SUMMARY: Elko, NV to Victor, ID
Backfill: (Aug 20)Today I took 800 photos. This is 1/16 of them. Have photos of many more interesting things in those 500 miles, but trying to learn to limit myself... at least for the moment.
Hotel last night was nice. Lush bedding. Mr Fox No.12 and his new friend and their current reading material bedded down comfortably.
Well... the view out my bedroom window wasn't so plush.
Nice-enough bathroom. This is one way in which I ensure that there are photos of me on trips.
We took only the healthiest of snacks to keep up our energy and enthusiasm. Anyway, it's OK, they're in a Smithsonian bag, so they have to be good. Am I right?
Hotel room had artsy lamps.
No matter where you go, there they are.
Breakfast at the hotel. Nice, free assortment of buffet food. Yowza. Linda assembles hers.
The entrance to the hotel parking lot. This boot is taller than I am.
Back to admiring desert landscapes.
The highway went on, and on, and on, and on...
So, this was cool. Not only were there blatantly obvious warning signs...
...but they also provided migration bridges across the freeway! (There is no road across that bridge.)
This is your basic Hail Mary, grab the camera, shoot over the shoulder as we whiz by at 80 MPH photo of a pronghorn. Only one I saw the whole trip. Linda saw another one but no photo.
Not saying that it wasn't, at times, a bit of a long drive...
Linda and her friend the cell phone. It came in quite handy many times.
Looking for a new business opportunity for your retirement years? How about a hot springs resort? (It's for sale!) Note the little individual hot-spring spa huts behind the tree on the right side.
Mother Nature is amazing at providing apparently completely level surfaces. No wonder they're called tables (mesas).
This is another way that I ensure that there are photos of me on trips.
More and different stunning formations and colors, with Paul.
Linda: "Huh--all of a sudden I have great cell reception? What?"
Intriguing layers of different hardness and textures.
Roadside flowers and my turkey feather.
In Idaho, not Nevada, and boom, all of a sudden there's agriculture, and lovely mow patterns in the fields.
Google maps took us off the freeway to get around one of the Idaho cities. It didn't really mean for us to take this dirt road, though--that was our... um... choice.
Ya won't see *this* in California!
Also, now that we're in Idaho, it's all about tomorrow's total eclipse of the sun.
("I flew my new car up to Idaho to see the total eclipse of the sun...")
Checking out one of the many emigrant trails through the area. Here, you can still see the wagon-wheel ruts (sort of) off the side of the highway. Shows how very many wagons made that trip.
Um, OK, let's not go there.
...um... OK... Neat. (https://www.cirkuspandemonium.net/)
("Because it's all about eclipse, 'bout eclipse (no trouble)")
Now here's an idea I can get behind.
Smoke from huge wildfires in the Pacific Northwest obscured the skies in Oregon and, until last night, Idaho. We got lucky. Oregon eclipse trippers, not so much (they could see the eclipse OK but no stars at night).
And now we're in Victor...
... and every little field and farm is hoping to make a bundle off of eclipse visitors.
The only preexisting campground in Victor was packed to the gills with tents and RVs.
Yep, making money off the tourists. Hopefully.
This guy apparently spent tens of thousands setting up all kinds of fancy stuff and arranged for live bands and who knows what all. But there just weren't that many tourists in Victor. (They all went to Oregon or to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, over the pass.)
Our destination! Lovely home of our lovely hosts.
The view from my bedroom window. Beats the one from the Marriott back in Elko any day.
Some of our hosts.
Here we be at The Spud, a wonderful old but still functional drive-in theater. All of those are gone from here in Silicon Valley except maybe one.
Even The Spud was renting out its field for Eclipsers. There were maybe a couple dozen.
Yep, even the school district is hopeful about eclipse tourists.
We drove up the road a few miles to get a view of the Grand Tetons. Amazing mountains.
Hosts' home's backyard consisted of a couple of acres of wildflowers. Delightful.
Someone else who probably wasn't going to earn out his eclipse hopes. We hope that our eclipse hopes for tomorrow turn out as lovely as our hosts and their homes and the weather and the beautiful valley here.
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