I was in Boise for a work trip. I had decided to fly back from Spokane instead of just leaving as the week ended. To that end, I rented a mid sized SUV.
I had a long haul ahead of me, about 7 hours. I ate a nice breakfast and asked a somewhat clueless but friendly waitress about the route.
I was debating driving up the highways instead of the backroads. In fact, I debated this back and forth several times whilst driving, switching between the routes until I came to the very last fork. I finally decided that a 7 hour drive with pleasant scenery was likely to be much better than 6 hours dealing with the highway.
The road was like a rollercoaster, they didn't bother with tunnels, you drove all the way up and down the mountains. There's a few spots where its rather terrifying. You're on a 1.5 lane per direction 60mph road roaring down a mountain pass.
If it wasn't riding up and down mountainsides, it was winding along the river that snakes through the state. I had heard there had been heavy rains lately, and it showed. The river almost all white water, at times the rapids crested the banks of the road itself, though thankfully none had flooded.
You ask what a 1.5 lane road looks like? It's 3 lanes total, the middle is shared for passing, priority (supposedly) going to one side or the other at regular intervals. In practice some daredevils take this as a challenge to pass ahead of the people sandbagging them before you slam into each other headlong. Despite the occasional game of chicken, the scenery was some of the most breathtakingly beautiful I have ever seen in my life.
I recall one moment, exiting a forest road where I came upon the vista of a mountainside climbing up into the sky before me, the valley I was in dotted with farms, and a lake leading up to the forest edge that marked the start of the mountain. The sky was incredibly close through the day. When in valleys it often made a ceiling, such that you couldn't even see the mountaintops. It was as though you were in a massive chamber hall, tiny cows lazily grazing the fields, dioramas of ranch life pushed up against the forested mountain wall.
There was much temptation to stop and take it slow, but unfortunately time rushes on for all of us. Not only did I have a timetable to keep, stopping by the side of the road was largely a no go. It's very difficult ro rejoin a 1 lane 60mph road, even if the traffic is only occasional, the turns are blind.
That said, there were opportunities to stop and bask in it all. I'm sad to say that the photos don't capture the feeling of being there in the moment, but how could they. To be there, surveying the valleys from above as the sky closes in on you is to own that vast landscape for yourself, even if its just in a memory of passing through.
