To: OnTheRoad

From: Richard Dean <richdean@clark.net>

Subject: greetings from idaho

hello all...

i apparently confused some folks with my last email -- no, that wasn't a 4 month internet delay, i am back on the road in search of work and the great outdoors. thanks for all the emails back, its nice to hear friendly voices on the road. :)

i was planning on going thru northern Montana via some back roads (US12) and relive a River Runs Through It, but while eating at the Pioneer Cafe in Round Up, I saw a brochure for Yellowstone and decided to go down there instead (its closer to Boise anyway...). Spent the night on the banks of the Yellowstone River camping... there's nothing like drinking a beer and watching the sun crawl behind a mountain. The sunsets last a really long time out here... well, twilight does anyway. Every time you drive up a mountain in Montana, you end up on this vast brown plateau (i guess this is what they mean by high plains...) from which you can see the river below and the train line beside it -- its like one of those train dioramas that have everything in just the right place....

Driving alone makes you think of weird things: When I lived in Champaign-Urbana, I actually called an entymologist at the university to find out if you hit so many bugs at night because they are drawn to the lights of your car. Its the kind of hard hitting journalism I do, ya know. Well the guys thought it was a pretty novel idea, but completely untrue. Its just the speed of the car (duh....). While driving thru the government's vast 900 square idaho miles of nuclear expeimentation today, i failed to smush any bugs. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Yellowstone was full of boiling mud and exploding geysers, but the more stunning aspect was the tremendous devestation still apparent from the '88 fires. The road to Old Faithful was only open from 6-10am, and since its at least an hour from the northern entrance where I started, I didn't get to see it -- but I did see a few others. The smell of sulphur is staggering at times, but to see really big elk sitting amongst these boiling pools and the sizzling ground, its worth it.

From there, it was down US 20 (Providence to Portland Road) to Rexburg, site of one of the biggest dam collapses in history. 8 billion gallons shot down the river at 50 miles an hour 20 years ago. More or less wiped everything out. The it was down to Twin Falls and a bite to eat at the North Hi-Way Cafe where the dinner talk was shot guns, souped up Chevy Suburbans with big blocks, and laser guided sights for rifles... no lie. Needless to say I didn't add much to the conversation.

i'm off to boise now, then seattle...

see ya!

rich