We woke up around 4:30am, finished cramming the last few bags in to the van, loaded up the cooler with dry ice, and fumbled around with the canoe and its parts until we were ready to hit the road. Only an hour late. 7am isn’t a bad start though, and we started the license plate game with a New Hampshire plate shortly after we left. The drive was gorgeous at that time in the morning, and we made it as far as Pendleton before needing to refuel and use the bathroom. We stopped at a Sinclair station, the green dinosaur logo, an old memory. We were able to climb the Blue Mountains with no problems, and I was relieved once we cleared the summit.
The view of the Elkhorns and the Wallowas was stunning, but the van was getting warm (it was already 92F), and we were behind schedule, so we had to scrap our plans for lunch in Boise and stopped in Baker City. We tried a few places and eventually ended up at a place called the Brick Yard, which was kind of like a sports bar and a Hard Rock Cafe. The food was decent, but the service slow, and given our missteps with other restaurants, the stop ended up being 90 minutes.
After lunch, we ventured further east, hitting the last bump of mountains before reaching the Snake River and Idaho. We would follow the Snake all the way to it’s source over the next couple days, so it was fun to share that with the girls. I even told them that if they peed in the Snake River near Jackson, it would eventually end up flowing by our home on the Columbia River on its way to the Pacific Ocean. The pee part made them snicker, but they also paid attention to it.
The speed limit in Idaho is 80MPH, which was a surprise because I was now suddenly even more annoying to other drivers. I increased my speed to between 65 and 70MPH, and we made it to Boise by 3pm. We stopped at Camping World to pick up a tablecloth for Kathy, and then explored Sierra Trading Post, where we each walked away with some great finds. The girls, some slip-on shoes (that they wore the rest of the trip), Michelle some skorts, and I got some cheap fly fishing gear, including some stupidly cheap leader and tippet.
The last stretch of the drive was somewhat windy, but the girls watched Dumb & Dumber (Michelle and I enjoying just the audio), dancing back and forth over the Snake River, and we rolled in to Burley around 8pm after a long day of driving. We grabbed dinner at Chadwick’s Grill and Asylum for a mediocre dinner that was surprisingly good after the long drive. We stayed at the Best Western, which was one of the most pleasant hotel experiences we’ve had. The pool and facilities were great, and we splashed and played for the last hour of open pool time with a lot of other happy travelers. The water felt exquisite after the long drive, and cooled us off. We watched a little bit of The Terminal before collapsing. 12 hours of travel down.
