We stayed in the same state today, but that doesn't mean we didn't travel.
The morning began at a hotel outside Boise with a free breakfast consisting of coffee, bagels, and cinnamon rolls. The food on display was biscuits, gravy, and sausage patties. At least I think it was, in reality it was probably silicon implants and babysick.
The doors opened to the parking lot letting in the sweet scent of manure. Welcome to Idaho.
Despite the occasional whiff of livestock effluent, I've decided that I really like Idaho and at some point I'll come back. After all, I've got family here.
Gassed and caffeinated (thanks to McDonalds and not thanks to the hotel coffee) we hit the road. We didn't stop much except for rest stops. One was more than just a rest stop, it was in fact an Oregon Trail historical site. What I'm driving is basically a reverse Oregon Trail and it brings back so many memories of elementary school "computer lab". I keep hoping I'll find the graves of such beloved characters as "Farts" and "Poohead". Oh wait, that was only on the computer. What we did see was some trail ruts on the other side of a barbed wire fence. Mmmm history. As a big history nerd I pretty much go coocoo bananas every time I see a brown sign on the highway.
After visiting our "ruts" I jumped behind the wheel only to find that the road was under construction and instead of going East on 86 I would be going East on West 86. Huh? That's right, Idaho dropped some cones down the middle and I was headed down the wrong way. It was like a scene from "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles".
"You're going the wrong way!"
Our first real stop was Idaho Falls. It was a quite little town and great place to walk along the river with a shaved ice. I took 1,000 of the same photos. I also found a button on my camera that would display a photo 16 times. Needless to say it was a well documented trip.
"Idaho Falls and Caboose ice cream stand"Our final stop was Rexburg, where my great aunt Ethel lives. We haven't seen "Auntie Ethel" (pronounced as one word: "antiethel") in maybe... ten years? When I walked in the first thing she said was "Gawrsh Karen, you done grown up" which is funny because my Great Auntie has grown down. It was pretty cool to see her. All her kids, my mom's cousins, came over too. It was really fun to see family after two days of travel and it was wonderful to see my grandma's younger sister. It made me miss my sister and really made me miss my grandma.
My grandparents were pretty incredible. As my great aunt said, my grandpa was "a prince of a man". It was so interesting to hear the movement of all my predecessors. They were everywhere over the last 81 years: Idaho, Washington, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Iowa, California, Colorado. I guess with me you can add British Columbia and Missouri to the list. They hopped trains and drove and walked all over this country. My grandpa ended up in Tacoma because it's where the train ended. My grandma ended up here with her mom who came to Tacoma because there were jobs as riveters in the shipyards during the war. My grandpa drove a bus, my grandma was a waitress. She flicked some water in his face, then they married, kids, grandkids, and now here I was in Rexburg having dinner with my grandmas sister. It all comes around. It's all history.
Several years ago I found a picture of my grandparents taken by my auntie in Kilgore, ID. It was on the BYU Idaho archives. I've loved it ever since. So I'll share it on my blog.
"Red and Irma in the 1970s"
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