I hope this doesn’t become a habit!

Posting every day, that is!

I’m sure I’ll be back to my occasional posting, lazy days soon.  But in the meantime, I just have to tell you about this great drive down Highway 93 in southern Idaho!  I can’t recall if I’ve ever had such a laid back, relaxing, easy going, scenic drive – ever.  The roads have all been good; two lane paved, light traffic, great fall countryside scenery, and just enough small towns to fill all a travelers requirements.

There was a bit of construction, with some planned closures on weekdays, but on the weekend delays were minimal.  The rock scalers were using nets to keep the falling rock out of the driving lane.

As usual, Hailey was pretty stressed out by the whole scenario.

But the main thing – is the camping opportunities.  They are virtually endless.  You could travel this route 30 times and never stay in the same campground twice.  Much of it is National Forest or BLM land which means that you can randomly camp in most places.  But not satisfied with that, the Forest Service or BLM, or the State have primitive developed campgrounds – everywhere.  Way to go!!

Most of this route follows the Salmon River, which is very scenic, specially when dressed in it’s fall colours.  So most of the camping areas are right on the river bank.  If there is a downside, most are also close to the highway.  But with light traffic, and practically none at night, this is not really an issue.

One section in the Salmon-Challis NF had signs saying that camping was permitted only in designated areas.  Which in some cases this would be limiting.  But I challenge anyone to find a stretch of road there where there were not at least 2-3 nice campgrounds in every 10 mile stretch!  I did finally spot one or two that were closed for the season, but remarkably just another 2-300 yards down the road, there was another open one!

I could have continued on 93, but after a bite at a quaint eatery in Challis, where everyone either wore camo or overalls (!), I decided to take the slightly longer route on 75 through Stanley, Sun Valley ski area, and of course Hailey!

There were some incredible views of the Sawtooth range as we climbed up the 8700’ Galena summit.

On the south side of the pass, the great views continued, all the way down to Ketchum, and the Sun Valley ski area.

Lots more NF campsites everywhere, and limitless random camping opportunities. At around 6600’, the temps dip to around freezing, but with the slue-sky days it quickly warms up in the morning. 

In this case my planning and execution was superb, as I was all set up in camp with satellite internet and TV online, plunked in a comfy recliner, beverage in hand for the opening kickoff.  Of course my Riders took it to Wandering Willy’s BC Lions!  Unfortunately, the Leafs – Blackhawks game was on at the same time, so I was not able to provide adequate coaching and encouragement to both teams, and the Leafs let Chicago by them by a couple goals.  I’ll have to speak to the scheduling officials to make sure this overlap is not repeated in the future.

Meanwhile, in blogger news:  The Bayfield Bunch have crossed the border in their Winnie, and are hightailing it to the southwest – looking for a laptop power cord along the way.  Somehow, Jean & Skip managed to get by me somewhere and are now down in the Overton Nevada area and checking out Valley of Fire.  That’s also where Wandering Willy is headed when he departs the cold north in a week or two.  Rv Sue, and Paul, Nina and the ‘paws’ gang from Wheeling It are all in eastern California, but experiencing some cold nights at those high elevations. Great review of the primitive hot springs in the Mammoth Lakes area, by the way.

And I see that Diana from Life on the Open Road is in the same general area, looking around in the Alabama Hills.

John and Brenda are in the saddle south of Phoenix, but (ahem) have been too busy to update their blog!

Rick and Paulette seem to be still at home in BC, perhaps waiting till the first snowfall chases them back down to the Palm Springs area, and Crofts are possibly giving Mexico some time off while they explore further on the Gulf Coast of Texas and beyond.

That’s it for now.