Saturday 5/30/98
Day 3: Salmon, Rexburg & Jackson City
I set the alarm for 3:30 so I could get an early start to Yellowstone. I left the hotel at 4:00 and would drive south on 93. It was overcast today and looked like more rain. I would drive along Flathead Lake right out of Kalispell and would take two hours to get toMissoula. It was still early in the morning as I stopped at McDonalds for breakfast and continued. Kalispell is a college town which was clean and a good place to probably stay overnight if traveling. It is also right off of I-90 that goes to Seattle and Chicago. I drove for another hour thru flat land and there were many small businesses that wer building log cabins along the side of the road. This looks like the new trend in Montana as you see many new cabins being built on farm land wherer there are no trees. It does look nice though and gives an 'old west' scenary to the area. I was getting very tired and decided to pull into the next park and take a nap as it was 6:00 in the morning. I stopped at Charlies Waters Park and slept until 9:00 when somebody left something on my window. It was a warning from the parks forestry service about not sleeping overnight in designated area with no camping. I forgot that most people don't get up at 3:00 am and that it may looked like I had stayed the whole night. Oh well, he was nice enough not to wake me up or give me a fine so I can't complain. I continued south and woud drive thru Hamilton and eventually came to the border where I had to go over Lost Trails Pass at 7000 ft elevation. It was raining when I went over the pass but stopped one I was on the other side of the mountains and into Idaho. The scenary was nice with mountain ranges on both sides of this flat land area taht was used for farming. There wer very few houses but many large ranches with cattle.
This area also has alot of history in this part of Idaho as this is where the Nez Pierce Indians had once lived, Lewis & Clark came thru here in1805 and there are many ghost town from the late 1800's when mining industry was very popular in the area. 
I drove for about an hour until I reached the town of Salmon with a population of 3000. The Salmon River runs along here and eventually runs into the Columbia River. Sacajawea, the female Indian scout who helped Lewis & Clark was also born in Salmon. The Bitteroot Forest and River of No Return Wilderness surround this valley which has great scenary of mountains.
At Salmon I would go southeast on highway 28 and now follow the Lehmi River. I would pass thru Baker and Tendoy. At Tendoy you can take a Lewis & Clark scenic backway drive that will take you to Lehmiu Pass and also to the Sacajawea Monument o the continental divide. The Indian tribes would also use this trail in the fall in the 1800's to hunt buffalo in Montana. Many indian tribes that used this area included the Nez Perce, Blackfoot, Shoshone and Bannock tribes. I did not take this route but will next time as there is suppose to be a great view overlooking the valley. I continued past Tendoy and would drive past Lehmi. There are the remains of an old Fort Lihmi here that was built by the Mormons in 1855. Brigham Young had planned on settling some of his peolpe here until there was a batlle with the Shoshone and Bannock tribes in 1858. The fort was abandoned at this point with the mormons leaving to go back home to Utah .
The next place I would stop would be at the Nicholia Charcoal Kilns that were built in 1883. 
Originally there were 16 kilns that wer producing charcoal and then having it sent across the vallley to the Viola Mining and Smeltering Co. These kilnswere only used for six years as a small commnity of people live here. It was interesting to see that these had not been used in over 100 years but yet to imagine that there were 16 of these going all the time for a mining project on the montains across the valley. You could imagine the horses, indians and mining and see that this area was very busy with everybody trying to make it rich here by mining. I drove about ten miles further and I would first stop at a little ghost town called Gillmore which was up on the hill overlooking the highway and mountains. 
This town was organized in the late 1800's and they were mining local hills for ore, lead and silver in the early 1900's. 
The town grew to 500 people after the railroad was built in 1910 and the mines were operated until 1929. At this sight I found about 20 shacks that wer still astanding with also an old car and many old rusty cans. You could walk into the houses and see how small the room were compared to today life styles. There was also a store still standing that you could walk into, it was very quiet and peaceful. I drove back to another grave road leading up one of the hillls where you could see that one of the mine shafts along the side of a hill . There was a big hole in the midd ogf the hill and had also been gated up and on privat property. On the other side of the valley there is a road that leads up to the ghost town of Nicholia by the Viola mine but I did not take the time to go there. A couple mise further south there have also been archaeological finding in this area that date back more the 8000 years in the Birch Creek Valley.
As I continue southeast the land starts to become more flat and farming area. Little communitites start to spring up as I turn east on highway 33 The weather has become much nice throught out theday as I get farther away frm the mountain range. 
As I drive east I go past the Menan Buttes which are three large hills that have craters. they are part of the volcanic eruptions that occured thousdands of years ago. I finally stop for dinner around 5:00 at in the town of Rexburg at KFC. Rexburg has a population of 12,000 and is nest to I-20. It would also bea good place to stay if going into yellowstone and not wanting to pay the highrer prices in Jackson City. I conitnue east thru farm land and take a side road to see the collapsed Teton Dam. This dam collapsed on June 5th, 1976 which killed 14 people. This had just been built and flooding thousands of acres as far as Idaho City. They never did try to rebuild it and at the sight it is very quite with nothing but a paved parkng lot to be able to look a a dirt pyramid as the remains of the dam. I finally reached Jackson City around 7:00 and it was busy with college students and retired poeple as it still was not summer tourist season yet. jackson City is a great place to visit as it is a mix of Ski and Cowboy town. It'sa little like Banff withthenight life but more of a country western atmosphere. Ther is a little bit for everybody to do here as you have shopping, music, drinking, skiing, photograpgy, nature, hiking and many more options available. I walked around town for a couple hours just window shopping and stopping in at the book store. 
The last time I was here was in 89 and it doesn't seemed to have changed much since then. I went inot the Silver Dollar Bar around 10:00 to have a beer and listen to some live music. The place was packed and I decided to order more food as I had the best french fries and pastrami sandwich here. I was convinced that I would eat here tomorrow for lunch. I stayed here until about 11:00 and then went and parked out by th efish hatchery on a side raod and slept in the truck tonight. I wanted to get up early and drive into Yellowstone. I drove 650 miles today and 1700 total in three days.