Thunder Mountain Line

After "exercising" with the firewood on Saturday, we took off for Horseshoe Bend, Idaho, about an hour south of us, to catch the Thunder Mountain Line.  This was for an early celebration of Steve's birthday (Oct 20).
The Thunder Mountain Line is a tourist train that uses the old Boise-Cascade Lumber Mill tracks between Horseshoe Bend and Banks.  Banks is about halfway between Cascade and Boise.  The train used to go all the way to Cascade (and may again), but there is a problem with the tracks north of Banks at the moment.  The Thunder Mountain Line also runs east and west between Horseshoe Bend and Montour.

It was a beautiful fall day, below freezing in the morning but near 60 degrees in the afternoon.  We joined 100+ other people (mostly from nearby Boise area), boarding the train at 5:30 for the 3.5 hour ride up and back.

 

The tracks run along the South Fork Payette River canyon.  The tracks are on one side and Hwy 55 is on the other.

 

I never get tired of this drive between Cascade and Boise, but it was fun to see it from the other side.

 

This ride featured a Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre.  For dinner, we enjoyed salad with huckleberry vinaigrette, bread with spinach dip, pork tenderloin with apple chutney, garlic fingerling potatoes, green beans and cheesecake with huckleberry sauce.

The setting for the "who-dunnit" was a circus company enjoying an employee-of-the-month benefit meal at the close of a military base tour, when the head clown is found dead in the "cat" car (lions & tigers, oh my).  I was dubbed the Snake Handler and Steve was the Snake-Skin-Picker-Upper.  There were 5 suspects and we had the opportunity to hear from and interview them, keeping notes on our "Amateur Sleuth" scorecard.  We are seated above with the culprit, Pandora Pushup, the lead showgirl and singer in the circus. 

 

At Banks, we deboarded the train for about 30 minutes.  They have set up a little pioneer village by the old Banks station house.  On some of the tours, they feed guests a meal here.  We were treated to some acrobatics entertainment and a free pumpkin each to take home.  They do "Pumpkin Line" tours for kids and families in the fall.

On the way back, we sat in the open car with blankets and enjoyed the light of an almost full moon shining on the river.  It was a fun birthday outing.  Thanks, Josiah, for mentioning it.  You Idahoans should check it out ! http://www.thundermountainline.com/