We drove through an Indian reservation into Idaho and headed east on the two-lane Route 20. By and large we managed to stay off the interstates throughout the trip. The little roads are mostly empty, and you can drive 75 mph pretty easily.

When I’m in these back-country regions, I often think it might be fun to live there. And I wonder about the concept of overpopulation. In a sense, there seems to be very much room still left in the U.S.

We ended up spending the night in Arco, Idaho, whose claim to fame is that at one point they drew their electrical power from an early atomic reactor nearby. Our landlady was somewhat obsessively tidy, and the motel was shipshape. The diner next door served “broasted chicken,” which we eventually learned is a trademarked process of pressure-frying.

The next morning, rather than getting right back into speeding, we went down some back roads in search of a natural bridge near Arco. I love the emptiness of the little roads, the quiet, the utter lack of people. A refreshing change from my life in the SF Bay Area anthill.

I liked this big hillside a lot, it seemed like the flank of a huge, friendly animal.

Eventually we made it to Idaho Falls, which has a fairly cute old-town section. One of the restaurants had a window in the shape of a wagon wheel, which was totally cool, like an art installation, and note the square pattern of logs around the wagon wheel window.

Some of the stores were empty, drained by big boxes like Wal-Mart on the edges of the town. I wonder if Wal-Mart will ever go away. Perhaps at some point, computerized marketing will give small retailers the same price breaks as the big boxes get. And perhaps people will lose their taste for big box shopping.

At the edge of town was an Idaho-shaped clock, something you don’t see every day.

Our daughter Isabel had alerted us to be on the look-out for potato barns, and soon they cropped up. They’re largely underground, the way potatoes like it, with a peaked roof that’s covered in dirt for insulation and to keep the light out.

We stopped by the Craters of the Moon National Monument, which is this immense lava flow. The reason there’s a level region across the bottom of Idaho with Route 20 in it is that, over the millennia, a series of volcanoes flattened it out.

Looking at the lava wasn’t as much fun as driving through the gold and green fields with the piney mountains.

Harvesters at work. I love the agricultural geometry of the scattered bales.

And so onwards towards Wyoming.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 3rd, 2010 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Rudy's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.