Idaho - Day 20 - back to Boise

Meridian/Boise KOA, Meridian
Wednesday, 20 July 2022

Dext and I found a little park across the street from last night's campground/motel, so we walked around there before leaving town.  A sign there told me Challis was founded in 1878, and that it calls itself "The Wilderness Gateway."  Online I learned that name comes from its proximity to the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, which is the largest wilderness area in the Lower 48.

We also saw what I figured must be a baby Robin, because it had spots on its breast which an adult doesn't, and because it was sitting on the back of a park bench and kept sitting there the whole time we passed it and came within about 4' of it.  Very few Robins are willing to let either dogs or people get that close, and when I looked at the bird book, I found I was right.  Here's an internet photo I found that looks like the bird I saw.

The one in this photo looks pretty small, while the one we saw was much closer to adult size.  But adult Robins don't have those spots.  The one we saw had a redder breast than this one, which is how I knew it was a Robin.

today's route

We stopped on the way out of town for $5.04 gasoline, and I chatted a bit with a guy filling up his ATV.  I asked where he was planning to take it today, and he said just around that area (which seems to encourage ATVs).  But he said they'd originally planned to go exactly where the Moose Fire is currently raging, but with residents being evacuated from that area, they'd decided to postpone that trip.

Just out of town, I turned east for 60 miles, and soon passed 2 flashing yellow lights, and a sign saying "CAUTION Bighorn Sheep on Highway next 2½ Miles."  But I didn't see any sheep, either on or off the highway.  I did see a dead deer on a bridge over the Salmon River.

The road followed that river for many miles, and I saw lots of whitewater and several small waterfalls.

I passed a turn for Historic Bayhorse Ghost Town, 4 miles down the side road.  Apparently this one actually is a ghost town, with no one living there any more.  It was a silver and gold mining town in the 1860s but vanished when the ore played out.

I saw a deer grazing not far from the road, so I slowed down just in case it got spooked and ran in front of me.  That sighting was followed by a sign warning of "Game Crossing Next 25 Miles."

At Clayton, pop. 7 (that's what the sign said), I saw a Rural Fire Department building and wondered who staffed that fire dept. if there were only 7 residents and certainly no other town nearby.  

I saw an abandoned building in town with a sign on it reading, "Environmentalists - You Own This."  I couldn't find anything online that explained what environmental policy had caused trouble for the town.  I did find that the 2000 census logged 27 residents here, and the count had dwindled to 7 by the 2010 census (though in 2020 it went up to 8 and is officially the 2nd smallest town in Idaho, though I couldn't find which was the smallest).

That same abandoned building had a sign supporting Dorothy Moon, who I'd heard had run unsuccessfully for Idaho Secretary of State but successfully for state GOP chair.  She's considered very hard right and is a member of the John Birch Society (her husband serves on its national council).

I passed a historical marker titled "Clayton Smelter" and wondered if the sign explained the town's current small size.  It said those silver discoveries back at Bayhorse inspired Joel Clayton to start a smelter here in 1880, and it managed to find enough ore to stay in business for more than 50 years.  Surely that's not what environmentalists did, because they didn't cause the mines to play out, and the smelter must have closed quite a while back.

But I also learned that Dorothy Moon, who was in the State House during Trump's presidency, supported resolutions urging Congress to prohibit Idahoans from selling their land to conservationists who would then transfer it to a federal agency, and to revoke the wilderness designation from large parts of Idaho.  She also introduced a bill that would authorize killing 90% of Idaho's gray wolves, which an NPR story sounded like it became law - Idahoans thought the wolves killed too many elk; state wildlife managers said they didn't; state government ignored the scientists.

(Who knew I could find so much controversy in such a small town?  It took a lot longer to type this than to drive through the town.)

A sign told me I was on the Salmon River Scenic Byway.  And I often saw the river and the byway was definitely scenic.

This photo shows what I think are lichens (though I wondered if it indicated ore content of the rocks).  I saw these colors off and on for quite a few miles, but this display was the most impressive.

A sign told me "Certified weed-free straw and hay required on federal lands."  I guess that's stuff ranchers would use for their cows?  And the feds want to be sure the ranchers aren't creating a problem with weeds coming in with the grain?

