We finished messing around in Jackson after a couple of great days and headed north west with no particular place to go. We had no bookings and just thought we would find somewhere to rest when we had enough driving. That didn’t take long as Idaho falls appeared in the windscreen and we decided to not let it appear in the rear-view mirror, not today anyway. We stayed two nights at a decent hut so had a day riding hired cycles around the town green belt, basically the river that runs through their town. They even have a wee power station on it and this also helps to create the ”falls” part of the city’s name. Here we dined in a brewery and service wasn’t good until a little old fellow decided to assist. We got to yarning, turned out he was the owner, a devout Mormon, they have oozed northward from Salt Lake City and are all through Idaho. But they are anti-alcohol and he is not only selling it he’s making it! Asked him about Trump and he thought he was doing a pretty good job considering the pasting that everyone seems to be giving him. Seems little old Mormon was a bit hypocritical but I invited him down to NZ as I think he needs to see how honest people live. 

From Idaho Falls we took to the wide-open plains with Craters of the Moon National Park in sight as our first stop. However, before that we came across “Hells Half Acre” and that deserved a look, and it was free. This was an area that had once been an active volcano and the lava was left baked to the earth like a giant cake mix spilled. Interesting formations that we were able to walk all over. Back in the car and on to CMNP which is far more commercialised but better set up with roads and walking tracks. More trouble with the cake mixing but Alison Holst had several mishaps over a number of years….in the millions we are talking, not mishaps, years.  

We spent a couple of hours there before back onto the prairies and then into the Snake River Valley. We got a bit caught up watching canoeists and rafters battling the rapids. The small town of Hailey came up next and we decided that this is where we would lay our heads for a couple of nights. Hiked to the top of Carbonate Mountain a mere 6,700 feet…we’re feeling like mountaineers now, just a dawdle up here.

Out of Hailey and into the hills, mountains really, the geography is starting to close in and things get far more interesting. We drove down rivers across prairies and up over passes and down, or up, more rivers. Logging trucks are appearing on the roads with far more frequency, often overloaded and fires are evident from smoke in the air. As I write there are 12 wild fires in Idaho at present with several more in surrounding states. We passed Boise as a group of New Zealand firefighters were coming in to help with the fire control. A group of these guys were from the Blenheim unit that I had been involved with for a number of years.

Cascade was our next stop for a night just to let the motor cool on the Mazda 6 that has served us so well. Then north again, as far as Orofino, another non-descript little settlement fighting ghost-town status. People are nice enough to us as we pass through, many realise where New Zealand is and tell us that we are one of the “accepted” countries. I presume that Mexico and North Korea are at the other end of the scale. When people don’t know where, who or why we are New Zealanders I explain, politely, go and google “America’s Cup”……and remember we only have 4 million people.

More smoke and more logging trucks and we are into Harrison on the edge of what is called Harrison Slough or more favourably, Lake Coeur d’Alene. We have had 3 nights here and spent the days cycling the Coeur d’Alene Trail, a bike track on a disused railway line. We managed 55 kms the first day and another 30 today. It is very pleasant pedalling through the river valleys and along lake edges, no cars and the grade never greater than 2% or 1:50. That’s wheel chair stuff. However, tomorrow we will move north to Spokane, out of Idaho and in to Washington.