Duke and I left Reno last Thursday on a three week road trip. We are planning to do a circle north through Idaho into Canada over to Vancouver and then back south to Reno. Day one, Thursday we drove 400 miles from Reno to Jackpot, Nevada. Jackpot is on the Idaho border in the north east corner of Nevada. We stayed at a casino there called Cactus Pete's. It was much nicer than I expected it to be. Our room was stylish and comfortable, the food was good, and the people were really nice. The package deal we had included food credit and $50 free play and we won!
On Friday we drove from Jackpot to Sun Valley, Idaho. On the way we had several serendipitous experiences that reminded me why I enjoy road tripping so much.
We stopped in Twin Falls to look at the Perrine Bridge over the Snake River. It is 486 feet from the bridge to the river below. According to the Lonely Planet Guide Book people travel from all over the world to BASE jump off the bridge. We were lucky to be out on the bridge when a guy jumped. It was really cool to watch. Here is my picture of the bridge and a video I took of him jumping.
http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=109786
After Twin Falls we stopped at a the Silver Creek Nature Conservancy
Preserve. It is a pristine trout stream that is used
by fishermen and includes hiking trails. We took a two mile hike through the preserve. The
creek is crystal clear and we just happened to watch a fly fisherman
catch a beautiful trout.
After leaving Silver Creek we just happened to go through the little town of Hailey when they were having their Fall Festival parade. We stopped to watch.
We spent Friday night in Sun Valley. We had a great Pizza at Wise Guy Pizza Pie. Notice the tally of guys with socks and sandals. Personally I don't have a problem with men in socks and sandals.
Saturday we drove from Sun Valley to a bed and breakfast out in the country near Cottonwood, Idaho. The Sawtooth Mountains and the Salmon River are beautiful but unfortunately there was so much smoke from forest fires that we could hardly even see the mountains. We did have a nice picnic lunch.
You can really see the smoke in this picture I took when we were filling up with gas in Grangeville
Driving through all that smoke hurt my eyes and throat so it was sure nice to wake up this morning and be able to see the wheat field beyond the yard of the B&B where we were staying. Our first stop this morning was the Nez Perce National Historic Park on the Clearwater River near Lewiston.
Farther north we had a picnic lunch on the shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene. Tonight we are staying in Post Falls. Before dinner we took a hike in Qémiln Riverside Park along the Spokane River.
Tomorrow we head into Canada. If you would like to see all my pictures from the trip they are on Flickr here.
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