Friday morning at 6 AM saw us loaded up and hitting the road. This first leg of the trip was a very long drive from our house to Twin Falls, Idaho. Because we made a lot of stops to break up the drive, we did not arrive in Twin falls until 11 PM. On the road, we stopped at a truck stop/gas station in Jean, Nevada that was recommended by Dan B. While the truck stop/gas station is not technically in the middle of nowhere, it is nowhere adjacent. Which makes it very odd how huge this place is. Over 50 gas station pumps, huge sales area, massive bathrooms, and more. There were three huge soda fountains that each had 22 places to get soda. The truck stop/gas station is across the freeway from the Gold Strike Casino and I recommend a stop there when driving through.
Our first stop was in Twin Falls for one night. After getting in late, we slept in a bit and then went to see the Shoshone Falls, aka the Niagara Falls of the west. These are some falls on the Snake River that were created right after the turn of the century when a hydroelectric plant was placed at the location. What we didn’t know was the falls are not “falling” year round. And unfortunately for us, the “not falling” time is now. It is still a very beautiful area, and not very crowded when there are no falls! See the below pictures.
From the falls, we continued on to our next stop in Boise, Idaho. On Sunday, we went out sightseeing. First, we stopped at the Idaho State Capital. As with all of the capitals we have seen so far, it was beautiful. Pictures below.
From the capital, we walked around the downtown area and ate at The Idaho Fry Company. While French fries are obviously their “thing,” I felt the fries were no better or worse than anywhere else. That being said, the hamburgers were A+! From there, we went to the Donut Daze. Holy cow, they have a lot of interesting choices. I had a Halloween themed donut and Cindy had one with fruity pebbles on them. Take my word as a donut expert, these donuts were the bomb!
We took a trolley tour of the downtown historical district that was very interesting. From there, we saw the bright blue football field of Boise State (Go Broncos), and went to the Basque are in downtown. We wanted to eat some ethnic food, but the Basque area is literally only one block long and all of the Basque restaurants were closed. So we had dinner at Bardenay. The restaurant was kind of like a TGIF or BJ’s. The food was good, but not the Basque we were hoping to find.
Since Cindy was not feeling well on Monday, we powered down and took it easy. Tuesday will see us driving to Aunt Barbara’s house in Montana.