The 36 Hour Afternoon Drive and Best Birthday Ever!

For weeks Justin and I have been talking and trying to plot out what we were going to do this weekend for my birthday, which fell on a Saturday this year.  Justin doesn't work on Fridays, so he enthusiastically presented me with several interesting options, but I wasn't able to make up my mind about anything.  Thursday night we went to bed still without a plan.  Friday morning we reviewed through some of his suggestions again and still couldn't quite come up with anything.  Finally around 11am we settled on taking a scenic afternoon drive through an area not far from Boise.  We planned on being home before dark, but based on past history we thought it might be a good idea to throw some camping gear in the trunk "just in case."  We could only find one of our sleeping bags, discarded the idea of bringing along any cooking equipment, or toiletries, and essentially ended up packing a single sleeping bag, a set of twin size sleeping pads, a tent and tarp, a .22 rifle, and 9 mm handgun, fishing rods, sunscreen, an abundance of snack foods, enough water to keep us alive for a week, and a camera.  It was weird, we made this outward acknowledgement that we wouldn't want to actually spend the night somewhere with that equipment, but at the same time did nothing to address the issue because it was all "just in case."  In hindsight I'm not really certain what we were thinking.

Regardless we struck out on the Ponderosa Scenic Byway that runs North of Boise for 3.5 hours through some beautiful forested mountains and ends in Stanley, ID.  We were on the road by noon.  We made our first stop just outside of Boise at Lucky Peak Reservoir:

 Justin is looking so energetic, because we were just getting started.  We continued on from there up into the mountains.  It really was beautiful, and we made several stops along the way at scenic overlook spots to snap a few pictures of the scenery.

...and at the end of the drive we found ourselves thinking that maybe we had time to go a little further on The Salmon River Scenic Byway that runs all the way to the Idaho/Montana border.  We figured we had time to go about halfway and we'd still make it home before dark, or at least shortly thereafter.  So we drove on.  We stopped about an hour or so in and tried to spot Bighorn sheep in these mountains:

We were disappointed to not spot anything, but decided to continue on, because it really was beautiful scenery, and it wouldn't be too late when we got back.

We decided that we would drive to the town of Salmon, ID, stop there for dinner and then turn around and come back. We weren't really feeling any sense of urgency about things so we made multiple stops along the way to snap pictures and goof around.  Justin tried to teach me to skip stones and...well he tried.

 A little further down the road we saw a sign for Dick's Dugout, which looked interesting, so we pulled off the road and took a short little dirt road down to a tiny two-room dwelling dug into the side of the mountain.  Apparently the guy who lived there was famous.  I'd never heard of him, but the BLM preserved his house and threw up a few signs that Justin and I stopped to look at.  Truthfully the place creeped me out a little.

...and then we continued on and finally arrived in Salmon, ID, where we were greeted by this statue in the center of town:

 We also located the monument for Sacajawea, and considered going on their "interpretive tour" but since neither of us have any idea what an "interpretive tour" even means we decided to just snap a couple of shots of the monument and go hunt down some food.

 There appeared to be two restaurants in town, the Red Dog Diner, and the Savage Grill.  We elected to go to the Savage Grill.  The food was great, but the interior of the place did make me realize that political correctness has not yet arrived in small-town Idaho:

It was late enough at that point that we had reached the conclusion that we might not be making it home that night, and determined that our camping equipment was sadly inadequate for an overnight stay...which then begged the question why we bothered bringing any of it at all, but regardless there we were in Salmon, ID at 8pm.  I'm not sure who first made the suggestion, but I do remember us both being quite enthusiastic about the idea of driving all the way to the Montana border before we turned back, found a place to sleep in Salmon, and return home the next morning.  We finished dinner and the next thing I knew there we were, at the top of the continental divide snapping this picture:

 ...and since it was still sort of daylight outside we then decided that maybe it would be fun to keep driving and go spend the night in Missoula, MT instead, because neither of us had ever been to Missoula before, and we reasoned that this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  So we continued on, and miraculously made it there without hitting a mule deer along the way. 

 (The above picture was actually taken the next morning in downtown Missoula.  Justin thought I should take it as a demonstration of how the place was full of mule deer. It seemed like we saw dozens of them on our way to Missoula that night.)  At one point we stopped at a gas station and Justin ran in to see if he could buy a map of Montana.  He said the guy there told him they had sold out, but asked where he was headed.  Justin told him that we weren't sure, and the guy tried rephrasing the question with "well what's your final destination."  Justin told the guy that he wasn't really sure we just started driving and didn't really have any place in particular in mind.  When he returned to the car he informed me that the people in the gas station thought we were crazy. 

