After an evening spent listening to the herd of elephants in the room above us I’ve decided I need to develop a new strategy on selecting hotel rooms – less emphasis on a pretty view and more on a quiet-room-on-the-top-floor-please!
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| Overlooking theSawtooth Wilderness |
Fortunately the elephants settled down by 11 ish and we had a good night’s sleep. The plan today was to carry on via a mountain route to the Idaho State Capital, Boise, via a series of 4 scenic byways.
The Sawtooth Scenic Byway took us from Ketchum to the little mountain town of Stanley. To get there we climbed up along a steep highway up and over a mountain pass into the Sawtooth Mountain Wilderness. This area is very popular with mountain bikers, motorcyclists and even cross-country skiers who were practising their skills on the steep road using their wheeled summer skis.
As we approached Stanley we drove along the very pretty Salmon River which is famous ( not surprisingly) for it’s salmon! We stopped at a couple of spots along the river to take shots back towards the Sawtooth Mountains.
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| On the banks of the Salmon River |
From Stanley we switched to the Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway which takes you through the huge Challis National Forest. This forest, like all the others we have seen in our travels, was liberally supplied with camping grounds, often alongside lovely rivers or lakes. The camper, caravanner or Rv-er is very well catered for in this country
Just past the tiny mountain community of Powell we turned onto the Wildlife Canyon Scenic Byway. We did not see any wildlife here today (although we’d seen a couple of Pronghorn Deer earlier) bit Neil thoroughly enjoyed the winding drive through the canyon. The route follows the south fork of the Payette River as it carves its way through the canyon. The byway has seen some real problems with serious mudslides, most recently in the mid-1990’s and we saw in several places where efforst had been made to hold back the walls of the steep canyon from falling down across the road. We became very familiar with the “Watch for Rocks” signs.
The final Byway of the day was the Payette River Scenic byway which took us almost all the way down the mountain into Boise. The river along here is a succession of smooth, gentle flow and white water rapids and is a very popular spot for rafting and kayaking.
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| White water but no rafts on the Payette River |
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| Half Mast |
The temperature had been climbing all day and as we arrived in Boise it hit around 32 Celsius. I think we’ve left the freezing cold weather well behind us now. We had some time up our sleeves before checking into our hotel so we stopped in to the Sierra Trading Post outlet in town. This company are something of an outlet center for the manufacturers of outdoor and travel clothing. They have some amazing bargains in clothing by companies such as Columbia, Patagonia, Mountain Hardwear etc. as well as several others we were unfamiliar with. We picked up a couple of bargains then headed for the hotel where our room has a charming view over the Interstate! Luckily the sound-proofing is excellent.
As we were driving through the area we noticed this huge flag at half-mast and were reminded that today is 9-11. A day that Americans will never forget
We decided to visit the local shopping mall, which was absolutely enormous! We got our exercise for the day by wandering around Macy’s, J C Penney’s, Sears, Dillards and Kohls departments stores and finished up with a visit to the Costco down the street from the hotel. A good afternoon of shopping! The Costco here as another enormous barn of a place, its easy to get lost inside!
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| A very generous barman! |
The Oxford Suites Hotel offers an evening reception with wine, bear and a good array of appetizers and soup. We had some washing to do so we left our laundry in the washing machine and settled down to enjoy our free drinks etc. The entrees were tasty and abundant and in the end we decided that they would do for tonight’s dinner – much easier than heading out to find another restaurant. I have to say, I liked the barman – he had a very generous hand when pouring out the wine!!
Tomorrow we bid farewell to Idaho and head back into Oregon, gaining an hour in the process.