It was practically dark when we arrived in Twin Falls, Idaho the night before, but Beth was still able to see a little of the Snake River as we drove over the Perrine Bridge on the north end of the city. So our first destination the following day was back to the overlook to take some pictures. The one on the left, which was taken looking west from the bridge, shows several golf courses and Centennial Park along the banks of the Snake river. The other image is looking east from the bridge. A few miles farther east is the location of Evil Knievel's 1974 attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon in his rocket powered "motorcycle".

At Shoshone Falls, the Snake River plunges over 212 feet, filling the air with a cool mist. But since the sun was not shining, we were not treated to the rainbow that many other visitors get to see. Shoshone Falls plummets 52 feet further than Niagara Falls, causing it to be given the nickname "Niagara of the West". October through April is reported to be the best time to view the falls, because during the summer months, irrigation waters are retained upstream, and waterflow is minimal.

When we arrived at the Shoshone Falls / Dierkes Lake pay booth, we were a little concerned that their sign said the waterflow was moderately low that day. But Beth and I decided there was plenty of water flowing to make us happy we had come to visit. (The only thing Beth wasn't happy about in this picture was trying to keep her hair out of her face, as the wind was still blowing a minimum of 20 miles an hour). The falls are also the site of Idaho Power's 12.5-megawatt generating power plant, most of which cannot be seen in these pictures.

By following a small trail west from the main overlook area, we shot this natural rock span with the falls in the background. The picture on the right was taken of the shore, just across the Snake River from the falls, to show the beautiful fall colors of the bushes along the river. After leaving the falls, we also visited Dierkes Lake for a short hike to see if there were any fishermen at the lake. I tried to convince Beth to go for a dip in the swimming area, but she didn't seem very excited about the idea :-).

For lunch, we decided to visit downtown Twin Falls for their Oktoberfest celebration.Then we took a relaxing drive through some more of the Magic Valley, where we drove the scenic route through Filer, Buehl, Hagerman, and Bliss. This picture was taken between Buehl and Hagerman, and shows streams of water falling down the walls of the canyon, eventually flowing into the Snake River. We also toured the Hagerman National Fish Hatchery, where 1.6 million steelhead trout and 300,000 rainbow trout are raised annually.

Day 8 of the vacation ended with another night in Twin Falls. Our plans for the remainder of the vacation had changed when the storm front moved in a couple of days ago, so we decided to finish the vacation back in the Moab, Utah area visiting some of the attractions we had missed a week ago. So the next day would be spent driving.

We headed towards Salt Lake City (the Miata's top is still up), but road signs along the I-15 interstate indicated there was much construction on the freeway there, and suggested avoiding the drive through Salt Lake City if at all possible. So at Ogden, we turned east on I-84/I-80 towards Park City. There was snow in the mountains from a snowfall the night before, so we thought it would be a beautiful drive and an excellent way to avoid the construction. But we soon found out snow was still falling in the mountains, and it just kept getting worse the farther we went. Finally, the slushy roads, the semi-trucks still barreling along at 70 mph, and my lack of experience driving the Miata on anything that resembled a slick road, was causing Beth and I far too much stress to finish the chosen route. We turned around at Coalville and backtracked the entire 30+ minute drive back to I-15, and decided to tolerate the road construction in Salt Lake City (which really was not all that bad). What can I say? I am an Arizona driver, who hadn't seen any snow in Tucson (except in the neighboring Catalina Mountains) since we moved there. And I had no idea how the Miata would handle in such situations, so I decided to take the safest way out. At least I'm still alive to hear the laughter from other Miata owners who live in colder climates than we do :-).

The rest of the drive to Moab was very uneventful, and we knew the vacation was nearing an end. But the weather when we arrived in Moab gave us some hope that we could finish the trip with a top-down Miata! We would begin the last sightseeing day of the vacation visiting the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park.