A neighbor in camp suggests we take the scenic route up through Caribou National Forest to Soda Springs to check out their geyser.  The road is gravel and graded dirt but not bad and the route is through rolling meadows mixed with thick stands of pine. It is ranch country.  Cattle are the main “wildlife” but we do see a golden eagle, a bald eagle, and the most unusual for us, a badger.  I guess they are pretty common but it is a rare sighting for us.

We get into to town just in time to see the geyser.  It erupts on the hour every hour for six minutes.  How can they be so precise?  It is actually an artesian spring that they have capped and put a solenoid valve on….tada, very predictable.  It has been a tourist attraction since in 1937 a couple of fellows looking to tap a spring for a swimming pool hit a gas pocket and blew out the spring.  It flooded the town a couple days then all agreed it had to be plugged.  Not long after, the “captive” geyser attraction was born.  It is cool.

There is another spring in town, Hooper Spring. It is naturally flowing mineral water that emerges into a protective stone spring house providing all who wish the opportunity to sample its healing waters.  We do.  It tastes salty but not bad.  The local thing seems to be to bring a water bottle and powdered flavoring and make your own soda.   Must be ok, lots of kids are sipping it.

Soda Springs was also a site for the Ground Observer Corp in the 1950s.  We checked out a reproduction of the little kiosk volunteers manned to watch the skies to alert of any foreign incursion into US airspace.  There is report of one false alarm that got a domestic flight grounded but no evidence of any actual threat to national security.  Still, it is an obviously proud civic memory.

Lunch at A&W then we take the shorter, highway route back home.

Darn, another equipment problem.  We are maybe two miles from camp and the low-pressure indicator comes on.  Just annoying at first but we watch the pressure drop like a rock.  Within a couple minutes it reads 0.  Gotta stop, right here along the gravel road.  We have to get the user’s manual out to figure out the jack and the spare tire hanger but all is done in 10 minutes and we are safely home.  There is a big jagged hole right in the middle of the tread.  Looks like a new tire in our near future.