Another sign told me "Designated Camping Area Next 31 Miles."  I was traveling through the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and, up till then, I'd seen actual federal campgrounds now and then.  From this sign on I saw people camping any old place.  Another sign told me "Food Storage Required" with a drawing of a bear.  I'd think food storage could get a little tricky out here in bear country when the feds aren't providing food safes, as they do in the campgrounds.  I sure wouldn't want a bear trying to get into my RV looking for food.

Another sign told me "Slide Area Next 20 Miles" and I had no trouble believing it from looking at the rock walls.  In some areas I'm sure the walls were at 60° - 80° angles to the road (I was using an imaginary protractor in my head to make my estimate), and those areas had chain link covering to ease the rockfall problem.  The pine smell in that area was so strong it came into the RV through the air vents.

Twice today I saw a chipmunk sitting in the road that didn't move as I came near it, and I did my best to dodge it but don't know if it worked.  They're so small I can't see them very far in advance, but I don't know why they just sit there in the road.

Here and there I saw some dilapidated log cabins.

A sign told me "Low Visibility Area" and I wondered why - until I saw a sign for Sunbeam hot springs, and there were areas actually steaming alongside the road.  It was just like being back in Yellowstone.  A little farther on I came to another roadside steamer, this one unmarked.

The road began to take me toward mountains that still had some snow on them, and I stopped for this photo.

Pretty area, isn't it?

I came to the town of Lower Stanley, then Stanley, pop. 63.  A banner across the road told me Stanley is "Celebrating 50 years  1972 - 2022."  Seems a little young, even for a western state.  Tourism seems to be the business here.

Leaving town I pulled over at the very end of the right lane where it merged into the left lane and put my blinker on to show I was stopped for a minute, and a school bus pulled up behind me and just sat.  And even though there were plenty of breaks in the traffic for the bus to merge easily into the left lane, it just sat until I got back on the road, at which point it followed me for miles.  I tried hard to make that seem logical but just couldn't do it.

A sign told me I was now on the Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway.  And over a stretch of some miles I passed several large burned areas.

I reached Blind Summit, elev. 6.173', so I've been climbing since Challis.  Though I'm now in the Challis National Forest.

Several times I saw deer near the road that bounded away, and once as I came around a corner I saw a deer in the road at the bottom of a hill, but by the time I got there he'd disappeared into the trees.  I saw another dead deer beside the road.

Then I came around a curve and had to stop completely to avoid 1 young and 2 adult mountain goats, who only reluctantly moved off the road.  I came to the conclusion this wasn't a game crossing area but a game hangout area.

Litter cleanup was sponsored by "Whomsoever."  I'm just reporting.

A sign told me I was in an avalanche zone the next 11 miles, 3 miles of which would be a 6% grade and all of which included a rough road.

I stopped for road construction and, since I was the first in line, the guy holding the stop sign came over to chat.  And he talked almost nonstop for the 20 minutes or so we waited.  He told me the burn areas I'd come through weren't done on purpose but must have been lightning or some other cause.  He identified Lodgepole Pine, Ponderosa Pine, Scotch Pine, Blue Spruce and Douglas Fir all right where I was stopped.  He told me that Boise has mushroomed since he grew up there (he was 10 or 15 years younger than me), and that despite being the state capital it had fewer than 100,000 residents until nearly 1980.  (By the 2020 census it had more than doubled that number, so yeah, it's growing a lot.)

I followed the pilot car for nearly 3 miles - a long construction zone.  And then I saw yet another dead deer.  I've noticed before that in some states I see a lot of them and in others I don't see any, or not many.  Idaho definitely ranks high in the first category, so either they've got a lot of people driving too fast, or they've got too many deer (so why do we want to kill all the gray wolves?).

We stopped at a pullout in Lowman, partly to give Dext a break and partly because I wanted to take another look at the map.  There's a choice of roads we could take from here that both head generally for Boise.  The one that looks on the map like the most direct, and is marked by AAA as a scenic route, wasn't the one Google recommended.  Since Google is constantly trying to shove me onto a road because it's the shortest route, this seemed odd to me.  But when I went on Google Maps or whatever it is - the thing that lets me see the actual roads and surroundings - I could see that the shorter route was a constant series of hairpin turns and the like.  I'm sure it's gorgeous and when I come back to Idaho will want to take it.  The pullout where we stopped was the junction of these roads and I was interested to see quite a few RVs and campers taking the hairpin route and wondered if Google had changed its mind.  But this time I decided I'd go with my original plan.

