and now I'm in Idaho

I'm trying to visit all the National Parks I can as I head north, hence the round-about route.

The Perrine Bridge over the Snake River

Shoshone Falls - cascading 212 feet from the rim of the canyon; the falls are actually taller than Niagara Falls

 The Stricker Rock Creek Station was "the first trading post on the Oregon Trail, west of Fort Hall". The station served many purposes for settlers traveling west, such as trading post, dance hall, post office, and a meeting place.

 After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ushered the United States into World War II, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were forcibly relocated to isolated internment camps like Minidoka in the hinterlands of the western states. Internees from Alaska, Oregon, and Washington approximately 13,000 of them - were assigned to the Minidoka camp in southern Idaho. Although little remains of the camp today, save for the ruins of the entry guard station and waiting room and the remains of a rock garden once tended by residents, the site stands as a monument to the sacrifices and spirit of the Japanese Americans who were held there for the duration of the war

 The largest concentration of Hagerman Horse (Equus simplicidens) fossils in North America - 30 complete horse fossils and portions of 200 individual horses. Internationally significant Monument protects the world's richest late Pliocene epoch (3 - 4 mya) fossil deposits: over 220 species of plants and animals!

I always get a little excited when I'm on the actual Oregon and California Trails.  History isn't usually "my thing," but what fascinates me about this history is the people and their stories and the work it took to make this six-month journey; the stamina and determination.  I drive the trail in my covered wagon with my diesel engine and I can't imagine walking or driving oxen pulling a wagon over some of the terrains I cover with minimum effort.  They actually had to pull the wagons up a mountain by a rope by hand or put logs or chains in the wheels to slow them down on the decline, not to even touch upon the hardships they suffered.

Another thing that hits home while I explore these monuments .... today society is appalled with any "hard work" as being inhumane ... but the work by the Irish and Chinese to build that railroad, or the immigrants heading West, or even the slaves of the South ... begs the question of how any human could endure such physical labor.  It is just unimaginable.