Beaver Dick, Noah's House & Nick Skywalker's ride

Well, yesterday we had ourselves a little mini-road trip all the way up to metropolitan Rexburg.  Part of the deal with selling the Sammi contingent on us delivering it to Rexburg.  No problem--we had to go to Rigby anyway and Rexburg is only another 12 miles farther north.  While we waited for the buyers to arrive from Jackson, we drove out to Beaver Dick Park.  This is a small riverside spot operated by Madison County.  Beaver Dick was a real person--actually a genuine legend in his own time.  Jenny Lake in the Grand Teton National Park is named for Beaver Dick's wife.  Beaver Dick's life was filled with extraordinary hardship and tragedy.  It wouldn't surprise me someday if Hollywood made a movie about Beaver Dick.  He was truly an amazing person.  Unfortunately, there aren't any readily available online biographies of Beaver Dick.  Author Cort Conley perhaps wrote the best available story about him but that's only available in print.  There are a few factual errors in this account by Ken Hughes but it is a good beginning.  Click here to read it.

After we took a lot of photos of the minor flooding of the Henry's Fork at Beaver Dick Park, we went to see the South Fork of the Teton River.  It's normally about 10 feet wide and yesterday is perhaps a quarter mile wide in places.  Way back in 2008 or 2009, I had one of my most memorable fun days at EICAP.  Sharon W. lived next to a used car dealer on the Westside.  The guy had a pink Cadillac on the lot.  Sharon conned him into letting her drive the Pink Caddy for a day.  She came to Houn' Dawg and me and excitedly proposed a road trip up to St. Anthony on US 20 and then back home via every little twisty, turny farm road we could find.  Sharon and I decided Houn Dawg should be the driver--he looked the part of a classic "Driving Miss Daisy" type of pink Caddy driver.  Oh, boy, as Hank would say, did we have fun "stylin' " in that ridiculous looking vehicle.  You should have seen the farmers in coveralls turning their heads to look at us and we cruised the countryside.  Naturally, we got lost.  Not totally lost because you're not really lost if you can still see the LDS Rexburg Temple on the horizon.  Anyway, they were both trying to find Noah's House.  Well, I was shocked to see this piece of homegrown splendor sitting in the Snake River Plain.  Yesterday, I told Susun we were going to find the Boat House.  She was like, "Huh?"  Luckily, we managed to find it without getting lost.  It sure brought back fond memories of that day in the pink Cadillac.  I wonder if the people who live inside that house sometimes dress up like Johnny Depp and play pirate games? "Ay, Matie, Pass the Jello and be quick about it or you'll walk the plank!"

While we were out driving around looking at high water and hoping to find Noah's House, we stumbled on Nick Skywalker's ride.  Here it sits in all its glory.  We took a LOT of photos of this creative contraption and will do a photo album of it here shortly after our upcoming morning HAM radio check-in.  Whenever we find stuff like this, it makes us wonder what the heck else is stashed around the hinterlands.  This is a classic piece of modern American folk art at its finest.  Many Cheers!  jp