Apparently something like 75% of Canadians live within 100 km of the US/Canadian border. Our biggest cities, our busiest highways are as far south as we can get them. Southern BC is no exception, even in the interior. But step south across that border and you are in northern Washington state or, as an American might call it, "the back of beyond". Creaking old farms and fly-blown towns suggest that considerably more than 75% of Americans consider this to be "way too far north".
With the Okanagan only a few hours directly up the valley from Dry Falls State Park, it appeared to a couple of Canadians like a lot of expensive real estate going to waste. There are wineries on the Naramata bench that would give up their last barrels of 2004 for a chance to expand their vineyards into those open hillsides.
Due to questionable planning, we found ourselves with nothing to cook for dinner, and turned to some freeze-dried beef stroganoff we had brought along just in case.
The Red Hook Extra Strong Bitter made it better. We have never really been big beer drinkers, but the craft brews we discovered on this trip were all delicious surprises. This one was bursting with flavour and didn't fall apart or become nasty halfway through.
The wind really picked up in the evening, roaring steadily up the valley from the south. It took a lot of effort to protect the stove until the water boiled. Lucky we were only making one pot.
The wind was so strong at night we had to seal up the fly completely in order to stop the (brand new) tent from puffing and flapping like a big fabric thing that puffs and flaps and keeps waking you up all night. What are those called again?
Our last evening in the US. Tomorrow we cross into the Okanagan.
We used an excellent piece of open-source software called HugIn to stitch together Aya's panorama of Snake River Canyon at Twin Falls, Idaho. This was the site of Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon jump in 1974. There are photos in the tourist office and the volunteers there still tell stories about that big day in excited voices.
Idaho is one of those states with laws that are a bit more advanced, some may say, than others'. The highway speed limit is posted at 75 miles per hour, for example. Motorcycles still flew past us at far greater speeds with riders enjoying the wind in their hair, as Idaho's lack of helmet law condones.
With this liberal attitude in mind, we casually asked Zack, a friendly employee in Sportsman's Warehouse, if he thought Idaho would let us, a pair of complete novices, fire a gun. This off-hand query (while we were shopping for a new tent) produced a little flurry of activity. By the time we got to the cash desk another very helpful staff member was ready with an address for a shooting range in Boise, an hour or two away: Impact Guns.
That night was spent at the beautiful Bruneau State Park campground, and we went to sleep wondering if this idea of shooting a gun would become real. The next morning, we went to Boise.
With just a little paper work, it suddenly got very real. For Keith, anyway. Aya was disappointed to learn that, as a holder of non-U.S. identification, she would not be allowed to participate.
The exceptionally welcoming, helpful and friendly staff at Impact Guns was willing to rent Keith a 9mm automatic handgun and a .22 semi-automatic hunting rifle for about $10 each. Boxes of "ammo" cost about the same for 50 rounds. Paper targets were about 50 cents.
After some careful instruction by Erin, a generous and natural teacher, Keith suddenly found himself in the shooting range. His pounding heart was not helped by the enormous, body-shaking booms coming from next door every time the gentleman fired his .45 handgun. The empty shells of the .45 littered the floor like brass cigar butts.
Keith fired ten shots on the 9mm at the 7-yard line, the 10-yard, the 25-foot, the 15-yard, and even at the 25-yard line. All rifle shots were at the 25-yard line.
Twenty shots from 7 and 10 yards, aiming for the orange box. Ten experimental shots at the head with the .22 at 25 yards.
The hunting target took the rest of the .22 shots.
Aya was sad not to be able to join the fun, but that didn't stop her from fighting strange lighting and reflections to take a lot of photos and video to commemorate this admittedly very exciting event. This photo caught the recoil of the 9mm and might be the best shot of the whole trip.
And, what the heck. Here's the video:
What did we learn? We're still sorting through our thoughts. It's different having done it, though.
Like bookends of glass holding a collection of hot dusty encyclopedias... no, sorry. That's awful.
There were two great campsites, one at each end of a very long, hot day of driving.
Nevada's Cave Lake State Park was full, but you can camp up the river, just outside the park, for free and just pay a day-use fee for the facilities. These include showers and an emerald lake, full of mad trout, and just perfect for a swim.
The drive across Utah, up Nevada and into Idaho was long.
We were suddenly on the way home, with many, many miles to go, and the scenery, although vast and wonderful, was hard to fully appreciate. Cresting a rise or a pass in one of the ranges, the next valley lies ahead wide-open and stretched like a griddle.
(Click to embiggen.)
For a moment you see the whole thing from the best possible viewpoint; rust and yellow swirls curving away to milky-blue torn horizons, and then you have to spend an hour or more driving across it. And then you crest another ridge, and the next valley is there... Like spoiling an advent calendar by opening every glittering door on December 1st, it is hard to summon up genuine enthusiasm as the days tick slowly by until the 25th.
Snake, Schell Creek, Cherry Creek, East Humboldt, Goshute, Antelope, Toana, Pequor; Aya read the names of the mountain ranges out as they swung out of the haze ahead and then drifted behind us.
