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.

Ketchum, Idaho

On my full day in Ketchum, I decided the Idaho thing to do was to hike up Bald Mountain, which was said to have spectacular views. The mountain is 9150 feet/2789 meters tall, but I'd only be scaling about 3000 feet in about 2.5 hours. Even so, I'm no hiker and my fitness isn't what it used to be.

So encouraged by the fact that I'd get a free ride down the chairlift and the gondala if I climb to the top, I set off in my not-so-purpose runners with a litre of water and a annoyingly heavy SLR. The first part of the hike was pretty easy, it was in the shade of thick foliage so the heat wasn't such a problem. As I progressed, the trail moved into open areas. But overall the trail was pretty straight forward. I chatted to a bunch of people along the way, including an aspiring actor and a 20 year old guy from Brazil over here on exchange.

How am I going to overcome this obstacle?!

Trail overlooking Ketchum

Trail overlooking some mountain

Snow makers

View from Bald Mountain

View from summit

View of Ketchum from Bald Mountain

Once I reached the top, I took a few photos then caught the chairlift down to the restaurant, where I had a quick lunch. After catching the gondala back down I chilled in my room for a bit and headed out to Ketchum for dinner.

This time I went to a bar called "Grumpy's" (sign said: "We're sorry we're open"). Burger was good, if a little less gourmet than Lefty's. Talked to the owner (who I'm guessing the bar is named after), but he seemed like a pretty amiable chap. He'd been through Australia a number of times, and was one of the few Americans I've met that picked up on the accent straight away. I also talked to a fellow biker who was a Budweiser salesman, he was very interested in what beers we drink back home (as I tell everyone, VB down south, XXXX up north and Carlton Draft all around the place. What do they drink out west? Emu? Ah doesn't matter, they'll be their own country one day anyway). Point is, he never heard of any of them.


So after one beer I headed back to Lefty's, as they were playing the Olympics. Talked to a guy named Scott who was a successful potographer in the area. He'd come from California (definitely had that look about him), and he decided he liked the mountains more than the beaches. Me and him then went to the local dive bar (can't remember the name), where I had this horrible beer in a green can. Good thing it was cheap!

Scott introduced me to an Australian that hash been living in Ketchum and working as a chef for over 15 years. He still had an accent thicker than mine. He sure did say cunt a lot. Pretty cool dude, we commiserated over Australia's terrible standings this Olympics and discussed how you have to definitely "tone down" the language over here.

Played a few games of pool with a bunch of other people, and for some reason (maybe alcohol - the solution to and the cause of all the world's problems) I did pretty well. After that, it was time to head home, had a long ride to Blackfoot tomorrow.

Stanley to Ketchum

Urgh, iPad blogging is a pain in the butt (first world problems).

Ketchum was not the fondest of topics in Stanley. Everytime it came up in conversation with one of the locals, they were always pretty derogatory of it. I think it may be due to the sort of money that is in Sun Valley. Apparently Schwarzenegger, Demi Moore and Bill Gates have properties there and only a few weeks ago Mark Zukerburg was out on the town buying everyone drinks. It left me a bit worried that I might have booked too much time there (2 nights).

Random photo of my bike to breakup the wall of text

The ride between Stanley and Ketchum was fantastic. The route went over huge mountain passes with really spectacular views. I only wish I had attached my Go Pro, I was just sick of dicking around with it at that point. A lot of cyclists though, or more to the point, a lot of cyclists that liked being in the middle of the road. After about an hour and a half I hit Ketchum. Ketchum is a small, very quaint skiing town. During the summer there is lots of hiking and mountain biking. And the bar scene is quite lively.

After checking in, I headed to the Starbucks for air conditioning and free WiFi. After speaking to the info guy (who apparently works inside the Starbucks), I had some ideas on what I could do the next day. Also, as an Australian he seemed to feel the need to point point out all the good bars in town. Hey, I'm not complaining, guy is just being pragmatic.

So that night I walked into town to a bar called "Lefty's", which had been lauded for its great burgers. They seem to do a lot of burgers here in the US, how about that? Well the burgers were fantastic. I got to talking to a fellow motorcyclist, Mark. Mark was a big KTM and Ducati fan, and had travelled around the works on bikes. He had been all through the US, south America, Kazakhstan and Russia (I think). He even cycled through New Zealand and Australia when he was younger. He had a fair bit of advice to give around what websites to use etc.

