Day 03. McCammon, Idaho to North Fork, Idaho. 278 miles.
Today, I was determined to get off the Interstate and get onto the 93!
I called my friend Art, who lives in Idaho. He had called me the previous day to leave a message for me to call him back about alternative, more scenic, routes to Montana.
So, I called him and spoke with him about options. He suggested I can leave the I-15 at Blackfoot, in Idaho, and take the much more scenic route on the 93. Especially if we were going to stop over for the night at our other friends, Dave and Robin, which we’d hoped to do. A quick call to Robin, and she confirmed they were good to have us stay over at their place in North Fork. A plan is hatched!
So we left the I-15 at Blackfoot, and headed North-West up the 93. What a lovely road! We started to really see “Big Sky” country in this part of Idaho. Similar to what we expected to see again in Montana. Beautiful, beautiful, country!
We stopped for lunch at a little burger bar called “Pickle’s Place” in Arco. About 8 bikers had just arrived so we had to wait about 40 minutes for our two burgers and fries. The burgers were good. The fries were a little stale. Very few people wearing masks, including the wait staff. I’ll just say that I don’t understand this, and leave it at that.
After lunch, we continued along the 93 until we got to the town of Salmon, where we stopped to pick up some groceries, etc.
Then we continued on 93N until North Fork, where we left the 93 to head East on the NF30, all along the Salmon River. We turned left to continue along the dead-end road towards our friends’ Dave and Robin’s place.
What a GORGEOUS place!
More tomorrow….
What is dry camping / boondocking as opposed to any other type of camping?
Dry camping (boondocking) is camping without any facilities/utilities. i.e. no power to plug your camper into, no fresh water connection, no waste (sewer/shower/kitchen sink etc) connection. You are basically parked at an informal site somewhere out in the wild, or at least, with none of the usual camping facilities. You may have a fire ring outside if you’re lucky, and a picnic table if you’ve REALLY lucky, but we take our portable propane braai/grill with us and have our own deck chairs and table, and of course solar electricity and 200 litres of fresh water in our tank and about 250 litres of waste water capacity, so we can stay an easy 14 says which is the normal limit for these free spots.