A Diamond in the Rough

The whole way today I had my fingers crossed that tonight's destination would be OK for a two night stop.  Last night's KOA stop was typical KOA - sites close to each other, crowded, not necessarily well maintained (exception being that one at Deer Lodge), too much traffic noise and too light during the night.  So, what were we going to get tonight? Every night it's a crap shoot - you never know for sure what you will end up with.  We are staying at a city park in American Falls, ID.  It sits on the southern edge of the American Falls Reservoir on the Snake River.  It is wonderful!!!

 Willow Bay Rec Area is owned and maintained by the city of American Falls.  We have a huge, grassy, shaded site with a view of the reservoir.  There are very few folks here which makes it even better.  They are doing some repairs and upgrades on the sites in the row in front of us and the camp host told Roger that by next year the sites we are in will be paved and the utilities will be moved to allow easier hook up.  One area has already been upgraded and looks really great. Our site is prime as far as we are concerned.  It will be dark and quiet tonight - except maybe for the trains going by on the edge of the park behind us. Not too many RV parks without trains within hearing range.   We even have decent WIFI!  We will absolutely enjoy sitting here tomorrow!

We went into the little town of American Falls tonight (4,500 population) and found a Mexican restaurant where we got a great meal. 


From the campground we can see the smoke from a wild fire over the crest of some hills.  It's gotten pretty big since we noticed it right after we arrived.  We've watched the big planes dumping retardant (I assume) but the smoke cloud just keeps getting bigger  and bigger :-( 



Our trip today was longer than the last few travel days but it was all interstate driving for Roger - good because it was easy and there was no traffic - bad because it was pretty boring.  He listened to his Audible book most of the way.  Once we got out of the Montana mountains the terrain leveled off and we saw wheat fields, potato fields and sugar beet fields.  A few cattle ranches but also horses and sheep ranches.  We could see mountains way in the distance, but it was mostly ranch land. We did drive through the Fort Hall Indian Reservation (Bannock and Shoshone) and saw very little of anything  along the highway but these large ranches.  I saw a sign for a Potato Museum but really didn't have any inclination to stop :-)  (Not much can top the Corn Palace in South Dakota!)  We followed the Snake River today from Idaho Falls through Pocatello to this reservoir where we are tonight.  It's a beautiful river and surely supplies a lot of water to all those crops.  

The temps this morning were COLD.  When we got up at 7am it was 38 degrees!  We, fortunately, turned the furnace on before we went to bed in anticipation of a cool night.  Even when we stopped for lunch near the Montana/Idaho border, we sat in the sunshine with our sweatshirts on.  It's a bit warmer here - about 75 this afternoon and we expect about 80 tomorrow, so we should be very comfortable.