Day 7: On into Idaho
I hoped to visit my friends Karen and Andy and their family in Boise, Idaho. I had called them a couple days earlier, but discovered they had planned a weekend trip to McCall. However, they were not leaving until early afternoon on Friday, August 16. So if I could get to their house by noon, we could at least visit for an hour or two before they left.
In anticipation of this, I was up and away from Brigham City early, about 7:30 AM. The morning air was brisk and dewey. I rode west on Utah highway 83, a two-lane road, through Corinne toward Promontory. The visitor center at the Golden Spike Site did not open until 9 AM, I had read somewhere. However, I hoped to ride up there and look around even though I would probably have to split before 9 if I expected to get to Boise by noon.
The was a fair amount of commuting traffic on highway 83. There were no signs for Promontory, but many signs for Thiokol, which I discovered was not a city, but instead a large plant where Thiokol Corporation builds rocket propulsion systems. It's a very rural area, and Thiokol is the biggest thing out there.
Running parallel and just to the left of highway 83 was the original trackbed of the transcontinental railway. It is now abandoned and there are no tracks, but the raised grade of the original line is still visible, although overgrown with grass. There are occasional wooden bridges where the track passed over small streams. Just past the road to Promontory, the grade becomes significantly elevated and makes a sweeping turn to the left as it heads up toward the summit. The grade in the turn is broken by a large gap where presumably a trestle, now gone, supported the track.
A wooden bridge in the old railway grade.
Break for missing trestle where the grade turns left.
The road to Promontory tees left off highway 83 near the Thiokol site and runs approximately nine miles to the summit where the Golden Spike visitor center is located. The road is not paved, but covered with gravel of the small black pea type that acts like little ball bearings under your wheels and feet when you come to a stop on a motorcycle. It was also very dusty. I rode about a half mile, then stopped. Considering my time constraints and the road condition, I decided this side trip wasn't practical. Carefully I turned the K1200LT around and headed back to the highway. (Can't afford to drop that thing out there in the wilderness. Who knows how long I would wait for someone to help pick it up.)
I followed Utah 83 around its loop northwest and back to Interstate 84. From there, I hit the gas and hightailed it to Boise. Stopping once in Twin Falls for fuel, a quick cup of coffee, and a prepackaged pastry -- breakfast this day -- I pulled into Karen and Andy's driveway at 12:05 PM.
I had a nice visit with Karen, her three little girls -- now 6, 4, and 2 years old -- and Emma, their beautiful springer spaniel. Emma is always a little shy when I arrive by motorcycle, but warms up once I get away from the bike. Andy arrived from work about one. We had a sandwich and chatted while they packed up. Then, about 2 PM, we were all off to the north country, I on the bike, and Karen, Andy, and family (minus Emma, who was boarding with a neighbor for the weekend) in the Suburban. It was great to see them again. It had been about a year since I stopped to visit on my way to Jackson, Wyoming, on my 2001 trip.
Karen, a little camera-shy.
Andy, handsome as ever.
Emma, one of the world's truly beautiful pets.
I continued my ride that day up Idaho highway 55 through McCall. It's a beatiful road with a gushing whitewater river, the Payette North Fork, I believe, parallel nearly all the way. Lots of fishermen and rafters. The whole road, for a hundred miles or so, looks like the cover of a Cabela's catalog.
Riding out of Boise, I noticed my right driving light was out again. This time it didn't come back on. During a stop for fuel and hydration at Cascade, I pulled the old bulbs and inserted the new H3s I had purchased in Green River. After that, no problem.
After passing McCall, at the junction with US highway 95 I turned south. I started looking for a place to stay for the night. It was getting late, and I wanted to see Hells Canyon next day. I should have stopped in New Meadows. It looked like a friendly town with a couple of good inexpensive motels and a lively restaurant. But instead, I pushed my luck. Finally, at Cambridge, just about dusk, I stopped at a small motel and inquired about the rates. At fifty dollars for the night, however, I felt it was overpriced, at least for this little country town. So I rode south to Weiser. I had memories of tent camping there in 1971 during a camping trip while a graduate student. The same campground was there, although no longer a KOA, right on highway 95. I didn't feel like camping this night, however. As it turned out, there was only one choice of motel in Weiser. I took the room there for forty-two dollars. By the time I got to the local steak house the hotel manager recommended for dinner, a corner hole in the wall in a rather poor residential area, it had closed. I missed the 9 PM closing time by about five minutes because I had ridden by it twice before I asked a kid on the corner where the steakhouse was and realized that this was it when he pointed across the intersection. My dinner for the night consisted of a sandwich at the Subway shop I had seen on my way into town. Weiser is the prototypical hick town -- every bit as charming as I remembered it from 1971 when yahoos in pickup trucks were whooping and hollering and popping off what sounded a lot like gunshots up on the highway while we tried to sleep at night in our tent at the campground. Pretty drab, really. No reason to go there that I can think of, although they apparently have a fiddle festival sometime each summer.
Return to 2002 trip map.
