You may remember from last time, that I was staying in Wendell (even though I mis-titled the article – since fixed) and visited Shoshone Falls on July 4th. After that visit, I was pretty enthused about staying in the area for a while. It wasn’t as hot as I’d expected for this dry desert like area and the weather was really nice for something else I wanted to attempt. And that was a raft trip down the Snake. I’d seen brochures about it my entire life and here I was near to a rafting company. I’d seen their flyers around town so figured I’d try to take one of their several trips on the Snake.
I’d decided that I wanted to move because the Intermountain RV park didn’t have a month-to-month rate in July and was asking too much for a weeks stay ($180), and I’d found that RV park in Hagerman so emailed them and they had an opening. Plus I’d gotten the deliveries and repairs I wanted done there in Wendell so no reason to hang around. I reservered 3 nights at the Hagerman RV Park even though I was thinking about staying at least a week, maybe a month, because I wanted to first be sure it was a nice place with half way decent Wifi. Hagerman RV park isn’t the only park in these parts but it looked like the one with the best shade for the July and August weather so it was my first choice.
So, I moved:
It only took an hour to decide I wanted to stay a month, Wifi is very fast, so went back to the office and exchanged checks, this time paying for a month. They ask for $325/mo. plus a $75 deposit on electric. Lots of shade here, a scarce item at the other RV parks I’d looked at on the internet. 
The office building with restrooms, laundry, lounge, etc. 
In the back of the park they have these rental cabins so if you invite guests to visit they have a place to stay. 
Nice big shade trees all over the property…which I believe has been here as a RV park since the early ’60’s. You can see my Winnebago is just about fully shaded. 
Later that day, took a car tour around the area trying to get closer to the river. Ran into this pioneer cemetry. But it was closed up. Maybe it’s a private one? Just family and friends of nearby property owners? Curious because I don’t often see cemetaries with closed and locked gates. 
Noticed a sign that pointed to a dam which would obviously be on the river so went to check it out. This dam looks pretty old. Not very big either. Found out later that the Snake has many smaller dams on it. 
There were a couple people fishing right here when I visited. The slack and shaded water here should attract fish for sure. 
One of the retired turbines. 
Up the road a piece is another river access road and boat lauch. This is the reservoir behind the dam. Not a really big one as the lands for farming are so valuable down here in the gorge that the dams and reservoirs are smaller than they’d be on the Columbia or other rivers. Or it was just a matter of luck that the government didn’t flood this entire gorge all the way back to Twin Falls back in the ’30’s.
Saw a wild animal on the other side of the gorge and tried to get my camera on it quickly, but couldn’t find it when the camera was ready.
And back home at the RV park.
A couple days later had to move from my temporary RV parking spot to a more permanent spot. This one doesn’t have as much shade, but it stayed pretty comfortable. Later in the afternoon, my RV is pretty much covered by shade from the trees, but my poor car was baking. 
Straight shot out to the main road for bike riding if I wanted. 
Had my own picnic table that I sat at many times but boy did it get hot, even with the shade. So mostly stayed inside except in the mornings and evenings. 
And then I noticed that the area with the most shade and where I’d parked the first two days was virtually empty the morning after I had had to move to a less shady spot. Doh! I was told I couldn’t stay in that first spot as it is a ‘temp’ space for overnighters. That’s kind of typical for many RV parks…they have some nice spots reserved for travelers only wanting to stay a night or a few days. And sometimes those spots are nicer than the ‘permanant’ month-to-month spots. But I didn’t expect it to be nearly empty and stay that way for several days like it did. 
Time for a visit to downtown Hagerman. 