Mark was really keen on showing me a bit of the local area. He offered to take me on a drive up through the mountain passes. We'd been talking for a while, and even though the "Deliverance" banjo song was playing in my head, I went with my gut on him being a pretty straight-shooting dude (sorry to Mark if he ends up reading this). If I'm not going to trust anyone, or take any risks, then what the fuck am I doing here? This whole trip is a massive risk any way you think of it.

So I hop in his massive truck and we head out to some of the areas I can't see due to the conditions of the road (I ain't doing no dirt riding!). And the views are spectacular, if a little scary. Some of these roads winded up the side of mountains with hundreds of feet drop offs with no barrier. Oh and the road was dirt. Oh and there were other cars coming the other way. But it was cool, Mark seemed to know the roads. Once we hit a certain pass, we headed back to Ketchum.

Mark dropped me back to a bar called "Whiskey's", but the live music there was kind of crap, and I had enough to drink, so I just walked home.

Stanley, Idaho

After heading down to the grocery store to get some milk (forgot to actually turn ON my fridge the night before) and having some breakfast I went and talked to the Stanley Info guy. Because I didn't bring a fishing rod or a boat, I had limited options. However, mountain biking sounded pretty fun.

So I hired a bike and headed up the hills of Stanley for about 4 hours. Holy shit I'm not as fit as I was when I was riding 4 days a week. Mountain biking is a whole other thing as well (I did road cycling), if you get up on your pedals too much you just spin the back wheel. I guess this is all pretty obvious to the montain bikers out there. But the downhill bits were pretty good, and the views were pretty spectacular.

Mountain biking, ain't nothing but a thing.

OMG! More mountains!

Did you know there are fences in America?

The town itself was pretty dead, apparently I missed some sort of festival a week earlier. That night the bar was really dead, it was only me, the bar owner and the bartender. Oh well, here's hoping that Ketchum will have a bit more going on!

Oh and I finally managed to get a shot of this little fucker

Americans (for the make good of the glorious nation of 'stralya):
Because this post is a little short I thought I'd talk a bit about my experiences with the locals here as an outside Australian. As the US is large and diverse, this all may change later on. The one thing I know for sure about all Americans is:

1. Each one has an uncle/cousin/step-sister/workmate that is currently residing in Australia.
2. All of them seem to want and come see Australia some time. I usually then talk about our poisonous animals right after they mention that.
3. They all think we drink Fosters. It's really funny to hear them pronounce it, it kind of comes out a bit British.
4. If you say "g'day" to them randomly, they sort of smile politely - they have no idea what you're saying.
5. Tell them you're on a motorcycle and they'll barrage you with directions and routes for awesome rides - if only they would tell me when I had a capacity to write that shit down.
6. They are some of the most fucking nicest people I've ever met.

One thing that surprised me a bit is that there seems to be confusion on how closely tied we are to the UK. On about 3 different occasions I was asked if we use the Euro, where I say "no, we have our own economy over there, Australian dollar and all", which seems to surprise them a little.

They also really love their beer over here. Way more than in Australia. The microbrews over here are prolific, and they are actually independently owned rather than being owned by the big breweries like back home. The fact that Americans drink shit beer is completely incorrect, sure there are the bud lights, coors, PBRs (yay hipster beer) and the millers; but almost every bar I've been to has had one or two local beers on tap. Usually they'll even let you taste it before you buy it.

Oh another random thing, we can pay on credit cards at the pump in Australia right? I never did when back there, but I remember it being an option. Well since that's how you do it over here (swipe card then fill up), I never realized the advantage - you don't have to take off your helmet at all. Not like anyone uses a fucking helmet in Idaho ("scared of brain damage at low speed crashes, what are you gay?"). It is a little awkward in Oregon where all pumps are full service by law. For motorbikes they just swipe your card for you and hand you the pump.

More wildly obvious, probably inaccurate and maybe slightly offensive observations to come!

 

Boise to Stanley

On my final day in Boise, Kim offered to take me out to lunch to the famous "Big Juds", as seen on Man vs Food. So after packing up my stuff on the bike (getting better at it now), we headed down to try their massive burgers.

So at Big Juds, they make a 1 pound burger, a 2 pound burger and the "Man vs Food" challenge meal:

2 x 1 lb patties, bacon, mushrooms, Swiss cheese and blue cheese on each layer, plus mayo lettuce and tomato, and a basket of Big Jud's fries

Regrettably at that time I had a 3.5 hour ride ahead of me to Stanley, so I just got one of their normal burgers. Having 2 pounds of beef stuck in your gut while you're trying to corner fast on a bike is never a good idea. So I was boring and got the "Hickory" burger, but at least it was "American". But it was a really awesome burger, one thing to note here is they always do crunchy bacon. As far as I'm concerned, it's one place where the Americans got it right.

