Jackson Lake Lodge, WY - Mountain Home, ID: 349 miles, 9 hrs 45
min drive time
There are four things I've observed about drivers in Idaho:
- Something like three-quarters of them drive some form of truck.
- They detest people who go below the 65MPH speed limit, or go at the speed limit when posted below 65MPH.
- They like to pass two cars at once, sometimes creating very dangerous situations for oncoming traffic without seeming to care.
- Two lane highways make numbers 3 and 4 about 50 times more likely than it would be otherwise.
I had no fewer than five people pass me and the car behind me at the same time today, twice putting oncoming traffic in enough danger that the oncoming driver felt the need to swerve off the road (and it was not the same person passing both times). I will never understand why drivers decide that their time is worth so much more than others that they deserve to go much faster than everyone else, even at the expense of all modicum of safety.
 Find the moose, I dare you. He is in this image. |
We left Jackson Lake Lodge early this morning and stopped by Oxbow Bend in the hopes of seeing a moose once again before we left. Lo and behold, in almost the same location we spotted one the other day, another moose was lounging in the sun. A great way to exit Grand Teton National Park, for sure.
Our travel took us south, then west over Teton Pass. This is one of the only passes I've ever seen with a 10% grade - even my Prius had problems getting up the hill after the battery fully discharged down to one bar (which I've also never seen happen). Obviously, we made it over the pass, just very slowly - thankfully, we weren't the only ones having that much trouble!
We stopped to pick up some Coca-Cola and a Mocha Frappucino once we reached the first available gas station in Idaho, then continued on our trip. Joining US-20 at Idaho Falls headed west, I was passed by no fewer than a dozen motorcyclists - apparently, this is a popular highway for that kind of thing! As we neared Arco, we also passed over the grounds of the Idaho National Laboratory and passed by the world's first nuclear reactor, EBR-1, which powered nearby Arco with atomic energy on July 17, 1955.
Pickle's Place, home of the "Atomic Burger", was our selection for lunch. I didn't feel like "goin' atomic", so I had their Ski Bum burger instead - basically two patties with bacon. Their raspberry lemonade was quite good, and the place is apparently popular with the locals, who all appear to be on the extremely elderly side. The one interesting point here is that Pickle's is apparently the retailer of something called John's Steak and Seasoning Spice. The label on the side of the bottle reads:
Now, I don't know about you, but I've never, ever even heard of the possibility that steak and seasoning spice would taste good with beer. Nevertheless, this actually isn't bad for seasoning.
We refueled and headed south to Craters of the Moon National Monument, but not before suffering through a rather ridiculous gravel road due to road construction in the area - whoever set the speed limit to 45mph through that stretch and expected people to follow it without being half-scared out of their wits was obviously drinking absinthe. We stopped in the visitor center for a few minutes, where I overheard the park ranger talking about next year's National Parks Passes - if he's right, the government may be trying to combine the National Parks Pass with some other services, making it more expensive. We'll see.
I only have one question at this point - what do you do if an entrance station to a National Park or National Monument is closed, the park itself is open, and you hold a National Parks Pass? We just drove on in, since the same pass would have gotten us in without problems anyway. Probably the correct thing to do, but part of me thought it odd that they wouldn't bother making sure the people that entered actually paid.
Craters
of the Moon National Monument is weird, to say the least. It's a volcanic
landscape in the middle of Idaho that formed as part of the same series
of eruptions that helped form Yellowstone National Park (Yellowstone being
the most recent and most active of these eruptions). It's a beautiful Monument,
but very disorienting to drive through at times, both because of the dead
silence and because of the landscape that's obviously different from surrounding
Idaho. Driving through, you enter a one-way loop that takes you around the
entire Monument with some pull-outs along the way. We stopped in the Devil's
Orchard, so named because a priest walked through and declared the site
to be a garden fit for the devil himself. We also stopped at most of the
turnouts, including the Caves, which turned out to be a far longer walk
than we expected - we didn't go into any of the caves, since we were so
tired by the time we got to them that we just turned around.
Exiting the monument, we went once again unto the highway-turned-gravel-road at 45 miles/hour. Once that finally turned back into something resembling pavement, we encountered another 6% grade. From here on in, the drive consisted mainly of me sticking to 60 miles/hour and cursing loudly at the people who insisted on passing two cars at a time. Between the National Monument and Mountain Home is when all of those incidents occurred, and all were on the two-lane US-20. Now, those that have driven with me will know that I typically (err.. okay, almost always) stay at 60 miles/hour, since anything above that for any vehicle begins to severely impact the number of miles per gallon you get. This was likely a mitigating factor in all of these incidents, since the speed limit happens to be 65. In my head, though, that does not excuse reckless driving. Correct me if I'm wrong.
We
hit a small spattering of rain about a half hour outside of Mountain Home,
and the roads turned very quickly into puddles, despite that it wasn't a
very heavy downpour - I could swear I heard the tires on the right side
of the car begin to hydroplane twice, and these are tires that are meant
for rain and snow conditions! Coming out of the valley from the National
Monument, there's a stretch that also appears to have extreme flood problems,
as there's an "Extreme risk of flooding when flashing" sign erected
along the highway for all to see.
We really haven't seen that much rain on this trip, except for the one day we spent in Grand Teton National and today. We didn't see much smoke today either - we appear to have moved away from many of the area fires, though there were still clouds that limited our visibility somewhat.
We pulled into Mountain Home's Best Western, where I'm sitting poolside writing this. We arrive back into the Pacific time zone tomorrow!
Photo Contest Winner
With four entries to judge, this was sort of an interesting decision. Nevertheless, the photo caption goes to:
"A fine Montana Cab, light on the oak."
Congratulations to my father, Steve Ellis, of Snohomish, Washington for his winning entry! He offers up the following explanation:
"Some people sell cabernet; Montana skips the grapes."
Particularly ironic is that this was taken in Waitsburg, Washington, not Montana.
Dad - uh - we'll talk prizes later. Not that I promised one. I don't have to give one if it was never promised, legally speaking.