Vacation Day 2 - Rural Areas around Rexburg

Wednesday (July 24) – [Trip Day 2]  I planned our trip to be out of Salt Lake City for the 24^th as everything is shut down and to me it would be a wasted day. The Stegelmeiers had a full day planned for us. The goal was to show is stuff that was totally off the beaten path.  Since they are natives here they know the country like the back of their hands. We started off at 8:30 and headed due north into the desert.  Much of central Idaho is volcanically formed and is desert like in its landscape. They took us first to Siddoway Butte where there are 5 miles of sand dunes and a bright Red Cinder Pit cone – all volcanic in origin.   

 From there we passed the turn off for the Fremont County Civil Defense Cave.  Some of the counties here, back in the Cold War era built large underground nuclear shelters underground using old lava tubes from the days of the volcanoes.  This particular tube was large enough that the whole population of the county could have been housed in it.  This particular cave stretched back over 3000 feet from the entrance and could have housed 5000 people.  Fortunately it was never needed. 
 

 Next we stopped The Frying Pan Battle site where small party of the Nez Perce Indians that was led by Chief Joseph held off the army that was pursuing them for 2 days while the main party continued to flee towards what is today Yellowstone.  They were trying to flee to Canada and freedom but were eventually caught in northern Montana and those that survived were forced onto a reservation.
 

We next passed by a small lake (Sheridan Lake) and then continued east across highway 80 into beautiful mountain country eventually ending up at Big Springs.  Producing over 120 million gallons of water each day, Big Springs a Natural National Landmark, is one of the 40 largest natural springs in the world. The springs create the headwaters of the Henrys Fork of the Snake River which travels across Fremont County creating spectacular scenery at Upper and Lower Mesa Falls. These springs come to the surface through cracks in the surface of the earth caused my doming of the landscape back it the volcanic era.  We visited both the Springs and later the Upper Mesa falls where the Henry Fork passes over hard basalt rock forming beautiful falls.  We had bread to feed fish but most of the time all we did was feed the birds until we finally found a spot on Warm River later on where the fish outnumbered the birds. 

This is us with our friends at Upper Mesa Falls:
 

Also Barbara getting a good taste of the falls:

 The Stegelmeiers took us by where Loren was raised as a child and then on east to Cave Falls on the Falls River.  This river flows out of the southwestern corner of Yellowstone Park about 65 miles until it joins with the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River.  At Cave Falls there is a beautiful falls and at the base of the falls a large cave – hence the name Cave Falls. 
 

 We next went to an undisclosed site to watch an alternative July 24th Pioneer Celebration.  We will leave it to you to figure out.

One of the things that was really interesting was to see all the potato vines in bloom.  Potatoes are a low dark green bush.  The potatoes are tubers that grow on the roots of the plant.  After they are harvested they are stored in large Potato Pits that are large rooms built partly below ground.  Many are air conditioned and heated to keep the potatoes at about 45 degrees until they are sold.  We saw every style of potato pit you could imagine on this drive.  The other main crops were wheat, barley, canola (for the oil) and alfalfa.  There is much more agriculture here that I would have expected.  It was a wonderful and enjoyable day especially since we had great friends to be with and I didn’t have to do all the driving!