Cavemen, Not Shoshone

After taping the first base jump of the day, Nancy and I went off to see some Idaho sites. First on our list were the Shoshone Indian Ice Caves. Roadside America's website describes the setting better than we ever could. Learn about the Shoshone Indian Ice Caves.

The best part about our tour of the ice caves, we thought, was our tour guide, who guided us through the ice caves saying very little, told us that the statues of cavemen were built to scale and that the Ice Cavemen lived only 18-20 years because they did not have medicine and education like we do. That was the full explanation. Nothing more. Before going into the caves, he told us, in his mumbling voice and talking away from the crowd of 10, that the volcanoes in this area were not like other volcanoes, as they were formed by the a rift. That's it. Nothing more. No explanation, no description of how they were different from other volcanoes, no nothing. In the caves, he pointed out that there was ice on the walkway and to watch our step; he also pointed out two stalagmites and told us the difference between stalagmites and stalagtites is that "stalagmites might grow to the ceiling; stalagtites hold on tight." Oddly enough, I'll probably never forget th difference between the two again!

There were two other oddities at the caves. The first were the huge statues outside of the cave in front of the so-called gift shop. Among these were one huge Native American, one HUGE dinosaur with a Native American riding it (??), and a third was an elephant (very small in comparison - and there was no rhyme or reason why most of these things were there). The final oddity was the gift shop, which had been described as the "largest gift shop in Idaho." While this might be true, the "antiques" (otherwise often known as "white elephants" (hey, maybe that is why the elephant was there) and many many rocks sold at the gift shop seemed to be taking up space for the sole purpose of ensuring that the gift shop remains the "largest" in Idaho (or, at least the largest of its kind, because I'm not sure there are many others like it).

I've been playing around with new webtools, so check out my Mixbook (scrapbook?) of the Shoshone Indian Ice Caves.

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