Day 4 - Idaho

This Tuesday morning we didn't wake up quite so early, but did take some time to walk around a lake that reflects the Grand Tetons - pictures and poetry on all that to come later. So peaceful and beautiful! Then we went to a restaurant in the park and ate real buffalo burgers, to celebrate last night's adventure. Then we hit the road to head for Boise, Idaho. 

I fell asleep for the first hour of our journey, but when I awoke, we were slowly going down the side of a steep mountain, and the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the side of a rock with tall slender pine trees pointing to the blue sky. The sight took my breath away and really jolted me to full consciousness. 

Now I should go back and say that one thing that made this Wyoming-mountains bit of the trip so magical was that we were listening to C.S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy  on CD, and that book is about travelling from the southern lands, across the desert, and through the mountains to the North - Archenland and Narnia. So it was really quite thrilling to drive towards these great mountains and hear Bree (the Horse) cheer, "To Narnia and the North!" and wind slowly through the mountains during the scene where Aslan leads Shasta over the mountains. We really felt like we were living the story.   

After coming off the mountain, we came to Idaho and drove through a valley between the hills of the two states. Then once again the land flattened out into wide open plains. 

"The wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace"

Today our attention was captured more by the sky than the land. We watched four big thunderstorms soak the fields around us, but only had to drive through one.

"I hear the thunder in the sky, see the sky about to rain,
and I hear the prairies calling out Your name." 

We saw two full double rainbows - which is quite a sight to see on such flat landscape!

And we watched a wild fire on a hill, and even met a team of firemen at a rest stop who were on their way to put it out.

We also saw an eagle in its big nest, smelled more horse manure than we ever care to again, and had a ton of tumbleweed bounce across our path. Tonight is less wild than the previous two, but here we are in a roadside inn in Boise, drowsily reminiscing on this crazy land of potatoes and looking forward to the next leg of our adventure - Portland!