Boise to Stanley

 Camped at Kirkham Hot Springs
 Pioneer Cemetery

 Stanleys fences
 Yankee Fork Dredge






 On Fourth of July Road we saw our best Fall Color.
The road is called Fourth of July because it often can't be opened until then.


 

 

 

We left Boise for the mountains again and another scenic highway, we only drove 70 miles to Mountain View NFCG.  After we parked we went 4 miles up the road and found Kirkham NFCG campground with a beautiful hot springs that even I could get to. It had paved sites and if we ever get here again it will be a destination! From this location we found 4 more hot springs and Norm tried them all. Sunday the 30^th of Sept already, We traveled south on Rt 21 to Idaho City, a cute little mining town from the 1800s. At its heyday it was the largest city in Idaho with over 6000 inhabitants. It is still set up as if it were in the 1800s with saloons, ice cream parlors, museums, and a pioneer cemetery.  We decided to move to Kirkham Campground for 1 night, It is a lot busier than Mountain View with people coming to use the Hot Springs. We decided we liked the CG a few miles away from all the action!

Oct 1

Stanley ID was our next stop. It is a beautiful  little town in the Sawtooth Mountains that is a buzz in the summer but fairly sleepy this time of year. People come here for rafting trips, hiking, and camping. It has miles and miles of wooden zigzag fences I’ll try to include a picture of them. We drove to a gold ghost town that still had an abandoned  gold dredge sitting in the creek just where it was left 80 years ago. There were also two hot springs in the Salmon River, one being built by the CCC Corps, Sunbeam Hot Springs.

  Norm got a new Aussie hat in Stanley.

“Wearing Many Hats”    This is a well- known metaphor for having many duties or jobs. Historically headwear was an important element of working apparel.

Keeping something under your hat means keeping a secret.   Back in the day, people kept important papers and other valuables  there for safe keeping. It’s said that Abraham Lincoln  found this practice useful.

A 10 gallon hat does not hold 10 gallons of anything. The word “galon” in Spanish refers to a band on a hat. In yesteryear, the more galons on a hat, the more expensive it was, and a hat with 10 galons was impressive. Cowboys took the phrase Ten-Gallon to describe a hat that was large and expensive.