Ho da long time, yeah? Well, one excuse is that I was at the beach with my friends for four days. But here I am again, and we’ll be driving through the Idaho desert for a bit longer. When we first moved to Twin Falls, I had a really hard time about the desert. The towns were green, with trees and flowers, but surrounding all of them was the desert. I never could get totally used to it; coming from Hawaiʻi where everywhere was green, I was sometimes known to whine about having to go through desert to get anywhere.

Now I can see that the desert has its own lonesome kind of beauty. We would see plenty of it on our way home, too.

After having lunch with B and G, we headed back out across Perrine Bridge. It was really hard to leave our friends, and we all told each other we’d try hard not to let so much time go by before seeing each other again.

This shot kind of shows where we used to hike down and go fishing at Devil’s Punchbowl. I really meant it when I said it was a long hike down!

I’m gonna do some reading about how the Snake River Canyon was formed, because it’s really pretty incredible.

This almost looks like the place where we’d park our cars to hike down to the river.

As usual, we stopped at a Heritage Marker. I absolutely love reading these and getting some sense of history about the places we visited.

It’ll be about two hours to Boise. Through the desert. Nolemana used to make this trip fairly often when he was in the National Guard, or if there was a manager’s meeting for Kinney Shoes scheduled.

We’re now leaving the outskirts of Twin Falls. On our way to Boise. Through the desert.

Pīpī for AFK! Nolemana really had to take this photo on the fly. I love the Soldier Mountains in the background, all covered with snow.

Nice shot, Nolemana! Considering we were traveling along at 70 MPH he did a great job!

When we first moved here, the sight of the Sawtooth Forest and the Sawtooth Mountains never failed to amaze me. One of the things I love about Idaho are the incredible mountain ranges.

And yes, the desert. But also wide open spaces, which we loved.

Oh, and the Sawtooth Mountains. I never got tired of seeing them! When we had time, we’d always drive up to the Wood River Valley, beyond to Sun Valley, then over Galena Summit, just to be in the presence of these mountains.

Dried cornstalks against the majesty of the mountains.

Have a mentioned desert before?

Sagebrush is free! Stuff some in your trunk! I do miss the Stinker Stations signs!

The road stretched way out in front of us. Musubi was beginning to get antsy.

This is a good highway have a book on CD handy. Because there isn’t much to look at. Except that amazing wide-open sky stretching out as far as we could see!

Kewl, yeah?

We needed to stop at this rest area for a very important reason. Aside from going shi shi, that is.

Yep, this is it! We had to put on a new spinner! I’d just remembered that we’d had a spare in the glove box, so while we were stopped, Nolemana put the new one on. Musubi was most happy.

This new one was so bright! I’d forgotten how great spinners look when they’re new. It spun kind of kapakahi for awhile till it got used to being on the antenna. At 70 mph.

This was just past the rest stop; in the desert.

Ah yes. The desert. In Southern Idaho.

Believe it or not, the Snake River is ova dea.

Really, the only signs of life around here are when we come to water. Then we can see farms and ranches springing up nearby.

Lidis! Water equals life in this fairly barren area.

And railroad tracks, too! If only a train would appear right now.

Ha!! One did!! I wonder if the people who live here get used to the noise… I expect they do after awhile.

I would love it! Actually, once Nolemana and I lived a two blocks from train tracks, and even that far away the house shook when a train went by.

End of this part. Next time, Musubi almost jumped right out of the car… fortunately we were able to stop him. But he had quite an adventure. Which will explain the entire concept of Da Mystery Road Trip.