Scenic Idaho

Sunday May 13

Got up bright and early determined to get away by 8:00AM. I actually pulled away from the hotel at 8:40 or so. Not bad, but not what I had planned. Add to that a minor repacking chore and a fuel stop just after leaving the parking lot, and the real time I got underway was about 9:10. Oh well, it is what it is.

I'm off for Yellowstone National Park today and I'm taking a scenic route that I found on a motorcycle forum. After leaving Ontario OR, the towns I passed through in Idaho are: Emmett, Garden Valley, Lowman, Warm Springs, Stanley, Challis, Arco, and Idaho Falls.

The scenery is outstanding for the route just described. There are mountains, rivers, plains, snow, cliffs, forests, scrub, and most everything else. It was the most diverse stretch of road that I've encountered to date. The only negative was some sections of the road were too narrow and a bit scary with the constant mini cliffs into the river or gulch. Large sections of these stretches had no shoulder to speak of and if you run off the road, you are off into the abyss. For the really high cliffs, there was metal railing which is just as bad as nothing for a motorcycle. The bottom line: pay attention and don't mess up.

I've added pictures in chronological order to give a flavor of the diverse landscapes.

From Idaho Falls, I decided to go to Grand Teton before Yellowstone since I want to go to the  Badlands afterwards for which the route change makes sense. I ended up in Driggs which is about 50 miles from the Grand Teton park entrance. I'm in a nice little mom & pop establishment called the Pines Motel. It's very reasonable and the wireless works very well.

I spent most of the day traveling and had zero interaction with folks so I got nothing for human interest stories today. Well, that's not completely true now that I think of it. This morning when packing up, I asked my neighbor at the hotel to please alert me when she was finished with the only luggage dolly because I have a lot of stuff to carry out to the parking lot. Sure enough, she left the dolly in the parking lot never to return or alert me to anything. Oh well, maybe she forgot.

Tomorrow I'll spend most of the day in Grand Teton and Yellowstone.

Photos: https://plus.google.com/photos/117227791501639555776/albums/5742247553166973697?authkey=CPiV2YL_7P7VMA