#407 Castle Rocks State Park Alma Idaho

We were looking for our next stop and a state park popped up on Reserve America with a vacancy so we thought we'd go with that. It had electricity and the temperatures appeared that it was a little cooler there. We went up towards it and I just thought since it was a higher elevation it would be so comfy but it wasn't high enough to be much cooler as it was still in the 90s. That’s still better than the 100’s where we were.

The GPS was having some trouble and we went a good mile past it and we the highway we were on was turning into a dirt road so we pulled over and figured we would just ask somebody if they could help us. Some guys rode by and they were nice enough and they told us that we were kind of on the wrong road and we need to go back about 3 miles. This time we did see the sign and we turned in and sure enough, we began to realize we were back on track.

We had a reservation and found our site and leveled up and hooked up the water and electricity. I don't know exactly what made me take a second look but after careful inspection, I realized that I was at the site that was next to my reserved site which was somebody else's site. Looks like I’ll need to pack it all up, hook up again and move over one site which I did but I felt a little stupid. I felt good about catching it early before someone arrived.

We found the place to be pleasant enough with water and electricity which is a really important commodity when it's a hundred degrees regularly. The closest small town was a half an hour away. There was something like a restaurant and dude ranch about 15 minutes away but they appeared to be closed or perhaps died of covid. A place that we did find was open was kind of a pizza joint and you know you can't be but just so picky because you're lucky they are there. We had a nice meal and for our outing, we went to a museum that talked about the area. Way back when people were going west they would be on the trail and when they got to this significant rock formation called Castle rocks they used it as a landmark to know that they were in the right place at the right time. Castle Rock was a nice place to camp and have a bit of an oasis and just know that you're on the right trail. The rock formations were so significant I might put up a Wikipedia blip here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Rocks_National_Reserve

The museum was enough for one of our days.

The next day we went on a nice hike. It started at a place where people offloaded horses and it was considered more of a horse trail but we went in 1 mile and then headed back which was our typical two-mile hike. It was a nice hike and followed the creek which seemed non-existent some of the time but was pretty wet most of the way.

I saw the coolest rock that has some lichens on it and it looked like a Martian outpost.

I sent it to my family as a what do you see and had a little fun with that. I altered the picture to a high magnification and suggested it looked like a satellite view from space and could identify the planet? Later I was honest and showed them it was just a rock. Other than that we just kind of messed around a little bit and enjoyed the area and learned a little something and that was Castle Rocks.