Whew! You Made It!

95 North

95 North from Winnemucca to Boise was golden desolate with very few places to pull over to pee on the 2-lane, no shoulder highway.  Not a lot of humanity on this 258-mile Nevada-Oregon-Idaho stretch with frequent areas of no cell phone coverage.

When I'm on the road alone I try to have one hour of head-clearing, present silence in the car per day.  No music, no podcasts, no phone calls, no screens.  Just undistracted driving and noting the scenery around me.  

Freshly paved, black asphalt

Bright yellow and white dotted lines

Sandy scrub

Dotted variegated green sage

Fluorescent green fields

Smooth, sandy surfaced rolling hills

Brown, black cattle 

Sparse tufts of trees indicate small, hidden ranches

Dunes meet mountains

Cruise control 75 MPH

Ghost towns

Gas $3.48

Beige, Beige more Beige against Blue Sky

And then, just like that, out of the moonscape and into suburbia as Boise sprawled out before me.  Riverside RV park was a green oasis nestled behind the fairgrounds in Garden City!

     

Boise Riverside RV Park in Garden City

I set up camp and picked up one of my best friends, Jennifer Jo, at the Boise airport.  We walked through Boise State's campus and ended up downtown at Wild Root Cafe that blared 80s rock reminding us of our college days. The Boss! Prince! 

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Boise reminds me of a higher end, casino-free Reno nestled into surrounding yellow mountains and offers more shopping and entertainment.  The houses and downtown neighborhoods are well kept with considerably less grit than Reno.

 

Downtown Boise, Idaho

Made it back to the Boise Riverside RV camp after dinner and found more tents set up near ours.  I was excited to have a snuggle buddy in my tent this night.  We giggled like college girls and drank red wine.  We planned out the strategy in case some of the neighboring RV or camp revelers surprise visited us in the middle of the night.  You spray the bear mace, I'll blow the whistle.

We were off to sleep shortly after being serenaded by the alarming sounds of fireworks shooting off a couple hundred yards from us at the Boise Hawks ballpark, post ball game celebration.  

The night before I drifted off to sleep to trucks and motorcycles whizzing down the highway in Winnemucca, and this night's sleep sounds were fireworks and beer drinking, pickup truck driving men partying next door.  

Ahhh, the sounds of nature...

Day Two!