, and conversation with the owner. As we left, he gave us two free donuts to take with us.
Bear Lake in the south east corner of Idaho extends slightly into Utah and is a well-known, beautiful blue lake with high tourist potential. But we’ve seen it before, so we settled instead for the Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Several varieties of ducks were visible on the ponds in the refuge, and it made for a pleasant diversion after missing out on the Paris Temple.
Montpelier was next. Our main target was the Oregon California Trail Center and Museum. We drove in and parked in the lot just as another car arrived and parked close to the front door. A banner on the building advertised the quilt show which was going to end October 15. Chris was hoping to see some good examples of quilts along with the historical information about the national trails. Or maybe, it was Ed that really wanted to see the historical information. In any event, we got out of our car.
The gentleman left his car and walked to the doorway on the left-hand side of the building. It was locked. He unlocked it and went inside. It was a Forest Ranger Station. We went to the door on the right hand side which was for the Trail Center. It was open. It should not have been. The interior door to the museum was locked and the Ranger was nice enough to tell us he has no idea what their hours are and why they can’t keep it straight. He did encourage us to come into his area where we chatted about the forests in southeast Idaho. The website for the National California-Oregon Trail Center, which we had checked this morning, said the trail center would be open until 3 PM today. Disappointment number two.
Formation Springs
We moved on. It was but a short drive to Soda Springs, where we were to spend the night, although we thought we would arrive later. Two activities for Soda Springs. First, they have a geyser which is attached to a timer and goes off every hour. Second, Formation Springs was to be a natural area where water bubbles out of the ground over travertine rocks. We thought it might be a miniature Mammoth Springs as is in Yellowstone.
Phosphate Processing
On the way to Formation Springs, we passed a huge phosphate mining and processing center. It stands out like a sore thumb on the countryside. 40% of the nations phosphate reserves are found within a 100 mile radius in the highlands of southeast Idaho. We found Formation Springs after driving up a bumpy, rutted road to the parking area. All we could see were one or two springs flowing into streams very nice and clear. The travertine rocks were nowhere in sight for us. Disappointment number three.
But the geyser works! We knew it was not a huge one. We knew it went off on the hour, every hour. So we pulled into Soda Springs at 1:59 p.m. and watched the geyser going off for a full seven minutes. You might argue that a natural geyser would not be attached to a timer and go off on a regular basis. However, in 1937, while looking for a hot water source for a local swimming pool, a well driller accidentally set off the natural geyser. Later they set up the timing feature after the Secretary of the Interior said that this geyser was upsetting Old Faithful‘s flow, many miles away. Who knows. In any event, it’s capped, goes off regularly, and we saw it in the nick of time.
Disappointment number four. Next to the geyser is Eastman’s Drug Store. It was supposed to have an old-fashioned soda fountain serving delicious ice cream. It is the oldest drug store in Idaho and Chris checked the website this morning. Open until 3 pm. After the geyser went off, we walked over and saw that the door said the closing time was “Twoish”. Well it was 2:20 and they were closed. After checking two other restaurants that were closed for various reasons, we did find a place open and had a delicious lunch.
At least our hotel was open for 3 PM check in and we are here for the evening. Tomorrow, off to Yellowstone via back roads. Maybe we’ll see more fall colors.
Readers of this blog know that we can do some unusual things that don’t excite the average traveler. Today was a good example of that. We visited the Museum Of Clean in Pocatello Idaho. This is a museum spanning four floors and 75,000 ft.². It was begun by a gentleman who started a cleaning company and went on to be a motivational speaker and author. He was born and raised in eastern Idaho.
Once again, we did not know fully what to expect when walking into this place. We left over two and one half hours later overwhelmed and probably still had not seen everything. They say in their promotional brochures, it’s not meant to be a clean museum, but a museum about clean. Our visit started with one whole floor devoted to vacuum cleaners. Evidently someone else’s collection was purchased by this museum, causing the extraordinary number and variety of vacuums to be on display.
Hand operated vacuums began in 1860 and electrical ones around the turn of the century. Familiar names from the past are spotlighted plus companies never heard of by anyone but the most vacuum crazed individual. The walls have copies of written advertisements, most, of course, depicting how their vacuum will make a woman’s life easier. Some of the designs of these vacuums were simply weird.
The mop totem pole
Vacuums are not the only items on display. A video on how to clean windows. Cleaning golf clubs. Cartoon humor about cleaning. Devices for dusting. Sponges, polishes, and floor cleaners. Money laundering. Early dental cleaning and, of course, toilet cleaning. One whole room is devoted to artwork. Even a section on chimney sweeps from England. Did you know before little kids were stuck down chimneys to clean them that the chimney sweep business would put a white goose on a rope and toss it down the chimney, and as the goose flaps its wings to get back up, it cleaned the chimney?
In addition, to being overwhelmed by the items displayed on these four floors, we were frequently delighted by the written descriptions of the items. Many clearly reflected a satirical bent.
As we were leaving, we talked with the son-in-law of the founder. He asked our opinion and advice about their addition of a section devoted to cleaning up the environment. We shared our thoughts with him, now we will have to return to see how this new section turns out.
