I have been lax in updating this road trip. Life intrudes. Stuff intrudes. Yet here I am again, just like the little engine that could. So hang on, here we go!

At the end of Part Twenty-Five, we’d just hit the motel in Blackfoot, Idaho. There weren’t a lot of people there and we thought about hitting the jacuzzi, but by now it was almost ten p.m. so we bagged it, showered, and went to bed.

The next morning, we got up, had breakfast, and packed up the car again. We were heading to see some very dear friends with whom we’ve been friends for oh my gosh, older than we are years! LOL. We knew each other as newlyweds in Idaho, had our kids at about the same time, and though we didn’t see each other regularly, the friendship we’d formed ‘way back when was alive and well.

We’d go to visit them, they’d come to visit us, all through the years when our kids were growing up. We’d have kids sprawled in sleeping bags in each of our not-very-big houses, crowd around dinner tables, and had the times of our lives, from when the kids were just babies all the way up to teenage years. So we were very eager to see our special friends again.

Here we are, just leaving Blackfoot. It was kinda hard to get used to seeing the pretty flat southern/eastern Idaho landscape after spending so much time in the mountains and high elevations. Well, try wait. Blackfoot isn’t exactly low. It’s about 4500’ up and is surrounded by all kinds of mountain ranges: The Caribou Range and the Blackfoot Mountains. Blackfoot has an interesting history if you wanna read it.

Anyway, here we are leaving town.

Pocatello is 21 miles from here heading South, Twin Falls 134 miles to the West, and Salt Lake City 179 miles South. Guess which way we’re headed. Guess! No can? Gotta wait den.

It’s now about 10 a.m. There are very gently rolling hills on one side of us.

Pocatello is now about 17 miles away, Twin Falls 131 (still to da west), and Salt Lake City 175 miles. Still south.

The road stretched out before us. We had never been on this highway so far north before, so we were enjoying the scenery.

Wow! Mountains!

We were enjoying the wide open spaces. In Oregon, at least where we live, it’s really hilly. I really like that, but we generally don’t have the “far as the eye can see” views that we’d been seeing on this trip.

We pulled off the road here to take a photo of the mountains. And maybe to let Kukui go shi shi.

Pretty mountains!
Montañas bonitas!
Nani nā mauna!

We’re getting closer to three places at least:

Pocatello: 8 miles
Twin Falls: 122 miles
SLC: 166 miles

We’re now almost into Pocatello. We haven’t been here since our girls were in elementary school! We came here late one October to see friends; we took the girls out trick or treating in weather so incredibly cold we hardly stayed out at all. It was our first trip to Pocatello, and it looked different than it did this time. Though not by much!

Looking kinda southwest.

Looking across the fields towards Pocatello.

We were very surprised to still see some green. It was a wonderful contrast to the dry conditions we’d seen before.

Civilization!

I really like this next view; we were heading directly towards the mountains, then down the hill into town.

Doncha just love it? We’re in the wild west!

As we drove into town, we saw this huge cemetery. It was really beautiful as we drove by.

The green park going right through town was really pretty. We’d come into town to try find a Safeway so that we could pick up a couple of sammiches for the rest of our trip.

I have to explain this next photo. While Nolemana was inside the store asking where the nearest Safeway was, I took a photo of this sign, not because of the Ace Hardware one, but because my mom and dad used to have a paint and wallpaper store, and they sold Benjamin Moore paint. So here’s to you, Mom.

Nolemana came back to the car and said he’d gotten a couple of strange looks, because when he asked for the nearest Safeway he was told there was no Safeway here. But some very nice people directed us to the nearest Albertson’s. So armed with sustenance for the journey, off we started again.

Well, as you can see by this photo, Pocatello wasn’t our destination. We are now headed west on Highway 30/86.

This is almost to American Falls. Try look all that grain!

We were able to get a very quick snapshot of pīpī for AFK!

We’re now 12 miles from American Falls, 65 miles from Burley, and 104 miles from Twin Falls.

Try look that light green ova dea! I gotta tell you, here in southern Idaho, green is a real treat for the eyes!

We weren’t sure what it was, though.

If you look hard enough, you can see the river or something ova dea. A big one.

I think that might be the American Falls Reservoir.

Still near American Falls.

This next sign marks the end of this part of our trip. Really, there wasn’t a whole lot to see here. Lots of desert and sagebrush though!

Raft River: 21 miles
Burley: 49 miles
Twin Falls: 88 miles.

And here’s the map for where we’ve been so far. You really gotta zoom in to see detail. From far away, wow, it looks like a long way from home, yeah?

I will get the next installment up sooner than this one. Promise! No geev up!