I have been back and forth across the trail left by Meriwether and William since Missouri, I believe. Both Lawrence and Manhattan fall on the wide Kansas River, which I am fairly certain they followed, and I again see signs of their traverse here in Idaho, although I now follow the Oregon Trail. It is when you get to the great spine of this country that you fall silent in awe of those who went before. My Hyundai was a strong little wagon, but it downshifted constantly on the long uphill pulls, and refused to accelerate on the worst of them. It took straining the gears to save the brakes on the long steep drops. You saw places that even uncountable tons of dynamite had barely tamed, and where a misstep could be a very long step indeed. Steinbeck, 50 years ago, still thought this dangerous country, and it is much softer now. But get off the interstate, and it doesn't take long see the echoes of those long ago journeys. And if you think that the time between our trip and that of John and Charley takes you a quarter of the way back the that first trip of discovery, it shouldn't be surprising that Steinbeck saw a rougher land than I.
As I cleared the Teton Pass with the sun climbing in the sky behind me, the road slalomed gently down a beautiful valley and I entered Idaho. I was listening to a station that would have been called "Legends of Country" when Johnny Cash was in the army, and the were playing "Oh Why, Oh Why Did I Ever Leave Wyoming."
It only took 20-30 miles of Idaho for that to become my newest theme song. This was mostly not the fault of Idaho, but of my commitment to avoiding Eisenhower's wide roads. After a nice ride through potato fields to Idaho Falls, my next destination was a visit with my friend Rob's mom in Glenns Ferry, an hour Southeast of Boise. The superhighway dipped South and then and then West-Northwest to get there. The country roads headed Northwest then Southwest to accomplish the same and in about the same number of miles. So 26 to Arco, past the Craters of the Moon National Monument, through Carey and Gooding and then to Glenns Ferry. What a terrible drive. While the Interstate ran along the Snake River Valley, past Knievel-worthy cliffs and charming places (I imagine) like Pocatello, I skirted the boarder of a nuclear test site (could have been recent, and maybe not even ours), through an honest to goodness depression style dust storm and along the edge of a lava field (hopefully unrelated to the nuclear tests). And encountered the longest construction delay of the entire trip. Lovely, simply lovely. So I believe Idaho to be a sandwich where the bread North and South is the best part, and I instead drove through the Deviled Ham meat-like spread between.
The place is so windy there are no bugs. It blows them all to Wyoming and even South Dakota. When Luci I stopped to play frisbee in Arco's nuclear winter I could throw the frisbee an amazing distance down wind. I hope the wind is why there are no bugs....if it was something else, there would still be cockroaches, right? The sign on the way into Idaho said "Too Great to Litter." Probably true of most of the state.
Glenns Ferry was a nice break. Rob's mom boards equine dentistry students who attend the local equine dentistry school, and we left Luci with student Jamie and walked down the block to the Oregon Trail Bar. You walk in the front and it is an empty diner. You know where you are going (Rob's mom knew), and you push aside the sliding door to a warm country bar. A couple women had started early, or last night, and they distracted a bit from what was otherwise a warm place and a hub of the small town. Here each year they reenact the Three Islands Crossing, where 50,000 or more crossed the Snake River to populate Oregon. Nice place, and my friend Rob is a nice man. There is nothing surprising that this is his home town.
On to Boise, which is nice, and home of the Parrilla Grill......Luci's favorite bar.
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