Saturday, June 20 – Day 4: Idaho Scenic Byways

I love camping in the mountains.  This morning I woke up to a clear, calm, crisp, cool, 42 degrees of mountain air.  Nothing better to clear the senses. 

Leaving the campground I headed south along the Tetons.  The Tetons are not a very large mountain range but they have their own distinct beauty (see photo from yesterday).  The snowcapped mountains and the blue lake water is something to remember.  I followed the Tetons south to Jackson and then went across them into Idaho.  This was the start to the day of riding Idaho Scenic Byways. 

While there were many beautiful vistas on today’s ride, you really need to experience them.  I have found that taking photos of every beautiful mountain and river leads to a lot of photos that look alike when you get home and never does the views justice anyway.  Instead, I will leave it to your imagination based on what I describe.

The image below give you an idea of the route I followed today.

The Tetons Scenic Byway was the first.  It headed north to the town of Teton. Along this route, the Tetons range is always off to your right.  I must say the Wyoming side of the range is more impressive than the Idaho side, but still beautiful nonetheless.

When I reached the town of Rexburg, it was time for an oil change.   I left knowing I was going to have to do an oil change along the way.  As I estimate this trip will be about 8,000 miles (if all goes well), that is more than I want to do without changing the oil.  So I headed to the local Walmart, picked up the oil, a drain pan, and a funnel.  I drove just up the street to the Grease Monkey oil change center and asked them if I could change my oil in their parking lot and if they would take my used oil and filter.  No problem.   Oil changed and I was on the road again.

When I left Rexburg, I thought I had been transported to another part of the country (or world).  When I had approached Rexburg from the east (heading west), it was all farm fields with potatoes (Idaho spuds) and grain.  When I left Rexburg, continuing to head west, it was all sagebrush and rocks.  It was such a dramatic change from one side of the town to the other.  I am not sure what the geological explanation for this difference is.

The next scenic drive was the Sacajawea Historic Byway that led to Salmon.  This is a mostly straight road – not too exciting.  There are mountain ranges on both sides to add some scenery.  There is not much along this route and also not much traffic.  It was time to “stretch the legs of the FJR” a little.

I left Salmon heading south on highway 93 and then 75 and then 21.  This is the Salmon River Byway. From this point on until the end of the day, I spent most of the time riding along various rivers with mountains on both sides.  I love riding these roads.  As the road follows the river and the river never goes in a straight line, the turns are endless.  Sometimes you are right near the river, at other times you are high above the river looking down into it. I was also on the Ponderosa Pine Byway as well as the Wildlife Canyon Scenic Byway.  I would highly recommend all of these to anyone planning a trip through Idaho.

I am spending the night at the Swinging Bridge National Forest campground along the Payette River which of course is along the Payette River Scenic Byway!  The river is just across the road and should great sound to fall asleep to.

The route tomorrow will take me to Hell’s Canyon which is on the Idaho/Oregon border and then I will start to head into Oregon.