Category: Travels

This mountain oddity I shot in Yellowstone looks like a big tongue to me.

…and here’s my new voicemail message:

We’ve been driving by the old General Mills silos in Newdale for years now, but lately the silos have been glimmering at us in the Idaho sun like something new, so I pulled over today to check things out.

It seems a large conglomerate named Agspring has bought out the General Mills’ Idaho grain operations in Newdale, Blackfoot, American Falls, Rockford, Idaho Falls and Pocatello, and renamed the operation Thresher Artisan Wheat.

Compared to most of the run-down old silos around here, these things are impressive! They do need to fix their silo sign though…

The were cuttin grain in the dry farms today while I was cuttin out of town to the Green Canyon hot springs. I was sure they were closed when I pulled up, no campers and no swimmers anywhere. Turns out this is their down season, kids are going back to school and camping is over. I had the place to myself…

On the way back I grabbed a couple shots of the canyon and a video:

This dam on the Snake River is along the route when I get out of town through Swan Valley. It provides irrigation, flood control, recreation and power to the area and the reservoir is huge (16,000 acres). It always struck me as looking kind of lame, just a bunch of small rocks holding everything back, but there’s a lot more to it obviously.

My new GPS is everything I hoped it would be. Her name is Nuvi Girl and is a hands-free marvel of navigational goodness. I can’t wait to take her on the road.

Steph asked for a couple of shots to get a feel for the size. It’s mounted in the same spot as my last GPS and fits perfectly.

My sweet little Garmin has arrived. I unpacked her and tried to hook her up to my computer, but the lame one foot USB cable didn’t reach my desktop. Fortunately, I have another cable, and this is the only bad experience so far.

I had already installed the Garmin Express program and as soon as I plugged the GPS in, it started updating the software on the unit. It went quickly and after unplugging, rebooting and then plugging the GPS back in, it started downloading the current Garmin USA maps. It’s updating the maps as I write this post.

I have to say, I’m impressed. I’ve gone through a few GPS setups, TomTom being the most pathetic, and this is how it should be. Great job Garmin!

Update: She’s installed in my truck and almost ready to rock and roll! I still need to give her a name so we can talk, and then hook my cell phone up via Bluetooth for hands-free calling. Did I mention she will access my address book and all I have to do is say “Call Brandi Steph“!

Update: (Thurs) I’ve been bonding with “Nuvi Girl” all morning!

I’ve been traveling around the country during the summer for a few years now. I remember the first trip in my little travel truck down to San Diego and up the coast, without a GPS or a cell phone. I was communicating with a netbook and free wi-fi while navigating with a compass on my dash. As I look back on that trip all I can say is ouch!

My most recent GPS Tomi has been my best friend on the road the last couple of years and an integral part of my cab. Today I stepped up and bought the best Garmin on the market, a 7 inch screen beauty called the 2797LMT (free Lifetime Maps and Traffic).

I’ve been wanting a bigger screen and more features, like elevation, and this unit has it all. It arrives tomorrow and I’ll do an unboxing for you…

I told Steph I bought this and her first words were “Can I Have Tomi?”.

btw: What do I call this one? She is voice activated and needs a wake-up word!

This is the worst photo shoot I’ve ever done. As I left Driggs this morning I keyed St Anthony, ID into my GPS and she told me that because I dilly-dallied around the house, I was going to arrive at 1045 for a 1030 parade. So, when I hit the town I drifted down the parade route for a ways until I found a parking spot and then mingled into the neighborhood. The parade hadn’t started yet, in fact, I stood around for a half an hour looking fine in my Tilly Hat until the damn thing actually started…

I put my poor old camera on Sport Mode because it did such a good job at Tin Cup and it just didn’t work well for the crappy location and lighting I so sloppily selected. In fact this set of photos is so bad I’m not even going to suggest you click the photo below to see this 160 shot mess, much less watch the slideshow…

St Anthony also has a cool old functional tank:

I just drove almost 800 miles in the last twelve hours, and I’m beat… We left the house around 0330 and I drove Steph to Missoula so she could catch a flight to Seattle. We stopped at my favorite little gas station in Dillon for fuel, along with their homemade sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit and got into Missoula mid morning. I could have stayed overnight but, we have a cat. I drove all the way back home and then had to convince Piper to go outside. I’ll be laying over in Missoula on the trip to get Steph back home.?

Tomorrow I’m heading to the St Anthony Pioneer Days Parade and I’ll bring back a bunch of pictures…

A conglomerate of recent spurting Yellowstone rockerage for your visual consumption.

The kids needed to get back home to the Seattle area, and they wanted to visit Yellowstone, so I came up with a scheme where we both drive up to West Yellowstone, I park my truck in town and Steph and I slide into their ride and we use my senior pass to get into the park for free. It worked perfectly.

We had a great time in the park, took a ton of pictures, watched Old Faithful go off, then the kids drove to Missoula to layover for the night, while Steph and I drove home.

It took a lot of walking to get these shots and all you have to do is click the photo below.

Taylor Chevrolet in Rexburg held their annual Car Show today so we dropped by on our way to Wallyworld to stock up on toilet paper. Click the engine to see what we saw…

I had an appointment at the Boise Airport today, to pick up Steph coming back from her mom’s memorial service in Enumclaw, WA. It’s 355 miles and a little over five hours so to break it up I left yesterday morning and drove straight to Miracle Hot Springs, about an hour this side of Boise.

I’d seen the signs for this place, along Interstate 84, so I researched them, booked an RV spot, and pulled in around 1400. The spot was $20 and an all day soak was $8. I ate my dinner (Beanie Weenie mixed with a package of tuna, in a styrofoam bowl) made the first of several cocktails in my plastic coffee cup, and mosied up to the tubs. There were four pools of varying temps and of course I went for the hottest, with a pipe of natural hot spring water feeding it.

It was a fun evening, I made several trips back to my campsite for refills, and met some engaging people. Hot water seems to inhibit the normal reluctance of people to chat with total strangers, and it’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed over a few summers of hot-springing.

I took the back roads into Boise this morning and all of the photos are available with a click on my campsite below.

I had a moment this morning driving home from Boise. The sun was coming up behind the clouds and the spacious Idaho beauty was unfolding across a barren interstate highway that I had to myself. Acoustic vintage rock was playing from my travel trucks sweet 1988 digital radio, soothing my soul as my brain swirled around, reliving my past.

All of a sudden I started belting out the lyrics loudly, rocking my body behind the wheel violently, thrusting my fist in the air, feeling the shiver of god down my spine and glad that the troopers weren’t on the highway at the moment. They surely would have pulled me over…

I’ve experienced this moment before. It’s the result of a total feeling of freedom that can only escape from your body when you are truly free and rolling across a beautiful landscape, with nobody around and just your memories as your friend. It is for these moments, that I travel…

Ok, I know what you’re thinking, here’s another sappy post of Piper sleeping on our hot tub lid. No, it’s just a lead in to the forty seven photos I took in Boise yesterday. Click on Piper’s belly and enjoy the show!