Friday, September 13, 2002
400-plus miles left between us and the airport. That's what
we get for spending an extra day at Glacier, but it was worth it.
It's a shame we didn't have time to visit Craters of the Moon
National Monument, a half-million acres of lava fields a short
distance to the east, but at least we had a chance to stop on the
side of the highway north of Shoshone and examine some weird lava
there.
Tom explores a lava field
At 1,500 feet in length, the Perrine Memorial Bridge spans
the Snake River Canyon 486 feet above the Snake River. This bridge
on the outskirts of Twin Falls, Idaho, is one of the few places in
the world where BASE jumping is legal every day of the year.
Jumpers come from around the globe to hurl themselves off the
bridge at 70 miles per hour and release their parachutes seconds
before certain death. Do their mothers know that they're doing
this?
Perrine Memorial Bridge - Notice the BASE jumper
Landing in the Snake River
The waterfalls of Twin Falls used to consist of a pair of
waterfalls, which is how the city got its name, but the second of
the pair has permanently stopped flowing because of a dam. Maybe
they should change the name of the city to Dam Falls. The remaining
waterfall was just a 125-foot trickle when we visited.
Twin Falls? Hardly.
Shoshone Falls, "The Niagra of the West," is four miles east
of the City of Twin Falls. At 220 feet in height, it is 50 feet
taller than Niagra Falls. In non-drought times the trickle of water
in the photo below spans the entire expanse of rock shown and has a
greater volume than Niagra. Most of the Snake River is dammed and
diverted here for agricultural use, and only in a heavy rain and
snow year will there be enough water to allow Shoshone Falls to
flow in all its glory. We'll have to come back sometime in a wet
year!
Shoshone Falls
We crossed the northeast corner of Nevada and entered Utah at
Wendover, where land speed records are regularly challenged on the
Bonneville Salt Flats a/k/a the Bonneville Raceway. Each winter a
shallow pool of water floods the salt flats. Then in the spring,
the water slowly evaporates, while wind smoothes the surface into
an almost perfectly flat plain. People have been racing here since
1914.
Bonneville Salt Flats
Our trip ends with a 419-mile day, Subway sandwiches, and a
room at a Motel 6 five miles from the Salt Lake City Airport. We'll
be back in Knoxville by 2:00 p.m. tomorrow.
The sun sets over Salt Lake
2,748 total driving miles for this trip - The West is
big!
THE END.
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