We finally spotted a Day's Inn in Lola, which is just outside of Missoula and decided to stop there and inquire about vacancies and rates.  It was almost 11 when we walked into the lobby, and were greeted by the Indian (dot, not feather) Ashish at the front desk.  He said that there were vacancies and told us it would be $90 for the night.  We told Ashish that we might be back, but that we were going to keep going and check out some other places, and to our surprise Ashish asked us to wait for a moment and then asked us how much we were hoping to pay.  We said $75, he offered $78.  We settled on that, and requested a complimentary toothbrush, I made some lame little excuse about forgetting mine.  Ashish seemed so thrown off by my request that I didn't have the guts to ask for toothpaste.  So we left with one toothbrush and returned to our car to pretend to get our gear, which consisted of one of our many water bottles and the 9mm.  I have no explanation for why we didn't just buy toothbrushes and toothpaste at the gas station on the way there, but I also have no explanation for why we didn't just pack some in the first place.  Regardless we shared our lone toothbrush, with water and then went to bed.  We woke up for our early morning complimentary breakfast the next morning and were back on the road shortly after 7am.  This is a picture taken out the front window of the car the next morning. It's not raining, those marks are dead bugs all over the windshield.  The car is still coated in a layer of dead bugs.

 We drove on to Missoula and checked that out, and stopped at a public park to look at their war memorials.  This one is for Vietnam:

 Then we decided to turn around and head home.  There was a wildlife viewing area that we had seen signs for the night before that we wanted to stop at on the way home.  17 miles later we found ourselves on a dirt road miles from the highway, no wildlife viewing area in sight, a sign for a trailhead 4 miles ahead and the only thing we'd seen was another mule deer.  We decided to call it and head back to the highway.  We were heading back into Salmon when we spotted this flagpole up on the top of a ridge:

 This is a shot of it without the zoom so you can barely make it out there on that peak that's jutting out.  We wondered who put it there, and how they got up there to get it situated.

We're still wondering.  We wished we had time to stop and climb up to it, but in a rare moment of responsibility we determined that we couldn't and needed to continue on our way.  After a few hours I asked Justin to pull over at the next recreation area or rest stop he spotted with restrooms.  We stopped at a recreation area with a pit toilet and as I was getting out of the car I spotted a fishing sign.  I jokingly told Justin to get out the fishing gear while I was in the bathroom.  I was actually shocked to find him setting up to fish when I exited the toilet.  This was our first time fishing together, my first time fishing at all, and Justin's first in a river.  We didn't really have a clue what we were doing.  I had a picture of me casting that Justin said was embarrassing, so he deleted it to spare me the humiliation.

 Regardless we spent an hour or so fishing.  Naturally we brought fishing gear, but no bait, so we improvised with string cheese.  Not surprisingly we did not catch anything, but it was very fun, and Justin taught me how to cast so that I don't endanger everyone around me, and using my arm rather than my whole body...yeah, the first couple of attempts were that bad.

Next we continued on until we saw a sign for Bayhorse Ghost town which sounded intriguing.  We took a dirt road for miles into the mountains until we arrived at what I must say was the most interesting, well-preserved old mining ghost town I've ever been too.  This is us in front of the hotel:

 Justin on the road up to the mill:

 Us in front of the mill.  I loved the fences because I could balance the camera on a post and get pictures of us together.

 This is a picture from up at the mill looking down on the rest of the town.

 An old residence:

After that Justin said that we had to continue on our way and not make so many stops or we'd never make it home before dark, and in time for my birthday dinner at Outback.  So we started driving again.  I would have liked to stop in and look this one road town over a little more closely, but Justin said there was no time:

...but then we decided to get home that we should take another scenic byway that took us through the Sawtooth Mountains, and past Redfish Lake.  We were going to just stop for a minute or two at Redfish Lake.  It was beautiful:

 And the water was so clear that I told Justin that I felt that I needed to wade into it.  Justin was very resistant to the idea.  I attempted to lure him into the water with me by telling him that he was being a stick in the mud.  He gave me a look of complete incredulity and responded "Are you kidding me Julia?  It's 5pm the day after we left for an afternoon drive, were still hundreds of miles away from home, and you're going to accuse me of being a stick in the mud?"  I was just kidding, but he still refused to venture into the lake with me, and my wading in the lake was cut very short by his insistent urging that we get back on the road.

 He did allow us to stop at a scenic overlook to snap some pictures of the valley that claims to have the cleanest air in the 48 contiguous states:

 Further down the road we spotted a sign for a mountain goat viewing area, and that was too much for Justin to resist.  So we pulled over and spent an hour scanning the mountain side for the sign of a mountain goat and wandering around in the foothills looking at wolf prints and moose droppings.  We toyed with the idea of climbing to the top of those foothills, but finally abandoned the idea and determined that it really was time to leave.

 

That was our last stop until we arrived in Twin Falls at 9pm.  There is an Outback there and it's fortuitously open until 11 pm, and even more fortuitously located right next to the Snake River Gorge viewing area.  I took our last pictures from the trip while Justin secured us a table for my birthday dinner:

We finally arrived back to our apartment in Boise shortly before midnight.  It was the best birthday weekend I've ever had, but hopefully next time Justin and I will actually pack things we need and can use "just in case."