Road Trip! Route 20

Yesterday, HomoDommi, the children and I drove from Portland to their home in Boise. We got off late, ran into the annoyingly ubiquitous American Economic Recovery Act Interstate Construction and Traffic Stoppage along I-84, and arrived late to Boise. Nothing much to speak of, except to mention how much I love the windmills along that section of the world.

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Today I drove from Boise, Idaho, to Rexburg, Idaho.  I had intended to get as far as Bozeman, Montana, but I got off to a late start -- due to forgetting to set my clock ahead from Oregon time, and to losing necessary charging cords and needing to get new ones.  I reached Rexburg less than an hour before sunset -- rather than drive the next (planned) 3.5 hours in the dark, through the mountains, tired -- I chose instead to stop for the night and take that demanding and beautiful drive tomorrow morning.

But today -- today I drove Route 20 across Central Idaho.  Route 20, the Cattus Dommus household learned from last Sunday's Oregonian, crosses the whole U.S.A, from the Pacific Coast (Newport, OR) to Boston, ending in Kenmore Square. The bit I did today skirted the foothills of the dry and treeless Sawtooth Mountain Range, tiptoed along the north side of the desolate lava plains of the Craters of the Moon, and plowed straight through a large region of "Sagebrush Steppe" also known as the Idaho National Laboratory -- once the home to over 50 Nuclear Test Reactors, now an environmental research area investigating the regrowth of rare sagebrush after fires. (FemmeDommi probably knows a lot more than I do about that area -- I've heard her mutter about sagebrush and environmental protection).

This is the scene looking west from almost the top of a pass (elevation 5500 feet), along the edge of the Sawtooth National Forest.  Presumably this shows us Castle Rock, but I don't know which it is.  The road in the distance is part of the Goodale's Cutoff -- a "shortcut" on the Oregon Trail.

Pioneers had at times level ground only 10 feet wide -- not much wider than their wagons -- amongst the scattered, black rock that is now the Craters of the Moon National Monument.  It's weird -- out of nowhere, suddenly you're in 600 square miles of strewn, lifeless lava.  I didn't take the time to stop at the Visitor's Center -- which appears quite extensive and with many hikes attached (well worth a visit later, however). Goodale's Cutoff took the pioneers right through the difficult-to-navigate lava fields -- a trade-off for the lessened likelihood of being ambushed by Shoshone.

The Big Southern Butte is the largest of three buttes that rise up out of the Snake River Plain. It was used as a landmark for Oregon Trail pioneers to head for, to make Goodale's Cutoff. Between me and the Butte is some desolate territory, the sagebrush steppe, used for 50 years as a Nuclear Reactor Test grounds, and to store nuclear waste.

I will part company with Rte. 20 early tomorrow, when it turns east through Yellowstone, and I veer north to Interstate 90, avoiding holiday crowds.  Tomorrow's plan is ambitious -- 9+ hours to get me through Montana just over the border into North Dakota. I plan to stop the night in Dickinson, where my grandparents started their married life one hundred years ago, on a farm with a realio-trulio sod house. (Unless I'm mis-remembering that story).