Blackfoot, Idaho

Why in all places would you go to Blackfoot? Well no, it isn't the most exciting and defiantly not the most pretty town in Idaho. But I needed a stopover between Ketchum and Salt Lake City and how could you go past a town with the world famous:

OMFG

I'll just tease you with that super exciting tidbit, but first I'll go talk about my trip to Blackfoot before reaching that USA wonder.

Before leaving Ketchum I headed to a local cafe for breakfast. I had to decide whether I could make it to the Sturgis biker festival or not. People have been convincing me to go, but I have to admit I'm pretty reluctant to go to biker festivals. However looked at a map and tried to come up with a plan to get there before it started. Unfortunately no matter how you cut it, there was about 15 hours riding and only 2 days to do it, so not a real possibility. That coupled with the fact that I had already booked non-cancelable accomadation, had to book a camping spot in already packed ground and had to buy a tent and buy tickets etc. made it more difficult to choose to go. All this on top of the fact tht I wasn't to keen on going in the first place. I guess it would of been an experience, but it would've fucked up my route and I really didn't come here to get fucked up with a bunch of aging Harley riders.

In saying that, if it was at a more convenient time or location, I probably would have gone.

Mmmm, yum

Now not to get all bogged down in the minutiae of my trip, I'm going going to tell you what I had for breakfast. I finally gave in and tried a dish called "biscuits and gravy". Now this sounds pretty disgusting to an Australian, given our understanding of what "biscuits" and "gravy" are. However I had already heard of this before, and Wendy had ordered it in Washington when we were all out getting breakfast one day - so I knew sort of what to expect.

The biscuits have the consistency of scones, but are not sweet at all. The gravy is then poured on top of these, which is like a white sauce with bits of sausage in it. The whole thing tastes very salty, the sauce is super thick, and with no complementary flavors it just ends up as a warm salty mono-taste. I did my best but I couldn't finish it. I think I'll stick to the pancakes over here - they have been awesome so far over here!

Upon leaving Ketchum, I decided to check out the much hyped "Red Fish Lake". It was a beautiful lake, well worth the stop over. At that time the surface was like glass.

Red Fish Lake outside of Ketchum

Different angle on the lake

On the way to Blackfoot, I went past the "Craters of the Moon", where the ground is all black and jagged from ancient lava flows (as in, it was lava, I shouldn't write this tired). It was pretty cool to see the landscape change dramatically as I rode down the highway; from brown and green grasslands to black rocky land.

Taking up 2 spaces like a boss

For only $3 for motorcyclists, I thought it'd be worth driving the Craters of the Moon road loop, where I managed to get a few photos with the SLR (which, by the way, is a bitch to extract from the panniers when full of all my other stuff). There were some fantastic views, and places where you could stop and walk around through the loop, but seeing as it was about 37 degrees Celsius and I was in motorcycle boots, I just rode past things slowly.

Craters of the moon black rocks and stuff

Not much really happened from then on to Blackfoot, where I checked into my Super 8, made some posts to my blog and settled in for the night.

The next day I was out of sorts. I dropped my packet of oats all over floor making a terrible mess. The staff didn't seem too pleased with me. Maybe I was just over excited because the Potato Museum was only hours away! I think I was just really fucking tired.

What do Australians know about Idaho? Potatoes. Now I can tell you there is a lot more going on here than potatoes, it is a beautiful state with varied landscapes and very friendly people. It definitely not just potato farm after potato farm (although I did see quite a few). But being in Idaho, I had to do something potato related, just like tourists to Australia have to go and pet kangaroos or some shit. Hence the Potato Museum.

World's largest potato chip

The museum itself was pretty small, but well populated with as much potato information and paraphernalia as you could possibly want to know about. I learnt how potatoes were seeded (from smaller potatoes!) and harvested and eventually processed. I also got to see the world's biggest chip, which I though was a bit meh because it's like a Pringles chip - reconstituted potato goo. If was from a massive potato than that would be something! At the end they offered me some sort of potato hash-somethings? Not browns as these were just in a packet, anyway I declined.

All-in-all, a fun little museum. Worth checking out if you ever find yourself passing through Blackfoot.

Potato masher collection

With that ticked off my bucket list, I bid goodbye to Idaho aNd set off for a very long and boring highway ride to Salt Lake City, Utah.