Southeast Idaho - Pocatello & Lava Hot Springs

Wednesday, November 06, 2019
Pocatello, Idaho, United States
I decided to start my trip off making my way south at a leisurely pace with my first night in Pocatello, Idaho, about five hours south of Bozeman. It might take most people a little less, but I travel at a leisurely pace with numerous stops. With a beautiful morning and relatively warm weather I decided to explore the town a little, including a walk around the old downtown.  Despite being the location of Idaho State University, Pocatello seems like a mostly industrial and railroad town. In some ways it reminds me a little of Cheyenne, WY but probably less prosperous.  It’s situated between two low mountain ranges that are mostly brown and grass covered and strikes me as especially dry and dusty, a real Great Basin town that’s less prosperous or growing than the other cities in the state I visited in September.  Nevertheless, I like to check out western towns in my travels.  Since they’re rather few and far apart, each one seems to have a unique character, more so than towns in the eastern part of the country which are less often as distinctive.
My next stop was Lava Hot Springs, a small town about 10 miles off I-15 south of Pocatello located just below a low mountain pass.  As it’s name suggests, the highlight of the town is a system of hot springs and a few resorts built up around them. There’s a fairly large resort with numerous pools that I probably should have picked.  Instead, though, I went to the first one I saw which was the private pools at the Lava Hot Springs Inn, a small hotel. It wasn’t a bad thing, though, since I truly had the place to myself for a soak on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon.
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Comments

Deb
2019-12-02

There are some real nice stone buildings in Pocatello !

2025-02-09

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