Idaho

Winchester Lake

On leaving Eastern Washington we headed east  on highway 12 into Idaho, stopping in Lewiston for a couple hours to hang out in their library and give Madeline a chance to stretch her legs.  Our idea for travel was to drive during nap time, with Madeline still on a two nap a day schedule we figured we could go for a couple hours each nap and average about four hours of travel per day.  The afternoon hours could be spent at libraries or parks so we all have a chance to get out of the van.  So far the concept has worked out, although many days we don't quite get four hours of driving.  I really don't mind the short travel times but with ten thousand miles to go this is turning into a very long trip.

City of Rocks

From Lewiston we turned south on highway 95 and made a short hop down to Winchester Lake State Park for the night.  This turned out to be a very nice stop, but the overnight temps. dropped into the twenties so we are being reminded that winter is slowly sneaking up on us, especially in the mountains.  The next day we continued on highway 95 following the rivers south.  We stopped at a rest area for the night, then drove highway 95 again until we reached the interstate.

Kid Carrier Hiking

As long as we were not in a hurry, we continued to avoid the interstate and took highway 30 east, referred to in one of our travel books as the thousand springs scenic byway.  It was a good choice, the springs were interesting and there was a nice rest area for some exercise and bird watching.  We stopped at a local park in Twin Falls for lunch, then took off again in the afternoon, ending our day in Oakley, Idaho.  We thought we could get showers at the campground in town, but all the water had already been shut off for the winter so we just spent the night and left early the next day.

Mini Hippy Chick

From there we went up into City of Rocks, one of our favorite rock climbing areas, and camped there.  The little town of Almo on the other side of the park did have showers available, so we got that chore out of the way as well.  We didn't bring climbing gear with us on this trip, but we did have climbing shoes so we spent some time bouldering in the area, as well as trying out our new kid carrier with a bit of hiking in the beautiful surroundings.  We decided if we were going to initiate Madeline into the world of rock climbing we needed to have her look the part, so out came the bandanas for an authentic outfit.  From City of Rocks we took back roads out of the park but finally broke down and hit the interstate to get us into Utah and on to the next state in out list.