The day started with a great road that winded through the Sawtooth mountains and Sawtooth wilderness. People were few and far between which was good because the little road we were on butt right up against massive multicolored rock slides. Rocks were constantly in the road and needed to be dodged. Hitting a random rock while on a turn or even in a straight away can be dangerous. We were once again near the Salmon river, but today we passed it’s headwaters. It was really cool to see where this massive river which has been with us for so many days starts.
My most unexpected moment came when due to rocks in the road I made a corner going pretty slow and noticed what I thought was smoke coming directly out of the rock slide next to me. Prior to seeing this ‘smoke’ I noticed that this particular valley smelt like an out house. Every other valley smells wonderful, what the hell is going on in this valley I thought. As I got closer to the ‘smoke’ I noticed ten feet up water was coming directly out of the rocks and running down to the road. The smoke was steam! The sulfur smell was coming from right here. It was awesome!  The steam hugged the rocks all the way to the road from it’s source and a small steam cloud hung over the small pool at road level. This was my first natural hot spring. There was no where to park to get a better look and if I hadn’t have been going so slow I may not have noticed it. I’ve seen a hot spring before in Chena, Alaska but that was just a hot swimming pool, today I was able to see the actual process and I loved it.
After the Sawtooths we headed towards Sun Valley where the Sundance film thing is. It’s a pretty area, I can see why all the rich bastards have summer or winter houses there. Who cares about that stuff though.
Later we rode through the Craters of the Moon national park. It’s a rocky wasteland that couldn’t have been any fun to cross prior to roads being built. We stopped briefly, but some people can’t seem to figure out the fact that some places (most) are better experienced alone. We call it the IRobot syndrome. People can’t do shit without someone else already being there. Here’s simplified example, sit in an empty theater and regardless where you’ve sat people will sit near you. We encounter this behavior a lot on the road. The people today didn’t even get out of their cars, they just parked next to us (when there was plenty of room far away). It makes me crazy.
After the park, Idaho pancaked and the roads were long and straight. We passed Atomic City, it’s where one of the first nuclear power plants was built. I don’t know the details but I believe it’s been offline for a while. It’s ‘complex’ if you wanna call it that consisted of a few small pinkish buildings about a mile off the main road. The sign was the only indication that this was something awesome at one time. It’s kinda sad I guess.
As the pancake stretched out in front of us all you could see was a whole lot of nothing and a couple of long dead volcanoes. Swampkat noticed something else though, Hermes has GPS on it and Kat said, “Have yoy seen all the roads we’ve passed? They are unmarked on the GPS.”  Somebody is hiding something outside of Idaho Falls.
As I wrap this up I wanted to share a joke Swampkat made on the way into Idaho Falls. He says “Idaho Falls, more line Idaho Flats”. We laughed and then I said, watch the ‘falls’ will probably be man made.