Day 3: Leaving Idaho and on to Alpine, Wyoming

The road from Winnemucca to Wells, where we turned north, proved to be much of the same – vast expanses of desert with little more than sage brush clinging to life. The boys were engaged by the scenery for a few moments when we played eye-spey but quickly requested we turn the BBC rendition of Narnia back on.
We made it to Enco rather peacefully, only some whining from Sasha that he would prefer to be fishing and when would we be “there”. As we rolled in to Enco I saw a sign for a Mexican restaurant and thought that might be a good bet but when we spotted two rather hip looking people on bikes we decided to ask the “locals”. The guy thought about our question, turned to his girlfriend and they exchanged a few sentences in Norwegian, then recommended the casino restaurant. We headed for the Mexican place across from the old train. A little train climbing, some Carne Asada (for Jakub), cheese quesadilla (for the boys) and Mickey Mouse, a plate of onion with prawn and avovado grilled in lime and chile, (for me) and we were all a lot happier. As we climbed back in the car I encouraged the boys to sleep promising the desert would pass more quickly. They took the advice and were asleep within a few minutes, thereby dreaming through the remainder of Nevada.
At around Kaffee Pause time both boys woke up, internal clock promising sugar?, and we tried to find another good coffee shop, this time in Twin Falls. We hit the Java Hut, as recommended by the gentleman on one very quiet Main Street. Java Hut proved to be very Canadian. Though the barista made a huge point of asking if I wanted my cappuccino wet or dry (on the dry side I said) and commended me on knowing the difference, a huge milky drink appeared with little espresso added. The desserts, though reasonably tasty, were as big as Montana ( a good thing perhaps if you have a family of 8) and all in all my three boys were not so happy. Note for next trip: great breakfast stop and in afternoon stick to a macchiato.
I am not sure if it is the Baptist influence, but on this Sunday everything save the Barnes and Nobles and liquor store were closed. We therefore hit Barnes and Nobles to get a good recreation map of Idaho and a book with some tips. Though the book was a whopping $25.00 it proved itself immediately useful, as I scanned it to find a nice “primitive” campsite at Preacher Bridge just outside of Shoshone. The dirt road that led to it made it seem as though I had totally blown it, but once we rounded the corner and spotted the creek we caught site of a perfect pull-out complete with fire pit just by the water. I did a little yoga, splashed in the creek and the boys are currently trying to catch us some dinner. Till morning.
Day 2:
At 4am we were woken with barking and growling noises just outside the tent, Jakub popped his head out to see what might be going on and a small dog aggressively tried to make his way in to the tent. Jakub gently tried to shoo him away, but my mama bear instinct kicked in (I wasn’t sure if he was feral or rabid or what) and so I raised my menacing voice and yelled, “go away”. It seemed to do the trick and the dog left, or so we thought. Shortly after we had fallen back asleep the Sasha almost jumped out of his skin and the dark was growling by his ear (outside the tent). Things settled and we woke early in the morning to the site of a cute small dog that was hungry, lonely and friendly as hec. We fed him some bacon which he devoured, looking for more. Out came the tongue, then all our tri-tip. Part way through a chunk of tri-tip the size of his lef it seemed he had finally had his fill. We spent the morning playing with him, discussing what to do with him (the local SPCA , about 40 miles away, had had signs that it was full. We envisioned him going for 3 months and then being put to sleep. The boys and I wanted to take him but that meant ending our trip just as we began – no dogs are allowed in National Parks. We finally agreed to leave him there given it was a higher traffic fishing area, and if I was still shedding tears in a week we could come back and take him with us. As we left the campsite the dog carried on with his usual business, no struggle to join us in the car, no chasing. Seemed we had made a good choice.
***Note on taking quick morning bath in the creek. Insert picture
Onward we went, heading east. The road here winds through small towns, surrounded by fields and open space little more lush than the desert. Though I had enjoyed the morning bath in the Little Wood River, I was in search of more water, this time hot springs. At mile 214.4 on the 93 there is a small unmarked pullout on the left hand side, without a tip you would drive right past, as we did the first time. Once in the pullout a well worn path leads to the well hidden hot springs. There are two pools, the large pool being about 5ft deep . The mossy rocks as we entered the pools were a bit slick and Sasha went from sitting peacefully to a terrifying (for him) slide in to the deeper water. I think he may have actually swallowed a little water as well, which is not great as this pool is rumoured to give drinkers the present of giardia.
Though we were initially alone at the pools, we were quickly joined by ________, who works with pullingforflowers.org, an organization that collects wildflower seeds from around the state and plants them in other areas. She tipped us off to the bounty of Ribes(currants) just beside the pools (cross the marshy grass to the right of the pool and there are more currants than you can pick). We shared a post-pool snack of yellow and red Ribes and then climbed back in the CRV to head to Craters of the Moon National Monument.