Hello Everyone!
It has not been the best week out here on the road, but that doesn’t mean I’m complaining because it also could have been significantly worse. I’ve spent most of the week in limbo, waiting for things that were out of my control. I was in tiny Challis, Idaho for five days, waiting for some unexpected work on my van to get done. The rest of the week I’ve been just up the road from Challis in Stanley, waiting and hoping for the weather to clear. I’m very grateful to have had two excellent mechanics, John and Scott, working on Shadow Catcher. During my time in their shop I not only came to trust them with my van, but also to consider them my friends. I spend most of my time on the road drifting in and out of towns across the country, playing the familiar-to-me role of The Stranger. This week was different because it’s hard to stay a stranger in a town of a thousand people for very long. When I finally got off and running again I drove up into the mountains and straight back into winter. I had to break out all of my winter clothes again and find places to hang out and avoid the snow. When the clouds finally lifted, the Sawtooth Mountains showed themselves and they are spectacular and were well worth the wait. And now I’m finishing off my week here in Twin Falls in the rain. I’ve only gone about 200 miles this week which has definitely saved me on gas, but I’m hoping that now I can keep moving for a while as I get back into my more regular routine.
As I’ve just mentioned, my week got off to a rough start. When I pulled into Challis to finish up this post last week, I turned down my radio and heard a terrible sound coming from my rear wheels. I decided to park and get my work done and give it a while to fix itself, which would have been amazing if it had worked. It, of course, did not. Challis is a small town and the closest thing I could find to a mechanic on my phone was a tire place just on the edge of town. I went and talked to them and they said they didn’t really do much beyond tires and oil changes and pointed me to another garage behind the Napa Auto Parts up the road. This was definitely a garage, but with no sign, no online presence or reviews, no nothing. I went in and talked to Scott and he said he would take a look at it in the morning. I didn’t really love the situation, but I was stuck and grateful he would have a look and see what he could do. Worst case scenario, I could call AAA and get a tow up to Salmon which has a couple of mechanics. I found a parking spot nearby and then took a nice, long walk around Challis. It’s clearly in the midst of an old mining region with mining still being the main industry today. Challis was founded way back in 1876 as a supply center for the different mining districts in the area, including the Lucky Boy, Custer, Sunbeam and Charles Dickens mines, and continues to be the main town and county seat for the region. After having a good look around, I stopped into Bux’s Place, a classic, old-school, taxidermy-and-pool-tables kind of bar on the main street. It was smoky, but nice enough for a beer. Then I went across the street to Shyla’s Hideaway which had less atmosphere, but also less smoke and they served food. Shyla’s would be my go-to spot for the rest of the week. I had a tasty sandwich and chatted with the bartender who told me that Scott was a good mechanic and a decent person which left me feeling a little better about the whole situation.
I got my van to the shop first thing in the morning and then sat in the park for a while reading my book until the library opened. The library would be my savior over the next few days as I could get some work done and stay out of the way. Despite the situation, it’s always nice to have a little time to catch up, especially when I don’t feel like I should be doing something else. When I checked back at the shop later in the day, I met John who told me that my air shocks were going to need to be replaced. Now to be honest, these have not worked properly since I bought the van and I’ve known that sooner or later they would need to be fixed. John told me that the day had come. The problem being that the parts they needed are not easy to come by. They had found them, but it would take two days to get them to Challis. Meanwhile, John said that he had looked me up on the internet (my website is printed on my rear window), and was quite curious about my journey which I was happy to tell him all about. I let them get back to work and headed back to the library for a few hours. When I went back later, they were winding down for the day so we ended up sitting and chatting for almost two hours. They were both friendly, kind and incredibly competent about what needed to be fixed in my van. I felt like I was in good hands and very fortunate for that. In return, I tried to spin some good stories from my travels for them to get a feel for who I am and what I’m doing out here. After a while it was time for me to grab some dinner and they recommended a little barbecue shop across the street which made a really tasty brisket sandwich and potato salad. After dinner I went for another long walk around town to finish off my day. Scott and John were kind enough to have my van situated in such a way that I could still sleep in it which is a big deal since it saved me from getting a hotel room while I was there.
