TRAVEL AWAITS: 8 Surprising Stops from Wyoming To Washington

    

                                The complete article was published in Travel Awaits

I wrote about ten scenic stops we enjoyed in Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado from my sister-in-law’s home to that of my husband’s daughter. Here, are eight other stops we found as we continued westward to his son's in Boise, Idaho, and my daughter's in Seattle.

1. Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming

This little-known national park may be the least visited—not even 20,000 annual visitors—located 15 miles west of Kemmerer, Wyoming. It's not generally known that it is actually the world’s best collection of fossils from the Eocene Epoch (56 to 34 million years ago), the warm period that produced the very first animals. The Visitor Center alone has over 80 samples, each one incredibly intact, not pieces that need to be assembled. "There are whole fish, crocodiles, turtles, palm fronds, and more from the epoch. In fact, there are trails that will lead you to fossils still intact on the ground, plus some that are still in the process of being excavated."

2. JCPenney Mother Store, Wyoming

On the way back to our campground. we chanced upon the JCPenney Mother Store and Museum. "On a corner of the main street of the small town of Kemmerer, Wyoming, which has a population of under 3,000, it was the first outlet of the department store giant — which today has about 600 stores in 49 states and Puerto Rico — built there in 1902." The tiny home of James Cash Penney, the founder, is just down the road.

3. Lava Hot Springs, Idaho

This is a small town only two hours from Kemmerer on I-30, population  less than 500. Because of its numerous hot springs that are quite good for bathing and the mildly turbulent river running through part of the town that is perfect for tubing, Lava Springs is a popular weekend resort in Idaho and Utah.

4. Boise, Idaho

It was only four hours from Lava Springs to Boise on I-86. It is the largest city and the capital of the state with a population of over 200,000. "My husband’s son is married to a member of Boise’s Basque community. Numbering about 15,000, it is the second-largest such community in the U.S. after Bakersfield, California. It is also the fifth-largest in the world behind Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and the original Basque Country in Spain and France. Downtown Boise features a vibrant section known as the Basque Block where we got the chance to stir the paella cooking in pans of four feet in diameter."

5. John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

We usually go through the Yakima Valley to get to Seattle from Boise. But during this trip, we continued west through Oregon to pass by a national monument we were curious to see. It took us four hours from Boise on I-26 to reach the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, composed of three geographically separate units:

At the Sheep Rock Unit is near the town of Kimberly, Oregon, and is composed of the James Cant Ranch Historic District, the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center, Cathedral Rock, and both the park headquarters and visitor center. "It is home to fossilized plants and mammals that lived there between the late Eocene, about 45 million years ago, and the late Miocene, about 5 million years ago, later than those found around Fossil Butte National Monument."

The Painted Hills Unit is halfway between the other two units, nine miles northwest of the town of Mitchell, Oregon. The hills are artworks of nature. They looked so fragile and I was afraid they might soon disappear. We enjoyed them so much because we could get up close to them. Besides, there was hardly a soul around. Wondering why this unit was not more famous. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to visit Clarno.

6. Bruce and Brandon Lee Gravesite, Washington

After a night in Mitchell, Oregon, we reached Seattle in another er six hours on I-90. But first, we visited Bruce Lee’s gravesite in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. After all, it has become a national and global pilgrimage site. Halfway up a hill in Lake View Cemetery,  his space is distinctly marked by evergreen shrubs, the final resting place of the legendary Chinese American martial artist and film star and his son, Brandon, lies.

7. The Gum Wall, Washington

From there, we went to Pike Place Market because right under it, in Post Alley, is the Gum Wall. It is "made of brick but is covered in, yes, used chewing gum. In fact, parts of the wall are covered several inches thick, 15 feet high, for about 50 feet. The tradition began around 1993 when patrons of the Market Theater Box Office nearby stuck gum to the wall. Theater workers diligently scraped the gum away twice but eventually gave up around 1999 when they kept coming back." 

8. The Fremont Troll

The last of our short visits was the colossal statue called the Fremont Troll. It can be found under the north end of the George Washington Memorial Bridge in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. "The troll is clutching an actual Volkswagen Beetle as if it has just swiped it from the roadway above...In fact, his right eye is a hubcap. Prior to the Troll, the area was becoming a dumping ground and a haven for drug dealers. In 1990, the Fremont Arts Council launched an art competition to rehabilitate it. Four local sculptors, who borrowed the idea from the Norwegian fairy tale Three Billy Goats Gruff, won!"

We continue to change our routes so we may discover more of these remarkable landmarks.

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