Blighted Idaho

We had a clear slate for the 3 day journey home. We could have gone back through Montana and eastern Washington, but we decided it would be more fun to loop south through Idaho and new countryside, then head north home. I wish DH had done then what he did while we were driving through Idaho yesterday, and already committed. He did a Google search for attractions or interesting things to see within a hundred mile radius of our location. His sole hit? An adult entertainment store. Uh-huh.

I am cursing my stupidity for acquiescing in this matter now, as we drive through southern Idaho. As far as I’m concerned, Idaho has mostly been one big black spot in our trip. The only nice thing I think I saw was a two second glimpse of an eaglet and parent bald eagle on a nest near the Snake River, and that was from binoculars as our RV whizzed by. And hey, I can see that at home, so it doesn’t really redeem the rest of Idaho for me. Sorry.

Why am I excoriating Idaho? Well, let me see. First off, when we crossed into Idaho from Wyoming, we spent nearly an hour cruising around a beautiful lake. How is that a bad thing? Well, there was not one single sign telling us the name of the lake! Even our maps had no name on it for the lake. Is it Palisades Lake, after the dam at one end? Calamity Lake, after a campground we passed? I haven’t a clue, and clearly Idaho has no intention of telling me. I’m going to have to look it up on Google Earth when I can get a decent signal just to satisfy our curiosity!

Which brings me to another point. All along the road, we see billboards advertising “CLR TLK”, aka Clear Talk, apparently a cellular service provider here in Idaho. And yet, I get about the worst, crappiest signal for my cell phone and the Sprint card I use to access the internet on the road. Which means, no contact with my peeps, or emailing more photos to the fam—nada. GRR. Yes, maybe it’s an addiction, but I like to let my friends and family know what’s going on and find out how they are doing. For all I know my sister could be in labor or have delivered our niece by now—I probably won’t get any signal until we cross the state line.

Adding to our frustration with the incredibly boring scenery was the fact that most of Idaho is a huge wind tunnel. We spent the better part of the afternoon wrestling the RV between the lane markings while forty mile an hour winds buffeted us. It gets pretty darn frustrating to be constantly fighting the wind, and seeing how it sucked the life out of the RV’s meager gas mileage just added to the irritation. There’s something else those “Go RVing” ads don’t tell you—an RV isn’t exactly windproof, and the door rattled so much I thought it was going to come off. The wind DID blow off one of the rear turn signal covers, so that’s something we are going to have to replace for our neighbors. Great. And I was mega-annoyed by the fact that every highway has about four or five different numbers attached to it, so figuring out if we are still on the right road can be a royal pain in the rear at times.

I mentioned the Snake River. It is very pretty, and we saw several whitewater rafting excursions out there yesterday. We will do that another time when the kids are older. However, what’s the next best thing? Staying next to the river, of course! So we booked into the Twin Falls KOA, right next to the Snake River. For some unfathomable reason (perhaps the lack of sleep referenced in my blog a few days ago), we miscalculated the number of miles between the Grand Tetons and Twin Falls, and so ended up on the road late. This meant that DS was screaming for the last half hour or so because he was just DONE being on the road. (As an aside, I think the road noise gets to him because when we’re on surface streets he’s fine again at the end of the day.) So we didn’t pull into the site until just after 8 pm. It was still light enough to see the pretty river, and we had eaten a fast food dinner to keep DD from going nuts, so we could just relax. I thought, “Ok, this is nice—I can settle for a nice night.” We even had cute little sparrows nesting in the tree next to our site. My birders heart went, “Awwwwwww.”
I’m just going to gloss over DD’s crying fit and time spent in bed with me and DS, and the hour or so it took to get both of them back to sleep at 2 am. It’s a time of my life I’d rather flush down the toilet, thanks. Anyway, we finally got back to sleep, and I was rudely jarred out of sleep in the middle of the night by a loud buzzing noise. A plane!! It kept coming back and buzzing the campsite, and I was getting seriously pissed off and ready to call the FAA with a noise complaint about this d@mn joyrider out at God-only-knew what hour of the night, when my sleep deprived brain figured out it was a crop duster. Sh!t. It finally left and I dozed back off, thanking God for the miracle that neither DS or DD woke up due to this. Then, it came BACK at 6 am. DH told me it came around the first time at 5 am. Of course, DS woke up the second time, and so did DD, and that was that.

So now here I am, at 7:40 am, sitting in the cab of the RV with DH driving as fast as he can to get the hell out of Idaho. I should have known what we were in for when we passed a Wal*Mart Supercenter-sized Army surplus store, whose signs boasted all manner of military supplies and even had old military vehicles for sale. Hmmmmmm. All that did was remind me of the newspaper stories about whacked out loners living in Idaho and separatist militias. Goody. That’s it Idaho—we’ve enjoyed looking at your potato fields (for about fifteen minutes, the rest of the eight hours of viewing were kind of dull) and we enjoy eating your spuds, but we won’t be hurrying back to be tourists in your state again.