Kim and her burger from Big Juds

After saying my goodbyes (extra thanks to Kim who was kind enough to show me around the place for a day and a half), and dicking around with my Go Pro, I set off for Stanley.

Apart from the half-naked, slow-as-molasis-on-a-cold-day Harley riders, the ride was really good. It had something I haven't seen yet in America: Corners. Now I wouldn't call them "twisties" like I would know in Camberra or on the Clyde, but at least I could actually lean my bike over a bit. What is a bit tricky to me is what speeds are acceptable over here. In Australia I'd be getting passed by dickheads on R1s constantly, but everyone over here (or at least in Idaho) is very conservative. So I remained relatively conservative as well. The road surface was was decent, a bit of gravel in places but noting terrible. It was the first real test of the Concours as a sports-tourer, and I think it did pretty well. It's a little weird being so upright into the corners, but you sort of get used to it.

After a pretty interesting (but long) ride, I reached Stanley, population 73. As soon as I arrived, I only had two thoughts: Man does my ass hurt and what the fuck am I going to do all day tomorrow.

The scenery at least in Stanley is spectacular. There are huge mountains in the background, the place would be really pretty in the winter I'd imagine. And at least the lodge was pretty clean.

Looks like a fucking postcard

I headed out that that night to see what the food and the night life was like. I found a really good pizza place, and pretty much the only bar in town. I guess it could be described as dive bar. However, the people were really friendly.

I ended up chatting to a guy named Craig, a 50-ish year old, who had seen 49 of the 50 states (no one gets to Hawaii) as a truck driver. He currently owned his RV, and moved around from state to state doing odd jobs. Currently he was based out of Boise living with his 26 year old girlfriend. It was an awesome example of how you should never pre-judge someone based on appearance, he was an extremly intellegent guy with lots to say about the state of the economy, where USA is heading, gun control and politics. He was also very interested in Australia. Maybe it's due to me being in the West, but I am certainly meeting far more left-wing people over here than the expected gun-toting right-wings (still have met a few of those though). I guess we'll wait and see until I hit the lower states.

Mountains and shit

Rear view from my room

Buy the way, the walk home at about 1:30AM was fucking cold. I guess I should have relised that this was now the mountains.

Boise, Idaho 2

This photo nothing to do with Boise

So let me talk a bit about Boise as I didn't know the town at all before I came through. Boise (pronounced boy-see or boy-zee if you're not a local) is a small city with a population of around 210,000 people. It contains a fairly large university, which seems to make the population fairly young. It also means there is quite a good amount of night life, bars and pubs around. For some reason that no one could exactly tell me, Boise has a very high population of females compared to males. To me Boise seemed to have a very relaxed pace, was fairly open, had low amounts of crime and poverty and the natives I was lucky enough to meet were really friendly people.

On the streets in Boise

On Sunday the 29th, I needed to do some laundry first thing. After not being able to get a seat in Capri, then having the worst maccas breakfast I've ever had (the hoecakes were dry and pretty sure they were not heated up), I punched "laundry" into my iPhone GPS and set off. On the way I noticed the weird way Americans sometimes reseal a road, which sucks for motorcyclists. It seems like they spread loose gravel onto the setting tar, and then use the weight of the traffic to "bed it in". Presumably they later come back and brush the remaining gravel away. Anyway, it made it slow going on the motorbike.

After this a very friendly Boise resident - who I met as a friend of a work colleague of someone I met in the hotel bar - offered to take me around to see some of the sights of Boise. Kim is a lovely young lady who although she looks in her younger 20s is actually a year older than me! She is an ex-Minnesotian, which she tells me makes her sound like she has a Canadian accent. Kim currently works as a professor of psychology in the Boise State University (BSU), where apparently she often gets confused one of the students.

Our destination: Table Rock

Apparently hiking is the thing to do in Boise, so we walked up a trail to Table Rock; a popular Boise attraction. This goes past the old penitentiary up to a square looking rock formation (plus a very large controversial religious cross on top, this being America). It was quite a hike for me, being as out-of-shape as I am, and some parts were very steep. But the view from the top was pretty spectacular, where you could get a glimpse of the entire city and the surrounding mountain ranges. And although I stupidly did not put my water bottle lid properly back on and wet my wallet in my backpack ("why is my back so wet, I don't usually sweat this much"), I had a fantastic time!

