Today I am starting my quest back east. I left Boise about 8:30am this morning (thanks to Tony for generously opening up his house to me!!!), and took hwy 21 north through Idaho City, Lowman, and into Stanley.
The road near Lowman has many twisties (switchbacks) that are fun
. Below, you can see a sign with a 180 degree arrow that I've seen a few times on this road - something you'll never see in ND. This road was very peaceful and quiet, very little traffic. Just nice!
Just east of Lowman, there is a natural hot spring there, where hot water streams flow down into the river, and you can wade through the warm water. I was planning on taking a dip into the water, but between Idaho City and Lowman, I got stuck behind a road line striper going about 6-7 mph for I don't know how many miles. Because of this, I needed to keep going to make it to Idaho Falls by tonight, and I knew I still had quite a few planned stops to make today.
Made it to Stanley, stopped for lunch and to browse over my maps again. Good food here. Most expensive gas on the trip though at $3.47. Probably because Stanley is in the middle of nowhere, and it all has to be trucked in from far away. Stanley is a cute little tourist town.
Headed south on hwy 75 through Ketchum, Sun Valley, and Hailey
. All 3 are tourist towns full of traffic. Hailey was exceptionally busy because some event was going on at the time. Ugh - oh well, at least traffic kept moving. By this time, the temp was reaching near 90, and driving 20-25 through a mile of town can get a bit hot. My leathers do keep me cooler though than I would be without them, ironically. It's warm, but I don't burn up wearing a very heavy leather jacket, leather chaps, and leather gloves, with full-face helmet on --- all black, of course.
Drove down to US hwy 20, and jumped on this road heading east towards Crators of the Moon National Monument. This is a very unique place, as the whole ground is covered with lava - for miles and miles, covering thousands and thousands of acres. As I got closer, I was watching my thermometer and it was creeping up - 92, 93, 94, 95, ...
I talked to the gal who was hosting an outdoor lava exhibit, and asked her some questions. I ask her how did this lava get here? She said there are natural cracks in the earth's surface here, where magma gushed through about 15,000 years ago and spewed hot lava out and it flowed for miles and miles over the ground
. Actually, they believe there were two eruptions, one 15,000 years ago and one as recently as 2,000 years ago. According to her, ecologists believe that there will be soon another eruption in the Yellowstone area. "Soon" meaning within the next 100 to 1,000 years.
After driving the loop around the monument, I headed east towards Arco, ID. I marked Arco as a waypoint to Idaho Falls - where I was planning on stopping for the night - but the heat was wearing me thin by 5:00pm, and Arco was much bigger than I thought it would be, surprisingly. So I decided to hang up the boots early here for the night. That's ok, because I needed to service my bike tonight - I haven't done that yet since I left home!
I decided that I'm going to spend an extra day in Yellowstone NP, to use up my spare rain day that I haven't needed to use since the weather's been very sunny and dry most of the trip. So the plan tomorrow is to finish the journey to Yellowstone and camp out there for a night. Then on Saturday it will be just a short 126 miles to Red Lodge, MT. That will give me about a day's worth of time to explore the park. It will be nice to get some time off the bike and do some hiking.
Miles Today: 288
Day 6 - Thursday
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Arco, Idaho, United States
Other Entries
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1Prelog - The Start
Jul 096 days priorHarwood, United Statesphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 3 -
2Day 1 - Saturday
Jul 105 days priorWilliston, United Statesphoto_camera3videocam 0comment 0 -
3Day 2 - Sunday
Jul 114 days priorKalispell, United Statesphoto_camera130videocam 1comment 11 -
4Day 3 - Monday
Jul 123 days priorLibby, United Statesphoto_camera33videocam 0comment 3 -
5Day 4 - Tuesday
Jul 132 days priorLolo Hot Springs, United Statesphoto_camera33videocam 0comment 11 -
6Day 5 - Wednesday
Jul 141 day priorBoise, United Statesphoto_camera12videocam 2comment 2 -
7Day 6 - Thursday
Jul 15Arco, United Statesphoto_camera42videocam 1comment 0 -
8Day 7 - Friday
Jul 161 day laterYellowstone National Park, United Statesphoto_camera45videocam 0comment 1 -
9Day 8 - Saturday
Jul 172 days laterCody, United Statesphoto_camera49videocam 1comment 1 -
10Day 9 - Sunday
Jul 183 days laterLead, United Statesphoto_camera30videocam 1comment 0 -
11Day 10 - Monday
Jul 194 days laterHarwood, United Statesphoto_camera8videocam 0comment 0 -
12Postblog - The End
Jul 205 days laterHarwood, United Statesphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0
2025-02-07