Mesa Falls Scenic Byway, Part 2

Continuing our adventure along the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway that began with this blog entry, after we viewed Upper Mesa Falls we toured the Big Falls Inn originally built as an office and residence for workers by the Snake River Power and Light Company it evolved into a well known waystation along the Yellowstone Highway.

Inside the Inn there were mounted heads of moose, deer, pronghorn. The highlight though was the back room with its display cases. Here is one showing various sized claws, the size of the grizzly claw is frightening.

Here is one showing various sized talons, the size of the golden eagle talon compared to the bald eagle is amazing.

After we left the Upper Mesa Falls area we saw more great snow capped mountains in the distance on our way to Harriman State Park.

Harriman State Park is the site of the Harriman Ranch, the Harrimans of Union Pacific fame. This ranch was their retreat and the State Park has restored and maintained some of the old buildings to the point that you can rent the cabins. The gal in the park headquarters lived in one of the houses as did the gal at the desk in the Big Falls Inn along with the park manager. You can also rent horses  and enjoy the park on horseback. Here are a couple views of the buildings.

Being so remote and with so much water nearby with Silver Lake and Henry's Fork River the place is a bird watchers paradise. Although for us it was more a bird listeners paradise as we heard countless different chirpings but only saw fleeting images of birds as they flew by or jumped from tree limb to tree limb. We did hear a trumpeter swan and an eagle but was unable to get any good pictures. We were able to walk along a trail along Silver Lake.

After all this sightseeing we were getting hungry so we stopped at Big Jud's Country Diner in Ashton for lupper. What is lupper you ask? If brunch is the combo of breakfast and lunch we have started calling lupper the combo of lunch and supper. A lot of times we have two meal days where our breakfast is late enough to be called brunch and our lunch is late enough to be called lupper.


But enough about that, Big Jud's serves up an amazing hamburger. It was featured on Man versus Food on the Travel Channel and you can get a 1 lb burger or the even larger Man vs Food special and if you finish them you can get your picture on the wall but don't mess with such nonsense. Bob got a double cheeseburger and Jo got a single mushroom swiss and they were both amazing and very filling. The fries are fresh cut from Idaho potatoes and they were terrific but only order a small order for two people as the portions are huge. We really like In-N-Out burgers as you know if you have been following our blog but we feel this was just as good or better than In-N-Out. There is another location of Jud's closer to Idaho Falls and we plan to go there again before we continue our journey. The third location is in Boise. We still want to try Jim Dixon's favorite burger place, the Haunted Hamburger in Jerome AZ, which he says is also better than In-N-Out. 


It is tough to be full-timers that is for sure.


Photos from this adventure have been uploaded to Flickr.com in the Idaho Falls set.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo