Shoshone Falls and the City of Rocks

We started the day by visiting Shoshone Falls Park. When we first got to the park, I commented to the guy in the ticket booth on the sign that said the water level is "Dry". I asked, does that mean there wont' be any falls to see today?  No, he insisted, there are falls, but just no water. The falls, he said, were why people come back here. Without the falls, we'd just have a river. But I wanted to be clear because the logic was new to me. There is no waterfall, right?  It's dry.  He said.  There's two parts to a waterfall; the water and the falls. There are falls, but no water. 

To me, the water is the waterfall. Otherwise, we're just paying to look at a rock cliff.  But I went in anyway. It was only $3.

It wasn't too disappointing. There was actually several waterfalls running.  But the big one, obviously, wasn't.

 This is the Snake River gorge made famous by Evel Knievel when he jumped over it on his motorcycle in 1974.  Or I should say ATTEMPTED to jump over it, and failed. Poor guy.

And of course we couldn't leave without getting our feet wet in Snake River.

So, satisfied regarding Twin Falls, we took off for the south, headed for Nephi, UT on Interstate 84 again. But on the way, I saw a brown sign. And you know I love those brown highway signs, because they mean recreation. Usually parks. This one was saying 'this way to "Castle Rock" and "City of Rocks"'.  I stopped at a gas station and filled up my tank with Sinclair with Dino-care.

And I checked in with Siri regarding the two places I had seen mentioned on the brown sign. Castle Rock is a state park, so I passed on that. But City of Rocks is a National Reserve, so I decided to take the detour.
I thought it would be wise to eat something before heading off the main highway into a park.  So I pulled around the the glamorous "Pit Stop" drive through to order a burger at the Sinclair gas station.

When I pulled up to the drive-thru window, the woman told me she'd be right with me. I said OK, and waited. And waited....and waited... and finally, I had second thoughts about my decision to order a gas station burger.  Who have I become?! I am badly in need of some reparations when I get home from this trip.
So, with an empty belly, I took off for the City of Rocks

I took the Back Country Byway of the same name.  Based on my recent experiences with back country byways, I was prepared for a much worse ride.  But this was paved almost all the way.

I hit a little bit of traffic going through Salt Lake City. And I noticed that the mountains in the distance had some fresh snow on the tops. I rolled into Nephi around 7:30.  I picked up a burger at the local restaurant but it was gross.