Underway at 0827MT. Ate a very nice bacon, egg and cheese bagel, then filled up with diesel at the campground station. All day I had either a tail wind or slight cross wind, depending on where I-84 was pointed at the time. Best fuel mileage so far of the trip at 16.41 mpg towing the Gosling.
Idaho in its south is all about agriculture, either crops or beef. If they water it, it grows. There are millions in capital invested in irrigation equipment, including turret center circle makers and wagon wheel pipe systems that roll across the field. If those don’t get the edges, people walk pipe and spray mounts to water the edges. Feed lots abound, as do hay fields and incredibly large bales of hay.
West of Twin Falls, and periodically elsewhere, the farm lands became rocky, ravine-ridden, and gorges showed up. Agriculture was not possible there, so cattle/ sheep grazed, or the land was unused.
I kept seeing birds of the size of red wing blackbirds, but without the red flashes. Turns out they are Brewer’s Blackbird, with yellow eyes and black legs. A new species for me! Life List keeps growing.
The Snake river gave the highway a reason to exist. In the table lands, the very wide valleys are irrigated up to a point, then the higher lands became brown. By the way, that brown is the natural color of the west, where there is vegetation at all. I remember despairing on my umpteenth trip to San Diego that I missed the golden-green of the east coast. I’m back in the brown again. (No, that’s not a metaphor.) Sometimes you see a manmade hill of dirt on the plains supporting antennae: only way to get height of eye for cell service!
All the ramps onto and off of the interstate highway have cattle grids, so stock doesn’t wander onto the road. I’ve seen dead deer many times, so the “bull bars” of the 18-wheelers are effective against deer. I wonder at the carnage if a two ton bull wandered onto the road.
Arrived in Oregon too soon to go to the camp site, so I relaxed at the Ontario rest stop for an hour. I filled the fuel tank in Ontario. Then I proceeded up I-84 to Oregon 201, a river-hugging road to the Oasis on the Snake RV park. Landed at 2pmMT in a lovely spot near the Snake River. Lots of birds to watch.
