Found Peace | vlog 2202-6 | ID Back to WY

Where we left you from our previous update, we were working on our Idaho property. We spent about 2 weeks on the Idaho property doing chores and working on home building & planning tasks. Since we did it all at our speed which is no longer lightening fast. What that really means, is we work in down time plus a movie date day..

From here we decide to find a new route that gets us heading towards Montana. This leg’s destination is an area east of Idaho Falls. It’s not far from Alpine, WY and is in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

Now that the plan is settled and the work wrapped up, we are ready to head out for less working and more exploring. Finally on this trip we finally are able to enjoy a simple adventure; no drama or catastophes. Being June, we did still have cold weather. It turned out to be a mixture of drenching rain, chilly sunshine, sporadic thunderstorms, and even snow flurries on our last morning at camp.

I-84 Travel into Idaho Falls

A simple route and an easy drive. We could’ve made the full drive all the way to camp, but it’s nice to plan an extra day in Idaho Falls to putz around, buy fuel and load up on groceries. That also meant no early morning departures for the non-morning person, aka, Steve.

Idaho Falls Overnight Stay

Being that the goal was to deal with errands and supplies, I found us a Harvest Host stay in town. Snow Creek Brewery and Grill hosted us for the night.

The parking situation wasn’t right at the restaurant but rather a vacant gravel lot about 1 block away that we assumed, the owner also owns. Directions from the owner were perfect and we located it just a mile away from where we got fuel.

We were both starving by the time we arrived and decided to visit our hosts’ restaurant for lunch instead of dinner. For Harvest Host stays, the agreement is that you provide business to your host and they provide you a free parking spot. We’ve never stayed at one we didn’t enjoy!

After lunch we ran errands until dinner time. After dinner, it was time to really stretch our legs. The location of our parking spot and the restaurant were footsteps from the River Walk park area. We viewed the falls and enjoyed a very long stroll after dinner that night.

Heading to USFS and Granite Creek Road

We were in no rush the next morning. We knew we’d most likely not have cell service once we left the pavement so we took our time getting our internet fix. This was just over 2 hours of driving which included the full 10 miles of the forest road. It was a beautiful drive.

I was most intrigued by the Palisades Reservoir along the Snake River. At the reservoir and along HWY 26, there are multiple USFS campgrounds. Something to remember for a future opportunity. During our drive, which was early June, there were only a few campers in the campgrounds and we saw 1 boat on the water. Most likely, the high season for this watery vacation town starts in July.

Not too much further away, we easily found the Granite Creek Road turn off and continued on to discover where we could camp the next few days.

Granite Creek Road Area

The area, our camp find, the hot springs and the USFS campground are all on my Granite Creek Road USFS Camping review post.

There’s security in knowing that there’s an established campground at the end of a 10 mile gravel road drive. Even if we found nothing suitable, I was confident we could make the campground work.

Fortunately, about 4 miles down and after 2-3 other turnoffs, we discover a nice site. This portion of the road was all above the Hoback river. The view was nice, the site was off the road and behind trees providing quiet, privacy, and most importantly no road dust.

All in all we enjoyed this trek. It was simple and our stay was peaceful. No problems to deal with, no delays, a short and easy drive, what isn’t to love about it. Well, the rain could’ve stayed away, but we enjoy just hanging out with each other too.

Video

For more of the story, watch the video. Hopefully, it isn’t so peaceful of a journey, it puts you to sleep. And until next time, we’ll be meandering around somewhere.