Bellevue, Idaho, United StatesHigh Country Motel, 766 South Main Street, Bellevue, Idaho 83313, United States
I woke up early enough - 6 am - and was out of the motel a little after 8 am, stopped to get some Bob's Red Mill muesli before I left Oregon but the Safeway did not have it.
I did buy one package of Bob's granola though. Then I left Baker City and drove on I84 eastward toward Crater of the Moon National Monument in Idaho. The first GPS ETA was around 2 pm, but by 5:30 I still hadn't made it, plus it was very windy and pretty cold, so I decided that, unless the campground was very sheltered (which I did not believe it was), I would have to stay in a motel again tonight.
I can't remember all the places I stopped or the reasons why. Maybe the photos will help. I did stop at a turn-off to take some photos of the beautiful green Snake River - at least I think it was. Was this before or after I hit the Idaho border? It was the Snake River and it runs along the border between Oregon & Idaho. Soon after the border, I stopped at a rest stop and took a bunch of photos of the hills or mountains. In this area, they are not forested, but covered in sagebrush or some other type of scrubby plants - and a lot of the yellow one, false something.... I was able to stop at some other turn-offs once I left I84.
Plus I was on rt30 for awhile before I hit Boise.. I had thought about checking out Boise since Serge said he liked it, but then I thought it would only put me farther behind so I didn't. When I got to the city of Mountain Home, I went onto rt 20 and stayed on it until I got to Carey where I searched for a motel and had to backtrack to get a reasonably priced one, but they were all a lot higher than Baker City - probably because this area is near the Sun Valley ski area. I was surprised that no hotels/motels seem to serve Carter of the Moon.
Merced responded to one of my messages that rt 20 was remote and she wouldn't have expected much traffic but there was quite a bit - trucks, cars, semis, RVs - the usual. The speed limit changed from 70 to 80 for cars; 60 to 70\for trucks. I stopped at a truck stop in Idaho that was supposed to be the best and got a sandwich and fries - I ate the sandwich but saved the fries. When I nuked them for dinner, they were barely palatable. But I ate about half of them before liberating the rest.
Hmmm, my thoughts are rather scattered.
When I got to the Bellevue motel, it was just about 6 pm. I brought in everything I thought I would need, hung u[ my laundry from this am since it was still very wet, put stuff in the rrfrigerator and then went out for a walk. I was hoping to take some photos of the hills, mountains in the golden light but, as I walked down the sidewalk, I never really had an unobstructed view of the hills so I mostly got a lot of buildings - lots of funky stuff here. Actually there were a lot of construction companies, architects, realtors, some artists - an interesting mix. I wasn't exactly sure how close Bellevue is to Sun Valley since some of the businesses use Sun Valley in their names. When I looked on a map, I see the ski resort town is a bit north of Bellevue. I still wonder why all the traffic - it was almost non-stop the entie time I was walking. I would have asked some other pedestrian, but I only saw 2 on my walk and they did not seem that approachable. It was not easy crossing the street - somehow I missed the crossing signs when I was out.
When I got back, I had my dinner and a glass of wine. Now I have finished today's blog. Oh, I did miss noting that the motel owner was not a happy person today because his son was diagnosed with covid and has a collapsed lung and is in the hospital. I did notice that people are not required to wear masks in stores or restaurants here in Idaho but I have been wearing mine when indoors with other people. Oh, the music has stopped from the party outside. I had heard someone singing and accompanying himself with guitar but then they went back to recorded James Taylor - a lot of James Taylor...plus other classic rock stuff. Maybe there is a noise rule here. So now I will upload today's Nikon pics and then probably go to bed with my book and read a little.
2025-05-22