Display showing the closeness of the Shoshone and Bannock languages
Fifteen miles north of the Museum Of Clean is the museum for the Shoshone Bannock Indian tribe. These were two tribes that were relatively close in language and traditions, who were forced together due to the decimation of their peoples. They now inhabit the Fort Hall Reservation which partially surrounds the city of Pocatello. Their museum focused on their history and some examples of their craft work.
It has been interesting to visit different churches along this journey. Just as in Bismarck, we found the local church in Twin Falls, there was only one from the town of over 50,000, to be very crowded. They did offer six masses, one in Swahili. Rather than an audience of mainly elderly people, there was a preponderance of families with multiple children and pregnant mothers.
After church, just for a lark, we drove around the downtown and came to a food court, one of the initial rejuvenators of the downtown area. Inside we had some wonderful crepes for lunch. Chris saw the family that had been sitting next to her in church. She asked the mother why they had a mass in Swahili, but the woman did not know. Looking it up on Wikipedia, it appeared that a resettlement center at the local University had helped to bring refugees to Twin Falls. Idaho is not a major destination for refugees. However, the top two countries with people resettling here are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan.
Sunday was rainy and cold. We had scheduled, after church, to go to parks and waterfalls in natural settings. We decided our lives would be happier and more settled if we made Sunday a logistical planning day. Besides doing the laundry, we reviewed our schedule up until our return date of October 12.
Our last week of traveling was scheduled to include two nights at Yellowstone National Park and two nights at Badlands National Park. A week or more ago we had made hotel reservations at alternate locations in case a federal budgetary shutdown closed Yellowstone and Badlands National Parks starting on Oct. 1. Since the budget was passed, after review, our resolution was to spend two fewer days in this eastern section of Idaho and two more days in Yellowstone. So I booked a reservation for two nights in West Yellowstone, canceled the two nights in eastern Idaho, and canceled the reservations for all of those alternate hotel locations we had made just in case the national parks closed starting October 1.
Barbed wire, ground sloth skeleton, and Shoshone Bannock drum cover at Museum of Idaho
Monday continued the cold and wet weather with rain most of the day. Luckily, we were leaving Twin Falls to visit museums in the eastern section of Idaho. Our first stop was in Idaho Falls at the Museum of Idaho. Their special exhibition area was closed for the installation of a new exhibit but we were there to focus on their exhibit about Idaho itself. Some of the topics covered included geology, prehistoric animals, agriculture, a sample small town Main Street from pioneer days, and the Shoshone-Bannock Indian nation.
Some of the facts I found interesting included: a.) Idaho state is the third highest producer of milk and cheese after California and Wisconsin; b.) Idaho is a made up name, not an Indian name; c.) the potato originated in the New World, was brought back to Spain, and then throughout Europe; d.) the potato grows well in Idaho due to warm days, cool evenings, predictable watering through irrigation, and fertile volcanic soils; e.) agriculture is Idaho’s top industry with 20% of the state’s economic base; and f.) hay is a top crop and Idaho produces more certified organic hay than any other state and is the second largest grower of alfalfa hay. No wonder we saw so many large trucks hauling hay everywhere we went in the state.
All that irrigation we saw? Well it’s critical for potatoes since they need about 24 inches of water per crop while the average here in rainfall is only about 10 to 12 inches. The museum had the usual display of samples of barbed wire. What I thought was particularly interesting was the examples of different barbed wire per ranch with the name and design shown for each ranch.
A docent volunteering in the exhibit area collared Chris and proceeded to have a discussion of the eastern US vs western US and the fact that she is here in Idaho to be closer to her family. I believe she was lonely as the crowd was not large inside the museum and she needed something to do.
It was 30 miles from Idaho Falls to Blackfoot Idaho. Blackfoot is the county seat of Bingham County. Bingham County is the top producing potato growing county for Idaho. So naturally, it was to be expected that the potato museum would be located in Blackfoot. We just had to stop and visit. What was not expected was to discover that the student handling the cash register was not in school since this is harvest week and some of the schools close down so the school children can help with the potato harvest. The actual days off vary from year to year, depending on when the potatoes have ripened.
Before we toured the museum, we went to their small café. The cafe offers a variety of potato products as a meal break. We each had a baked potato with all the trimmings, and of course, a Coke to wash it down.
The factoids in the potato museum are interesting and numerous. Idaho produces about 1/3 of all of the United States potatoes, and most of those are grown in eastern and central Idaho. The museum has a stupendous collection of potato mashers. Exhibits described the best uses for the variety of potatoes being grown. The information about the spread of potatoes from the New World to the Old World, and back again, was repeated from what we read at the Museum of Idaho. There was a nice video about the old time tractors used for harvesting, compared to the current, mammoth contraptions that harvest, clean and convey potatoes from the field to trucks hauling the potatoes to the processing centers.
The Russet Burbank potato was developed to help combat the devastating potato blight epidemic in Ireland. The great famine killed so many Irish (about 1,000,000) and de-populated the country so heavily (about another 1,000,000) that is the only European country with fewer residents now than 180 years ago.
Mural in our Airbnb
After the museum, we checked into our Airbnb in Pocatello, Idaho. Pocatello, Idaho Falls, and Twin Falls all have between 50,000 and 80,000 people and seem fairly robust economically. This Airbnb has a cute theme, modeling it after a mineshaft. There are many nice touches, including a mural painted on a wall resembling a mineshaft, and we found it a comforting location to stay in.
Chris Klejbuk and Ed Heimel travel adventure 
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