Waking up on Thursday, I felt better since at least I knew what was going on. I could spend my day in the library and see what I could accomplish and my van would be out of commission for the day, but hopefully ready at some point on Friday. John even offered me his truck to use for the day which was an amazingly kind offer, but it’s a small town and walking gave me some exercise and something to do to pass the time. I got my “Navigation” tab updated to include the last couple of months and finished up my Nevada and Oregon albums (which you can check out at the links at the bottom of this post, or in the “Gallery” tab on my page). When I got back to the shop later in the day, I sat around with John and Scott and Mason, who had arranged to get the parts shipped over, and we had some drinks and sat around chewing the fat late into the night.
My parts came in on Friday morning, and John got the whole project done and my van back together in a few hours. When I got back to the shop from the library, I thought maybe I’d be ready to roll. Unfortunately, while my van’s suspension was definitely better than it had ever been in our time together, the noise was still there. They pulled the tires and we did all kinds of things to try and isolate the noise and figure out what the heck it was. After a lot of poking and prodding and spinning with both of them lying underneath the van, they figured it had to be the bearings (even though bad bearings usually make a very different sound than what we were hearing). Thankfully, they had bearings in stock in the parts store so at least it wasn’t going to be another wait. They would get to it first thing in the morning. They did just that and the new bearings solved the problem. Just as they got it down off of the jack stands, the sky opened up and it rained for the rest of the day which didn’t inspire me to go anywhere, especially since I wanted to be able to hear if anything was still wrong as I drove. I spent one more night in Challis, a town I had grown quite fond of during my stay even though there wasn’t much to it. It was prom night at the high school and I loved seeing all of the prom outfits – the boys in their cowboy hats and colorful shirts and the girls in nice dresses and cowboy boots. I hope they all had a fun night and a safe one.
Sunday it was time to say my goodbyes. As I mentioned earlier, I spent a lot of time with those guys and got to know them and I hope to see them again sometime under more normal circumstances (but under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have met them at all). They charged me a fair price for the work which was less than they could have charged me, but enough that I didn’t feel like they weren’t getting paid for the work they put in. It definitely emptied my rainy day fund, but we were rolling again which was all that mattered at the end of the day which was, in fact, a rainy day. On my way out of Challis, I stopped in to check out the museum at the Land of the Yankee Fork State Park which discussed all of the old mining towns up the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River. Unfortunately, the ranger there told me the roads to get to those now-ghost towns were pretty muddy and he wouldn’t recommend me trying to visit any of them at the moment. The last thing I needed was to get stuck in the mud. I made one more stop at the Challis Hot Springs (also a part of the state park) and got a much needed shower and shave, had a long soak and then finally I got back on the road.
The ride up Highway 75 from Challis to Stanley was really nice, following the Salmon River the whole way. Many years ago, when I lived on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, I had a friend who lived in Stanley and claimed it was the most beautiful place on the planet. It’s been on my radar ever since, although sadly he is not living there anymore. When I pulled into town, the clouds were hanging low and it was raining on and off. Driving around Stanley (population 117), it looked like everything was closed except the gas station, the grocery store and one of the restaurants. Not just closed on Sunday, but closed for the winter. I pondered this in the bar over a beer and when I came back out the clouds had lifted enough that I could see some of the mountains surrounding the town and understood immediately what my friend had been talking about. The jagged peaks of the Sawtooths were magnificent, even in the rain. I sat in my van and watched them for a while, hoping for some clear skies. They never came and it was getting dark so I headed a little bit south of town and took a campsite in the National Forest right on the Salmon River. They were calling for snow overnight, so I wanted to be on a paved surface and be somewhere I could wait out the weather if need be, and this site was perfect. Right when I got out of my van at the campground, a beautiful bald eagle came cruising up the river and flew right overhead. I cooked some dinner, popped on a movie and had a quiet night in one of the more beautiful campgrounds I’ve been in which I had all to myself.
When I woke up in the morning, there was a little bit of snow coming down, but no more than a dusting. It was well below freezing though, and the cold did not inspire me to get up and moving. I lay in bed for a while, enjoying my book and feeling quite cozy as the snow got heavier and heavier. Thankfully it wasn’t sticking to the roads. I eventually got up and had some breakfast and then made my way back into Stanley, where I went to the only other place in town that was open in mid-April – the library! For the first time in a long time, I didn’t actually feel like I had any work to catch up on so I sat in front of their lovely little fireplace and read my book as the snow fell outside. After a couple of hours, the snow stopped and the sun came out so I packed up and headed out into the day. It never cleared over the mountains, but it definitely improved. Not knowing what the weather had in store, I decided to hike out to Redfish Lake to get some exercise and to at least have a look at the place. Redfish Lake is one of the highlights of both the region and the state and I had seen photos of it in the Idaho State Museum in Boise and wanted to see it for myself. The road to get there was clear, but closed for the winter so I parked near the highway and walked a little over a mile to get there. The sky was grey, but the mountains were visible and the whole place was quite striking. Even with the clouds it was one of the more beautiful places I have been, which I think is really saying something. I sat out there for an hour or so and then gave up hope for blue skies. I headed back to my van and back to camp for the night.
Yesterday morning was also grey and uninspiring so I lounged around for a while before breakfast and then went back to the library. It was supposed to clear up in the afternoon for a couple of hours before the real snows came today, potentially bringing several inches of accumulation over the next few days. I definitely didn’t want to get stuck up there, so it was either yesterday or some other time for clear views of the mountains. Thankfully the sun came out to play by mid-afternoon, and the mountains under blue skies were certainly worth the wait. I drove out of town in the other direction to take some photos and then went back through town and walked back to the lake. While the clouds never cleared out completely, the sky was blue, the water was crystal clear and I was giddy to be out there taking photos under the warm winter sun. I kept my eye on the time, though, and headed out around 4pm to give me plenty of time for a leisurely drive south to Ketchum and away from the impending snow. The drive from Stanley to Ketchum was really beautiful with mountain views in every direction. I passed a few cars on the way, but it was pretty quiet out there which meant I could take it slow and enjoy the ride. I also enjoyed seeing several herds of pronghorn and quite a few elk along the way.
The book I am reading at the moment is called Empire Falls which won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction for author Richard Russo back in 2002. I undoubtedly picked it up from a Little Free Library somewhere and almost certainly judged it entirely by its cover. I like to read a novel now and again to break things up a bit and this has been a good one. The short version is that it takes place in a small town in Maine where the factories have all closed and much of the population has moved on to other opportunities, a fairly common theme across the country. The reason I bring it up here is because the book mentions the suicide of Ernest Hemmingway in a passage I had randomly read the day before arriving in Ketchum, the town where it happened. Hemmingway was quite fond of Idaho and is buried in a modest grave under some trees in the town cemetery. I stopped by to visit old Papa’s grave when I arrived in town and found it quite a pleasant place to visit.
From there I drove just up the road to Sun Valley Resort, where Hemmingway had kept a suite and did much of his writing during the last 20 years of his life. Built in 1936, Sun Valley Lodge has quite a history, including being the location of the first modern ski lift. Over the years, the lodge has been a playground for the rich and famous hosting everyone from Gary Cooper and Marilyn Monroe to Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis. With all of its history, the Lodge is fairly modest but also quite nice. I stopped in for a beer and enjoyed wandering around the ground floor and looking at all of the old photos on the walls. Dropping down the road and back to Ketchum, I found a pleasant but unattractive modern ski town. I popped into the Casino bar for a beer, a bar which has been there for 90 years and has more character than most of the rest of the town combined. Then I strolled down to Lefty’s for a really good sandwich before calling it a night.
This morning was drizzly and grey so I hopped in the driver’s seat and pretty much made a beeline for Twin Falls. I stopped for a bit in Shoshone, an old railroad town which still lines up along the train tracks, a town configuration I always love to see. The drive went through some cool old lava fields and then crossed the Snake River and on into town. I hit the gym and then came straight for the library to finish this up for the week.
I will probably hang around here for a day or two. The rain is supposed to continue and there are a few things I want to check out around town, plus I need to resupply and figure out where I go from here. I’m definitely on my way back to Boise where I assume I will be by this time next week. There are some cool state parks and waterfalls I want to check out on the way there and I want to visit the Minidoka Internment Camp and Hagerman Fossil Beds as well. I’m really hoping that this coming week has more flow to it than this last one did, but you just never know what’s coming until you get there. The road is full of potholes, both literal and figurative ones, but I hope you’ll come back next week to see where I end up. Have a great week and thank you, as always, for reading.
-Mike