Here’s the city park. They have a flea market here every weekend. While browsing the flea market, I found a nice Compaq computer case for $1! In excellent condition, and very clean inside like it had rarely been used. It has a PSU, mobo (motherboard) with all the standard goodies, and still has it’s original Dual CPU. Only missing a harddrive. Brought it home and soon had another working mid-size case computer in my collection. After getting it all put together, discovered that the cover to access the mobo is on the opposite side of the case as expected. Dangit. I had visions of tossing my main office case which is banged up and using this one. But not going to do that when it’s main cover is on the wrong side. I added a HDD and then installed Ubuntu Mate as the OS just to try it out. It now is sitting over at my other computer station here in the RV and I play with it occasionally. But I’m getting ready to add it to the ‘free’ pile where I’m staying now. Maybe some other RV’er here can use a free working computer. 
You see that guy in the blue shirt crossing the street in the next picture? Just beyond him is a big rock dropped here by a massive flood or a large glacier which happens to reside on the High School front lawn. The school is of course, that big building behind the big rock.
I stopped to look at it one day while bike riding and you can see from the painted on signs where it’s been a bulletin board of sorts for the students through the years. Most of the front stuff was your typical high school kids stuff. But on the back side of the rock was all this painted on Trump BS, supporting him. All painted on there the previous year before or just after the election. Gah!
About a week later when I passed it again, some HS committee had decided he’s just too controversial or something and painted over it with some less political stuff. This was about the time when it was getting to be pretty much obvious just how unqualified for the presidency the guy really is.
Here’s the Hagerman downtown core. Not very busy most days. On the left is the ‘Bullets & Brews’ gun and coffe shop. Man and wife team, she has the coffee shop, on the other side is his gun stuff shop. On the right are the older structures many of which are empty. 
After being here in Hagerman for a week, I eventually found that I was only a mile or two from the rafting company, Idaho Guide Service. I was going to take the Hagerman Section raft trip so bought my tickets online and a couple days later, joined the rest of the boaters at the staging area just below the dam I’d visited a few days before.
Here the guide service arrives with the boats and begin staging them below the dam. 
There’s some locals already down on the river. It was around 72F air temp but I knew it would get up to 75-80F by the time the trip was over. The water was around 58F. 
And here goes the boat I eventually end up in. They had to slide it down a slide that’s used to pour fish into the river when they’re restocking. There’s a huge fish hatchery just a few miles upstream.
A few minutes later we’re all loaded aboard and off we go. I’d brought my Cannon camera along inside a plastic bag but I foolishly allowed the strap to hang out of the bag so it wasn’t completely sealed. Looped around my wrist for safety. But I was required to paddle during the boat trip so it was being bounced around. 
The rapids on this trip were only types II & III so even though they weren’t all that strenuous, I still got a work out paddling like mad when ordered by the captain. Then during slack water, I would get a few pictures as we drifted.
Here’s some rapids coming up, not very big, but still fun. You do get tossed around and splashed while you’re paddling like mad to stay pointed downstream. We’re all wearing life vests.
And another set of rapids coming up. The captain would always let us know how much and how strong to paddle before we got into them. 
And the next set of rapids. (BTW, the pictures of the rapids are always a bit early as I had to set aside the camera while preparing to paddle). 
And around this point in the trip, we went over some Class III rapids and a big wave slooshed over the gunwales and into the bag my camera was in. Enough water filled the bag that the camera was soaked. I quickly removed the battery and SD card and stowed them in my pockets but the damage would turn out to be fatal. Even drying in rice for 24 hours did no good. So I ended the trip down the Snake River without a camera. Around midpoint in the raft trip we stopped for a provided lunch. Very nice. Even had tables and table cloths. Sammiches, cheese, fruit, drinks. Nice.
And then the rest of the trip was pretty exciting as the rapids grew stronger, and while during slack water, our very knowledgable captain filled us in on the geology and history of this section of the Snake, along with pointing out the various birds and animals that hang around the area. At the end of the trip, they provide a shuttle bus to take us back to the parking lot. And I was tired after that 5 hours of floating the river.
So that’s all for today. Sorry my camera got ruined and I wasn’t able to get more pictures of this very interesting and fun raft trip. Maybe next time I’m there I’ll do it again.
Thanks for reading!