Three Island Crossing State Park in Glenns Ferry, Idaho June 8

We left The Hitching Post RV Park in Snowville, Utah on Saturday, June 8th and drove a little over 2 1/2 hours to Three Island Crossing State Park in Glenns Ferry, Idaho.

This state park sits on a portion of the Oregon Trail; specifically where the first white travelers from the Midwest crossed the Snake River to continue their journey to the western coast.

Our site was NOT level, but we were able to make it work using all of our level boards. We had water and electric hook-ups. The temperatures were in the 60’s at night and mid-90’s during the day.

Glenns Ferry Historical Museum

Sunday morning we visited the Glenns Ferry Historical Museum. The museum was divided into various rooms showing home life, school life, work life, transportation, etc. from the 1860’s to the 1970’s in Glenns Ferry. As you can see from some of the photos, this was not a nice, neat, properly displayed museum, but rather a cacophony of items displayed (piled up, sometimes) within a general category. Still, Cindy and I spent about an hour walking through and both being amazed at some things and reminiscing about others. We had a good time.

There was one grocery store in this small town and we needed to get some food, so we went there after the museum. The prices were 25 to 50 percent higher than “normal” but we were going to get a few things anyway rather than drive 25 miles to the nearest medium-sized town. However, when we discovered they did not carry the dog food that Bella loves, we put the few things we had back on the shelves and drove the 25 miles.

Yeah, we spoil our girl.

Oregon Trail Interpretive Center

Tuesday we hiked to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center inside the park and learned a lot about the migration to the West via the Oregon Trail.

For instance, The Conestoga wagons used in the East were far too large for the Oregon Trail, so travelers used smaller wagons called “prairie schooners.” Because, from a distance, their white covers looked like sails. There was no room to ride in the wagons, and the lack of springs made them extremely uncomfortable anyway. Most people walked the entire distance. Travelers arose at 4 am and men hitched the teams while the women cooked breakfast over a buffalo-chip fire. The wagons rolled out at 7 am. At midday, they made an hour’s “nooning” stop to rest livestock and eat a lunch of leftovers. At 5 pm, the wagons rolled into a circle-not for protection from Indians, but to form a corral for livestock. The men tended to the stock while the women cooked a supper of cornbread, beans, fried meat, gravy, and coffee.

Most wagons were pulled by oxen (neutered bulls). They cost less than mules (the second choice), hauled heavier loads, ate anything, and didn’t run away. They were, however, slow and plodding.

We also learned that, sadly, history repeated itself in the West as it had in the East. Settlers first disrupted then displaced Native Americans, even after the indigenous people provided assistance in crossing the Snake River at Three Island to white immigrants crossing through the land they were living on.

We even walked a bit on the Oregon Trail for a VERY small taste of the travelers’ experience. They were a hardy and courageous people, no doubt of that.

Snake River

Wednesday we hiked down to where the original Glenns Ferry used to cross the Snake River. One of the old ferry barges is still there, resting on the southwestern bank. And there are still iron stancions on each bank of the river that used to hold the ropes, then cables, that were employed to pull the ferry barge back and forth across the river.

Afterward we drove farther up the river toward the town of Glenns Ferry to see a bit more of the Oregon Trail and the location of the Roosevear Ferry which took the place of Glenns Ferry, even using one of the old barges of Glenns.

We enjoy visiting historical places like Glenns Ferry and learned a lot during our stay there. It’s another one of the benefits of traveling around this great country of ours.

We packed up Nomad and left Three Island Crossing State Park on Thursday, June 13th for our next stop.

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