Kim and I on the top of Table Rock

Afterwards, we headed down to BSU to see the famous collage NFL stadium which is the only one in America to have blue AstroTurf - which the locals call "smurf turf". We also saw the Boise river that passes through the university. A common pastime in Boise is to float down the river on small inflatable boats and tubes, and that day there were many people doing just that. The heat probably helped, it was 99 degrees Fahrenheit that day (37c). It looked like a lot of fun, but unfourtunately we had no boats!

After that we went and had dinner at a really nice, er, beer house I guess? There's not much like it in Australia, well Canberra I guess. But due to the heaviness of the food I'd been eating lately, I opted for the salad. According to Josh I'll get teased if I order a salad in places like Oklahoma City, so I was a bit wary!

Mountain sprout playing at the saloon

Afterwards we went to a saloon downtown, which just happened to have really good live music. The band was called Mountain Sprout, who play bluegrass music with awesomely vulgar lyrics. It was the first time I've seen a band anything like it, they played with a banjo, guitar, fiddle and double bass. I'm not sure how common bands like these are in America. But I had a pretty tough time wiping the smile off my face the for the whole set. The music is so energetic and the lyrics are hilarious, but most of all it was so American! So far the best thing I've seen in the states yet!

Boise, Idaho

I'm typing this blog post on my iPhone, as my fucking Netbook has died! Some of the keys just stopped working, so I just had to send it back to Asus for repairs. I think I should have bought a Lenovo or maybe even a MacBook air. Oh well, hopefully I'll get it back in a few weeks.

Downtown Boise

The ride from La Grande to Boise was pretty good, albeit uneventful. I had the go pro taking shots every 10 seconds, but I'm not sure what happened because when I got to the hotel the memory card was empty! Probably not the most interesting scenery anyway, the next few days should get amazing footage.

The hotel I'm staying at in Boise is really nice, probably the nicest one so far. Because I'm only paying about $80 a night, I always expect the rooms to be crap, but the accommodation over here is thankfully really cheap.

The first night I was pretty beat, so I just headed to the hotel bar. The bar has a really cool bartender, his name is Jason but for some reason we all called him Frank! So I ended up meeting two Americans at the bar: Micheal and Jake. Micheal is from california and runs his own construction company (I think) and Jake is from Denver and is a dishwasher repair man. Both were in Boise to do some camping, up until Jake smashed the bottom o his feet by jumping over a wall at the hotel pool. I guess that must have been a wild night.

Downtown Boise and my bike

Anyway, spent most of the night drink heavily, especially on this rum called "the kraken", which was fantastic but gave me a killer hangover the next day. Most of the day I spent watching a deadliest catch marathon in my air conditioned hotel room.

It is hot in Boise by the way, temperatures are between 36 and 38 Celsius. You don't seem to get burnt easily, because hey have an ozone layer here, but it is still pretty intense.

The next night I met up with Micheal and Jake again, along with a few of their friends from the Boise area. We drank and played pinball and pool. I had this blue cheese beef burger, which brings me to a point: Americans seem to love blue cheese. It's not on everything, but it defiantly has been a lot of menus I've seen, especially on burgers and salads. It's just something I was not expecting about the USA!

Food at the Basque festival

Anyway, there was a festival for the Basque people, who are small community of northern Spanish people who migrated to Boise. We head to a bar which had good music, and I was thinking to myself "man the guys over here dress kind of gay over here", but there were heaps of girls in some crazy (re: super slutty) outfits. So yeah turns out it was a gay bar. Certainly explained a lot!

The bartender earlier that night had told me about a great place for breakfast called Capri, so the next day I walked down there and had some wheat pancakes. I suppose at some point I should try the biscuits ad gravy over here, but damn I did not feel like something that heavy that morning. But the great thing about these sort of diners is that you can sit at the bar and talk to all the other solo people there!

After posting my netbook back to Asus using the super cheap US post service, I rode down to the mall to buy some shit. I also went to the biggest wall-mart yet, but unfortunately it wasn't full of the "people from wall-mart" type people (must be a south thing).

That night I went to dinner with some other people I met at the hotel bar (Jake and Micheal had headed back home). We went to this really awesome pub/restaurant that served a wide range of microbrew beers and really good food. I got a Hawaiian burger, as I felt like something a bit Australian. Pity they don't put the beetroot on their burgers over here! We then hit a few bars in downtown Boise, however we had some issues getting in to few as one of the guys was 20 years old, just short of the legal drinking age. Bartenders and bouncers over here seem to always check IDs. One of the bars we went to was what they call a "dive bar" over here, basically a kind of dodgy bar. They had really cheap beer though - I think about $2 for a PBR (yeah the hipster beer)!