I found myself on the Wildlife Canyon Scenic Byway.  A sign with 2 blinking yellow lights warned me "Critical Winter Range - Watch for Wildlife Crossing Next 4 Miles."  All I saw were lots of butterflies - but then I'd already passed through the wildlife hangout area.

At the town of Garden Valley, I came to Davey's Bridge.  I wondered who Davey was, and I still don't know, but I do know the bridge design got mentioned for its greatness.  This article has some info and a picture of the bridge.   https://highways.fhwa.dot.gov/daveys-bridge 

I turned onto yet another road (I was on 4 separate state and county highways today) that followed a river, this time the Payette River.  A sign told me I was now on the Payette River Scenic Byway.  And I stopped at a pullout with a sort of view of the river (Dext needed a walk), and I saw an odd sign:  

                     Missing: 27 year old male 

        Involved in vehicular accident July 14th 2022 

                  and hasn't been found since.

It included a photo of him.  This left me with a lot of unanswered questions, aside from where this guy had disappeared to.  What happened at that accident scene, how do they know he was in an accident, why did they phrase it as "hasn't been found" as if he were a lost object as opposed to "hasn't been seen" which is more like a volitional human being - and so forth.  And I'm pretty sure the sign didn't include his name.  All very odd, though of course I hope he's all right and maybe just suffered amnesia or something.

At the town of Gardena I crossed the Payette River twice, so I guessed there must be a horseshoe bend in town.

And a little farther on, I came to the town of Horseshoe Bend, pop. 715.  Followed by a pass with no name but an elevation sign: 4,242'.  And a 7% grade for the next 2 miles, making me wonder if Boise is in a bowl.

I saw an ox grazing in a field.  It took me several minutes to realize that's what that animal was.

I kept coming to towns with no signs, and I identified them by the map or by the names on businesses.  Eagle seemed to have a lot of laser-related businesses.

And then I came back to Boise, pop. 205,671, according to the sign.  And I crossed the Boise River.

I'd forgotten that when I'd been in this area before I'd learned that it's called Treasure Valley.  I wondered why and learned online that the nickname includes this whole southwestern Idaho/southeastern Oregon area where a whole bunch of rivers drain into the Snake River.  The Chamber of Commerce president (didn't you know it) came up with the name to describe the "treasure chest of resources and opportunities" here.

It reminds me that the Twin Falls area is called Magic Valley, and that's because a couple of dams and irrigation canals on the Snake River "magically" transformed the desert region into highly productive farmland.

Anyway, I came to Boise today because I hadn't yet seen the state capitol.  And I chose regular roads through town instead of the interstate, and I think that's where I took this photo.

see detail below -
isn't that Rockefeller Center?

I've never seen a mural like this one.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't write down where I took this, but that's because the light changed to green and I had to move and forgot.  But I think it was Boise.

I found the capitol with no problem, but I could see it was just about impossible for me to find a place where I could take a photo, so I relied on what's online.

Idaho State Capitol

It was built in 1905, completed in 1920, and is the only state capitol in the country to be heated by geothermal water.  It's pumped from a source 3,000' underground.  I understand that's an eagle perched on top of the dome, but I wasn't able to see it when I was there, and none of the photos I found show it, so I have to go on faith.

From the capitol, I took surface roads to a grocery store, and from there back to the Meridian Bark Park, where we'd been twice before.  This time it was really hot - the forecast was for 102° and it may have been close to that - and many of the dogs were splashing in and out of wading pools to stay cool.  But Dext doesn't like to get wet and though he went up to the pools, he didn't even stick his feet in.  And though he has a thin coat which seems to help keep him cool, he's still a black dog and it seemed the heat started to bother him after a little bit.  He just wasn't as up for running around with the other dogs as he'd been before, though he was plenty willing to sniff any who came his way.

From there we went the half mile or so back to the campground where we'd been almost 3 weeks before and where we were scheduled to stay 2 nights.