Day 51-May 10, 2018-Perrine Bridge, Shoshone Falls, Evil Knievel
72, sunny and beautiful
There’s a pine tree right above our RV and about 10 bird’s nests in it. We spent a greater part of the morning watching the birds reinforce the nests, bringing twigs, throwing out ones that didn’t meet their requirements, etc. A lot of flitting and twittering in this campground. Made some more reservations. I don’t think we’ve ever had reservations as far out as we do now, we’re set for the next 16 nights. Then we packed a lunch and set out for the visitor’s center. The GPS took us on a private road which just happened to have the original launch site of Evil Knievel’s “rocket” mound on it. Or what’s left of it. We had to turn around to get to the visitor’s center but it was worth the trip. The visitor center is right in the middle of the city on route 93, a busy city by the way, and also right under the Perrine Memorial Bridge over the Snake River with spectacular views of the canyon. The bridge is a four lane truss bridge, almost 1500’ long and 488’ over the river. It’s the eighth tallest bridge in the US and has a viewing platform and walkways. It is also one of the few bridges in the US where BASE jumpers can launch without a permit. BASE is an acronym for Building, Antenna, Span, Earth (cliff), and the jumpers use parachutes or wingsuits to glide to the canyon floor. We watched two people folding up their parachutes after they landed, and then watched them later in the afternoon glide down. There have been some fatalities and suicides on this bridge. We then drove about 3 miles to Shoshone Falls Park, a big, beautiful park with lots of open grassy areas, picnic tables, a concession stand in season and the gorgeous Shoshone Falls. These falls are called the “Niagara of the West” and at 212’ are higher by 45’ than Niagara Falls and 1000’ at the rim. They were originally twin falls but when they built the dam it altered the falls. A viewing platform lets you get up close and personal (and wet from the mist). We saw two beautiful rainbows, one of which looked like a rock face was blowing it out of its mouth when we looked at the pictures. We heard this is the best time of year to view the falls, during the summer they’re down to a trickle because they divert the water to irrigate farms. This area is part of the “1000 Waterfalls Scenic Byway” and there were a lot of waterfalls on the rocky, narrow road down to the falls. Back to the visitor’s center to find the monument that’s been erected for Evil Knievel’s 1974 attempt to cross the canyon in his “rocket”. He failed and only got a broken nose out of it. Just happened to catch the BASE jumpers out of the corner of my eye gliding into the canyon. Found a car wash to get all the dust, bird stuff, etc. off the truck, and a grocery store to stock up then back to the campground to watch and listen to the birds again. About 6PM a dust storm blew threw the campground and it got colder, supposed to be colder tomorrow. So much for the car wash. We’re off again tomorrow.