Advertisement
Published: July 12th 2010
Edit Blog Post
After all that riding and driving yesterday we both slept so good last night. We got up, got our showers and had McDonalds for breakfast before heading off for the Idaho border. But before we could go too far we had to stop and fill up Big Bertha's tank and clean the windshield. She was filthy !! Tim filled her up, cleaned her up and even made a new friend at the gas station and soon we were on our way. Our only stop today on our 8 hour drive would be between Ontairo, Oregon and Lewsiton, Idaho at the Old Idaho State Penitentiary in Boise, Idaho. Tim programmed Magellan and off we went straight for Boise. I had read online about how you could tour the old state penn and I knew how much Tim enjoyed Alcatraz so I thought he would really enjoy this too. We drove for a while and soon ended up at the entrance of the Old Idaho State Penitentiary where we bought our $5.00 tickets for the grand tour. It was a really interesting thing to see and very reasonably priced too. We were able to see the old and new cell houses where the
inmates lived while serving their time there. We walked through the rose garden where some of the executions took place and that was kind of creepy but educational. The dining hall was somewhat destroyed but we were able to see the remnants of it as well as the on-site hospital. Tim read all about prison tattoos and what they meant and how the prisioners gave them to each other while I quietly listened to his commentary. He just loves all this kind of stuff and I was so glad to see him enjoying himself. We finished off the tour by visiting the laundry house, showers, solitary confinement and of course death row. All in all it was very cool and I'm glad we stopped to check it out. On the way out we saw the warden's office as well as his house across the street. It's now county offices so you can't go inside, although Tim tried to, so we took a picture of the outside and then made our way back to the motorhome. Unfortunately we had another 6 hours to drive before we made it to the Hells Canyon State Park where we were camping for the night
so we had to hurry it up and get on down the road. On the drive up to Lewiston we did encouter some wildlife like mule deer, a fox, several chipmunks, and lots of horses and cows. Who knew there were so many dang cows in America !! There is one thing for sure I have learned traveling all across this beautiful country and that is that we will never ever run out of milk or beef. There are cows literally from one end of America to the other........I wonder if anyone knows how many there are for sure, i'll have to remember to look that up. As it was getting later in the day and we were getting closer to our destination in Lewiston we had a little scare. Tim was driving around 60 miles per hour, down a mountainous hill, and before we knew what was happening, a deer ran out in front of us. Tim locked the brakes down, the cooler came flying from the back, spilling ice and water all over everything including us, and just before we were to hit the deer it turned and ran the other way. It was very very scary and
we both were terrified. After breaking down earlier in the trip all we could think about was wrecking Bertha on this country mountain and being stuck again waiting for help for hours on end, not to mention we could have crashed into the side of the mountain. We gathered ourselves, cleaned up the mess and continued on for the next 54 miles until we finally made it to Hells Canyon State Park. We rode around and checked it out before finding our quaint little spot under a big oak tree. Unfortunately the big oak tree was blocking our signal so we couldn't watch any tv tonight so Tim grabbed his book, I grabbed my crosswords and we quietly relaxed in the living room until bedtime. We were parked right down by the Snake River so there was an awesome breeze coming through the windows and we decided to sleep with them open so we could hear the river flowing. What an enjoyable and peaceful way to fall asleep........ahhhhh.......I wish we could do that at home. Oh well, we will just enjoy it while we can. I'm so excited about our speed boat trip through Hells Canyon tomorrow, I hope I
can sleep tonight !!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.2s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 14; qc: 71; dbt: 0.1054s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb