Twin Falls

Twin Falls, Idaho: Up early and on the road before nine o’clock. Our route today had us continuing East on Highway 20, to Interstate 84 in Idaho.

Dinner was prepped before we hit the highway: a small roasting chicken was completely smothered in Jacobsen Taco Seasoning, and placed in the slow cooker on a “rack” made of crumpled aluminum foil. Low; 8 hours. This technique is a new one for me, but wanting shredded “rotisserie” chicken for tacos, thought it would be a fun experiment. To make things even easier this evening, guacamole was prepped this morning as well. Onion and cilantro were chopped and set aside for the tacos. Done!

Though a very pretty drive and over good roads, a 50-ish mile long section of Highway 20 is being repaved. For most of it, there is no center line, and we were herded by a pilot car for about five miles - twice. Some loose gravel, but super smooth road due to recent repaving. No matter, too busy looking at the gorgeous scenery!

The section of the highway around Juntura is especially beautiful. It follows the Malheur River, with lush green fields below brown hills - that shoot straight up from the valley floor - studded with layers of basalt (or so said My Geologist). Lots of cattails. Malheur translates to unfortunate and was named by a fur trapper who had his stash-o-pelts stolen along the river. (He should have named it the Karma River?)

Anyhoo... things were going great until we entered I-84 and crossed the Snake River into Idaho. Just a few miles into Idaho there was a terrible accident, and traffic came to a complete stand-still on both east and west-bound interstate lanes.

There was one of those "police-only" cross-over lanes between the East/West lanes, so the police used it to re-route all the west-bound peeps back onto the east-bound lane. From there, they would exit and go north or south or any-which way they chose to avoid the blockade. The east bound travelers (us) had to wait until miles and miles and miles of west-bound travelers were through the maze.

I will only post two photos of the big rigs involved in the accident - and only because the drivers of each truck were inside their vehicles and obviously okay. The automobile we saw was not as intact. News reports noted two cars involved. By the time we arrived, there was only one car and it was a mess.

Even with our early departure, a two-or-so hour lay-over on the interstate, and losing one hour due to time-change, we didn't arrived to our reserved campsite until after five o'clock (Mountain Time). So tired.

At least dinner was ready! The chicken was shredded, guacamole was served, tacos were served, we chatted with our Canadian neighbors and called it an early night. The chicken skin and bones will be stewed overnight in the slow cooker. Tortilla soup, anyone?

One note: there are forest fires/wild fires north of us and the air quality is not good. Think good thought for the fire fighters and for the weather to cooperate.

Meanwhile in Costa Rica... photos of the kids at dinner last night and Lucy on the beach this morning. I swear Lisa is on this trip as well. Why are mom's always behind the camera?

Until my next update, where we continue to Yellowstone, but have one fun stop planned, I remain, your tired correspondent.

RV Park: Twin Falls/Jerome KOA - Not gonna lie. It's close to the interstate, and it has a pool, cabins and tent sites, but it is really close to a feed lot and smells really bad. $72 for full hook-up pull through with 50 amp.

---