Day 2: Skirt the Mormons. About as clever a title as I feel like making it, and I know it's probably offensive to someone, but they can suck it up and grow a pair. I shouldn't be required to watch what I say because of someone else's feelings because I don't expect them to care about my feelings. Oh well, back on topic. This is long day number one (though when you are driving across the country every day should probably be a long day to do it in a reasonable amount of time). Distance: 712 miles, estimated drive time: 10 hours. So what did I decide to start the day doing...eating. That's right, continental breakfast at the hotel before anything else. Greasy foods (sausage mostly) may not have been the best option, but at least it was tasty. And right to driving? No, I decided to leave a little early to see one of the national parks in the area, basically one of the reasons for stopping in Twin Falls, ID, Shoshone Falls. They make the claim that Shoshone Falls is actually a little bit taller than Niagra Falls, and luck has it for me that I don't need a passport to see them (though I already have one so that wouldn't be a problem).
So I arrive at Shoshone Falls around 7:00 AM, and there is a sign on the entrance that gives park times and cost to drive down to the falls, but there is no one there. So I should probably wait until someone shows up so that I can pay, right? Why would I do that, the gate is wide open, so I just drive down in to the falls...and my cell reception drops to nothing (not an important note, just a observation). And this is what I behold at the falls:
Wait, wrong picture. That was along the drive down to the falls...sorry...
The view was gorgeous, and I thought the falls were impressive, though not as spectacular as what they were being advertised as. On the way out of the park, there was someone as the pay shack, and so I ended up stopping and talking with him. Apparently, the falls are dry. The small amount of water that I saw cascading down is just run off, and that it has actually been a very poor year for snow melt (since there wasn't much snow) and all of the river levels are low. When the falls are at their glory, they are much more spectacular. Guess I will need to make another trip out there at some point in my life. Maybe when I decide to drive through Wyoming (mostly Yellowstone).
And speaking of Wyoming, that was the most interesting part of the drive. Heading out of Idaho I traveled south east through Northern Utah (boring, there is really not much to see in that are). The most interesting part of that drive was the hilly areas where the highway was actually down in a small canyon (again, no cell reception). My path directed me around Salt Lake City, which was fine by me. I don't like driving in large cities, especially when I am attempting to keep my directions up to date on my phone (no, I don't have GPS navigation in my car). The scenery changed once I got in to Wyoming. The first portion was kinda flat and boring, and then the hills started, and the valleys, and the rock formations, and it was a very pretty drive through Wyoming.
See, pretty. Near the eastern side of Wyoming, it got kinda flat again, but once I hit the state line of Wyoming and Nebraska, I was only 60 miles from my destination for the day; Sidney, NE. It was pretty funny actually, I don't remember how many miles I was in to Nebraska before I started seeing corn, but I did start seeing it in that first 60 miles. From what I could tell so far, there really wasn't much there except corn. I realize that probably isn't true, but from the drive and my perspective of what I was seeing, that was it. And who decided that stop lights should be different? I was confused when I stopped in Sidney because instead of the lights being vertical, they were horizontal. Red on the left, yellow in the middles, green on the right. Though the one nice thing about that that I can say, you can see the lights over the large transport trucks, something they cant seem to figure out in the Pacific Northwest.
Arrived, checked in to my hotel, and set out to find food. There was a place called Buffalo Point that had a really delicious sounding sandwich, the problem was that I couldn't find it. There literally wasn't much in the part of town I stopped in. Apparently there was more a little north, but I didn't feel like driving much more. Finally found Buffalo Point near the Cabela's. I'm not talking about a Cabela's store (though they had one of those too), Sidney, NE is the corporate headquarters for Cabela's. Who knew? Grabbed my food, went back to the hotel to watch some TV and eat, and then passed the hell out to get as much sleep as I could for the next leg of the drive. The bed in that hotel wasn't as nice as the previous, but you deal with things like that sometimes.
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