Shoshone Falls, et al. (Part two of "Idaho: The Reckoning")

Well, I still haven't been able to collect all the pictures I want from family members; thus, my plan to present our Idaho trip photos in chronological order seems, presently, difficult. However, reality doesn't preclude my posting several additional nifty photos (and, right now, I'm having a hard time remembering what day we did this, so I guess the chronological thing is a moot point) (I'm pretty sure we did Shoshone Falls on Saturday, though).


So here is a picture of us at Shoshone Falls, billed as the "Niagara of the West" by the park's promoters. It was very nice, don't get me wrong--and this was on a day when the water level was deemed "low" by park officials. It's kinda hard to tell, but the falls wrap around a little on the cliffs, so the camera doesn't capture everything.



Melanie makes genealogical breakthroughs all the time, so I don't want to say that one breakthrough is any better than another--I mean, a breakthrough is a breakthough, and I recognize them as full-blown miracles, all of them. I'm very grateful. However, every once in a while, Melanie finds something that's just a little more interesting to me, and this was one of them--see, apparently my mother's side of the family DID have a member of the church in it back in the pioneer days. He would've been my, what, great-great-great-uncle? Turns out that James (I think that's his name) is buried in Filer, Idaho, just outside of Twin Falls, so we visited the cemetery, which was, for many years, operated by the International Order of the Odd Fellows.

On Sunday, we made it up to Sun Valley, the famous resort north of Twin Falls. (My dad used to go there quite a bit when he lived in Utah, so I've heard stories my whole life--I wanted to see it.) It was nifty (read: posh). The Petersens were very nice to accomodate my wish to visit Ernest Hemingway's grave, who is buried just outside of Sun Valley in Ketchum (well, it's really just a marker, since his ashes were scattered on the hillside behind the cemetery).

Now, bear in mind that I'm no Hemingway devotee; on the contrary, I really don't care for his writing all that much. I like even less what the man stood for, a philosophy that was largely anti-religious and anti-deistic, and which, I feel, ultimately did him in, along with his depression. There was, though, something noble in his quest for meaning in life; he had a determination--albeit misguided, from the Latter-day Saint viewpoint, but a strong determination, nonetheless--to find purpose in his mortal existence, a desire which I wish more people shared. Perhaps because of all this, I wanted to see his grave. Here it is, with Ryan in the foreground:

I've been told the coins are for wishes. There's also supposed to be a bottle of Jack Daniels on the grave (according to Erika's mom), but someone must have been thirsty.

Well, as always, more will follow.