August 29, 2015
I must guard the humans.
Are there more mousies? Lemme sit
here and watch. Be patient...
I took my morning walk heading up the road towards the town
of Shoup. What a spectacular view. The Salmon River and its valley wind around
and down. Canyon sunflowers are still in
bloom lining the road as are some other yellow desert scrub flowers. It is still smoky, not quite as bad as yesterday. It is actually a little humid today. Maybe a drop of rain will fall.
After a big breakfast, Spouse and I decide to take some of
the back roads along the trail that Lewis and Clark explored. We left our guide, Rudy-jawea to guard the
homefront. Turning on to the road to
Shoup, the road follows the river. Shoup
is 17 miles down the road. The road ends
at Corn Creek, about 46 miles down. An
occasional picnic area pops up along the water.
You can camp at any of these areas should you choose; just pull over and
enjoy. They certainly have made camping
easy here. And it is clean. We have seen very little trash strewn around. It is very impressive. The road is paved until about 2 miles from
Shoup, and then it is a really nice dirt road.
Nothing like our 4th of July Creek adventure! Every turn is a new scenic vista. The town of Shoup is essentially a tiny store
and restaurant. It has a couple of
really old gravity fed gas pumps outside.
Talked to a few of the visitors and decided to head to Corn Creek.
It is the weekend so there are quite a few rafters out. We see lots of wildlife; pronghorn sheep, a
bald eagle sunning itself, chukar, deer.
We can only imagine what Lewis and Clark saw through here. Outside of the road, it is relatively
untouched. Hundreds of miles down river,
there are dams, there are also wildfires down there so rafters have to pull out
at Corn Creek. We pass through a tiny
community of RVs and a couple of really nice houses. For the most part, these are all off the
grid. We see a few houses across the
river. Since there is no road access, we
certainly wondered about the logistics of building the homes. A couple of them have trolley stations on
both sides of the river so they can essentially zip line home. But using those small trolleys to actually
build the place is questionable. Wild
elderberry is growing along the road.
Not yet ripe though. After
watching the pronghorn sheep clean the ashes out of the barbecues at the
campground at Corn Creek, we retrace our steps to the point of Panther Creek.
This is a smaller road, following a smaller creek. Miles of wildfire denuded mountains are on
one side of the creek. The other side still
has pines. We pass through several
different types of areas from forested, to desert scrub, to rocky
mountains. A variety of firs; douglas,
noble and lodgepole pines follow us with some new pines, aspens, poplars,
willows and cottonwoods, not to mention the forest scrub. This road is smaller, but we are not seeing
any other vehicles. We turn to even
smaller roads that are rockier and follow different creeks. The Forestry service provides a great map of
off road trails. We could go on forever,
it is time to get off the dirt.
We end up on a road south of Salmon. We finally hit pavement and we are on a
beautiful back road by ranches and farms.
After a nice dinner, we head to the Salmon Stampede. No, that is not a bunch of salmon with tennis
shoes running the streets! It is a
rodeo, you know, one of those events where people torture farm animals in the
name of fun! There is the show inside
the gates, then there are the human farm animals... those that gorge on county
fair type food, let the kids run all over and generally strut their stuff. Note to the girl trying to look like Cameron
Diaz... yeah you in the black top and burgundy pants... the pants are too
small! Nobody wants to look at your ass! Save that for plumbers...
Spouse, do we have ice in the ice chest?
Yes.
Ok, when we stop at the store, I gotta get something too.
Why are you going to the ice chest, it is probably all water
now.
I thought you said we had ice?
That was this morning.
Why didn't you say that when I asked you if we had ice?
ARGH!!!! Anybody want
him? He can be yours for a small fee...
maybe even for free...
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