It might sound as though we didn't like it. That is not true at all.
The other campsite/glass book-end was Bruneau Dunes State Park in Idaho; home to a warm wind, cool lakes, an observatory pointed into the massive night sky, and, apparently, North America's tallest sand dune.
Delta has a big green park in the middle of town. A picnic table was the perfect spot for a quick breakfast. Not so quick that we couldn't enjoy our espresso, of course. We were looking forward to a day of fossil digging, out in the Utah desert.
We followed the clear instructions to U-Dig Fossils, about an hour west of Delta. The dark "C" shape to the right of the dirt road is the quarry.
A smattering of wind and rain-damp shale made a refreshingly cool start to the morning, but the sky cleared quickly. By the end of the day we could feel the heat radiating from the black rock.
Aya got right to work, splitting slabs of soft shale with the chisel end of a rock hammer.
What's inside?
Trilobites! Extinct sea-bugs!
The rock splits at all kinds of unpredictable places, quite unlike the fish fossil site in Wyoming. Hearts were also broken many times as one hit too many resulted in unrepairable smithereens.
But there were many sweet victories!
This little sea bug was lost for millions and millions of years until... now. Each time a layer peeled back to reveal a treasure, it was like a sudden connection with an extinct era; a time capsule, opened at last to reveal a ghostly memento mori.
Yet still lively! This, our biggest find, popped out of its carbonite and disappeared into the rubble around us, leaving us with only the negative impression. That could mean two things, but it only means one.
Here's one that came out of its hiding place with a gentle poke from our new shale-splitter (old paint-scraper).
Aya came prepared with a carrying-case, which she managed to fill with trilobites and other small fossils. Bevan, the very friendly and educating host of U-Dig Fossils, helped make the day even better with his gentle guidance and advice.
Some of the ones that managed to make it home. We are going to take our Dremel tool to them and polish them up a little, as demonstrated by Bevan.
It took over an hour of driving on empty dirt roads in the Utah outback, under crackling clouds and intermittent washes of dusty rain, to track down Baker Hot Springs. With only a pencil-drawn map copied from the internet, we looped far off course. Chasing one last road until it dissolved into ruts we dared not follow, we gave up and turned back towards our nasty little motel, frustrated at having come so close to our goal and yet to be denied.
Then the landscape revealed subtle changes and a colouration, a stain, could be glimpsed beyond the rise of blackened roadside scrub: the red dirt beside the road, so dramatic in the map above, was roughly obscured at ground level.
A short walk revealed pools, with no tell-tale scent of sulfur.
They were warm but large and shallow, coated with slime and as uninviting as the crunching salt-crusted dirt around them.
And then we found this one. Bathtub-shaped and bath-water warm, with a dock from which to slip in. An unexpected paradise.
If the town of Delta can be said to be an oasis in the desert, then our dirty little motel was a desert within that oasis; to be endured rather than enjoyed. The rain poured down, which was nobody's fault, and the people were largely charming.
A pot of hearty meatballs with tomato sauce and a pack of tasty Shock Top beer, with its bright orange and coriander notes, capped the evening pleasantly.
A beautifully kept town, maintaining a robust balance between historical preservation and modern standards. It is refreshing to be able to easily imagine life a hundred years ago while lacking for nothing.
The Club Bar is the perfect spot for a drink on a hot afternoon. Very friendly staff and patrons, and we lucked upon "happy hour".
The locally-made Dump Truck Bock was light but full of flavour. Highly recommended.
Delicious thick beef stew at the Gem Mountain campground that night, accompanied by an adequate Zinfandel from Ravenswood.
The view from the dinner table.
On the way to Wyoming.
Afton, Wyoming: home of the world's largest elk horn arch.
If you are driving down Interstate 15 in Utah with a trunk full of fish fossils and think you feel your front left wheel wobbling and start to fear that your '94 Escort Wagon with 205,000 km on it is telling you the trip is taking a bad turn, you could do a lot worse than to take exit 279 into Lehi and turn right. Big O Tires is there and ready to take a look while you wait.
It is hard to overstate how friendly, polite, professional and speedy the Big O crew were. Taylor, Blair and the whole team made the process painless and eased our worries, finding no mechanical faults in their thorough inspection. Someone around Lehi is bringing their kids up right. And someone knows how to generate a positive impression of a big-chain business, too. Big O charged a big 0$ for this greatly-appreciated service. Highly recommended.
Up next: an oasis in the desert, and a desert in the oasis.
Bat condos.
Due to questionable planning, we found ourselves with nothing to cook for dinner, and turned to some freeze-dried beef stroganoff we had brought along just in case.
The wind really picked up in the evening, roaring steadily up the valley from the south. It took a lot of effort to protect the stove until the water boiled. Lucky we were only making one pot.
The wind was so strong at night we had to seal up the fly completely in order to stop the (brand new) tent from puffing and flapping like a big fabric thing that puffs and flaps and keeps waking you up all night. What are those called again?
Our last evening in the US. Tomorrow we cross into the Okanagan.
