Lonely Potatoes

When we started this trip, I was expecting the Midwest to be the most desolate, loneliest place not just on the trip, but in the world (the various tundra excluded).  I was incorrect.  Montana broke my desolation scale, and after having it factory refurbished, Idaho vaporized it. 

I grew up in New Hampshire.  I’m not a stranger to being a mile from your nearest neighbor or driving for a tens of minutes without seeing a soul.  Idaho was that, times about thirty seven.  Plus three.

In the last post, I finished with a panorama of the Idaho desert, with literally, nothing in the picture.  Nothing at all.  We drove for hours without any sign of human existence other than the asphalt and paint that composed the road and maybe a rancher’s fence or two.  See?

There is nothing in Idaho.  Sickly bushes, rocks, sand, mountains and sun.  That’s about it.

I feel like I’m going to run out of ways to describe these empty places we drive through, but seriously, Idaho has nothing in it.

When we got further towards civilization (small town that takes three minutes to drive through) we decided to check out a small state park.  Apparently, and according to the Road Trip book Amanda got for Christmas last year (thanks Robert), there was/is a decent vista in said park.

Luckily, if there wasn’t a decent vista, and we were being set up for disappointment, the drive itself was providing a pretty spectacular, almost godly view from the car.  Amanda grabbed the camera and snapped a few:

Pretty nice, no?

When we finally reached the park (which was on a road without a name), we hopped out of the car, noticed the nice lighting (sunset) and headed to where the sigh told us to go.:

A sweet canyon cut over millions of years by that lazily flowing river.  Not too bad.

After hanging around for a few minutes (it’s tough to appreciate nature for longer than that), we hopped back in the car and, since it was getting dark, found a crappy motel to stay at:

We then went to the gas station next door and I ordered up some dinner (there were/are only two places to eat in town.  The gas station is one of them):

Somewhere under those genuine Idaho Potatoes, there was a club sandwich.  it was crappy, duh.  Amanda, scared of/uninterested in the gas station fare decided to only purchase some milk and eat cereal.  Without a bowl, she was forced to improvise:

The real reason we were on the route that we were on was to visit the world famous (not world famous, possibly not even regionally famous) Idaho sand dunes.  A friend of ours recommended a visit and we decided they might be worth our time.  We woke up and headed to the second, and final restaurant in town and ordered some breakfast:

This place was filled with what seemed like lazy or unemployed farmers/truckers, and possibly one painter.  It served pretty standard breakfast options and we were pleasantly surprised by the quality/taste of the breakfast meats:

The sausage and bacon were super delicious, but the rest of it was standard.

*Aside* – Why do dumpy restaurants/greasy spoons garnish their plates?  Does anyone actually give a crap about what their plate looks like?  There is no chance that anyone would care if these places didn’t put a few leaves on the plate with eggs.  None. *Aside over*

After breakfast, we hopped in the car and made our way to the dunes.  Sadly, it had been raining.  The one day we needed, rather than wanted good weather, we crapped out.  The sand, instead of being slick and seemingly frictionless, was instead sticky.  Sticky sand is terrible to slide down.  Crap.

After a few failed attempts, we left.  The dunes themselves were fairly big and steep…:

…but they’re not much to look at.  We left pretty quickly.

The next planned stop was Portland, Oregon, to visit Amanda’s friend Jocelyn,  We had a lot of miles in between us, so we were going to break the drive up into two sections. 

During the first section, we took our time and looked around for something to do.  our handy GPS had some outdated suggestions (archery range: closed. Bowling alley: closed) but we happened upon a nice surprise.

When looking for the bowling alley our GPS led us to, we ended up here (where we presume the bowling alley was at one time):

Yes.  The Idaho Ice World.

We got out of the car and prepared ourselves for a hour or so of free skate in uncomfortable rented ice skates.  The overseers of our road trip however, had something else in mind altogether.

When we walked in, it was packed.  With awesome folks.  It turned out that it was some sort of regional figure skating championship for kids/teenagers.  What an incredible turn of luck.  We grabbed some lunch from the, ahem, food court (it was Blimpie and Blimpie alone in the food court)…:

…some hot chocolate from a weird fellow at a small stand and walked into the area.  We were met with some teenaged girls warming up:

It was hilarious.

Oh, ad thinking that were were going to be ice skating, rather than spectating, Amanda grabbed a pair of socks before we headed in.  She still was able to put them to good use, luckily:

Flip flops and socks.  What a great look.  No wonder so many black folks rock it…

After the Zamboni was finished up, it was time for the Junior Men’s No Axle Finals, or something.  Basically, it was time for little boys to skate around and not spin as much when they jump.This was the best move (from the two competitors) I was able to snap:

Sweet high kick on skates.  That move would tear me in half.

After the non-axel kids, it was time for the big leagues.  Axel.  There was one (of the whopping three) competitors that was head an shoulders above everyone else.  He was, as the kids are saying, killing it:

I was obviously rooting for him, because he’s a skinny, lanky blond kid.  He probably won the thing and we will someday see him in the Olympics with way more spangles on his shirt.  he was really very good at figure skating.

After the last of the three axel kids (who had awesome Mario Brothers music, performed by a string quartet) finished up and collected the ridiculous stuffed animals that his mom threw onto the ice, we headed out.

After a pretty boring drive through more of nothing, we crossed the state line into Oregon, picked a dumpy Days Inn and slept.