R and J in the USA

We entered Idaho from the Southeast after leaving Jackson, Wyoming. We left Wyoming driving through stunning mountain scenery and crossed the border on the same stunning mountain roads. 

We pulled over to get our picture at the “Welcome to Idaho” state sign. The sign was covered with stickers paying homage to various places, parks, sports, and activities that the outdoor enthusiasts we are guessing had made the tradition to cover these signs with stickers were connected to in some way. Ryan crossed the mountain road to take a picture of the equally sticker-covered “Welcome to Wyoming” sign facing the other direction. 

While the first few miles across the border felt the same as we crossed from the one state into the other, as we often find when moving to a new state, it wasn’t long until we had a clear sense that we’d entered a different place entirely. Whether it was the manmade distinctions, the changes in nature’s landscapes, or just the placebo effect of knowing we were technically, according to borders and distinctions made over the course of several centuries, we know we were in a new state.

We drove the roads of Southern Idaho through prairies and irrigated farms. We would later learn that Idaho is split into three fundamental ecologies. The south with its deserts and canyons, the central portion with its mountains and rivers ,and the north with its lakes and forests. 

Though brown and beige don’t sound to the ear like striking colors, when they are filling a horizon of canyons and deserts, that is exactly what they are. As we drove west from the border straight through southern Idaho, we were surrounded by such colors and shapes, and were loving every bit of it.

Since we had gotten the day’s drive started at 4:00 PM rather than the itinerary’s planned departure of 1:00 PM, it looked like our first stop of the day, the popular Shoshone Falls, might have to be foregone. Once the sun went down and we were still a good 40 minutes from the falls, we realized we’d have to skip it. Alas.

We carried on and pulled in after 9:00 PM to our first scheduled campground for the evening at Bruneau Dunes State Park. We are usually in bed and sometimes even fast asleep by 9:00 PM, but our brains were still on Alaska time, so we weren’t too wiped.

We found our site in the near pitch blackness that cut in on the edge of where our headlights illuminated the area. 

We got out of the van to take a quick visit to the bathroom, something we usually do when we first arrive at a campground. Not just to empty our bladders, but also to orient to our new home for the night. As we ventured to the facilities, two things happened.

First, counterintuitive though it may sound, going to a bathroom in a new campground always has a certain intrigue and adventure to it. Luckily, they are usually pretty clean, so this excitement has nothing to do with public bathroom trauma. No, this adventure is a very positive one filled with discovery. We have come to expect it, now 20 states into the trip. The bathroom is where you get your first real education about the landscape you have just arrived in, because bathrooms are where the signs are posted.

The bathroom building is where you first find out whether you should be “bear aware”, keep an eye out for cougars, beware of the river currents, know how to fight a riptide, or take care to prevent tick bites. Or maybe you’ll learn about whether water is scarce and needing to be conserved in an area, or even what the local tourist entertainment is that you might be interested in. There is something kind of fun about seeing the new collection of signs that, in their warnings and advertisements, tell you about the new world that you’ve just entered, one with new limits and new opportunities.

You also learn about the different approaches to sanitation and maintenance different states have if you are in a state campground.

Well, here in Bruneau Dunes State Park, before the sunlight allowed us to see them with our own eyes, it was the bathrooms that first gave us not only a reminder that the word “Dunes” was in the name of the park for a reason, but that these were going to be serious dunes.

We saw a set of warnings we’d never seen before. “Hikers are encouraged to hike only in the morning and early evening. Sand temperatures can reach up to 150 degrees during the day.”

Yikes. We wondered if that was true even in this off-peak, early October season.

In the last campgrounds we had been to in Wyoming, the bathrooms were filled with information about how to handle a bear encounter if you came upon one. We guessed that we were out of bear country just by the utter lack of bear aware information in the facilities. Now we were being given heads up about sand temperature and the potential for getting lost, dehydrated, and disoriented. It was still pitch black out, but, with one trip to the bathroom, our imaginations were already full of what scenery we might find ourselves steeped in when the sun woke us in the morning.

But sand temperature wasn’t the only sign in the bathroom.

As we both exited our visit to our respective bathrooms and headed back towards the van, we turned and looked at each other with smirks of glee, “Did you see the sign in the bathroom?” Ryan asked Julie. Julie knew exactly which sign Ryan was talking about.

“Yes!” Julie responded. “So cool!”

”Sandboard Rentals”.

At the visitors center, you could rent essentially what amounts to a snowboard, but to be used to ski down a mountain of sand!

Yes, a trip to the bathroom is an informative adventure indeed!

Then, while walking back to the van, the second thing happened.

We looked up.

Holy moly. Neither of us had ever seen a sky so full of stars in our lives. The brilliant ribbon of the Milky Way was out in its full glory. We could see the Big Dipper right in front of our van and what looked like a twinkling red star that we assumed was Mars shining clear and bright. All that and billions more stars peppered the sky above us. Of course, those stars are always there, but this particular place allowed us a chance to see the in all of their glory.

This harkened to another sign that had piqued both of our interests in the bathroom, the one that communicated the events and open hours of the observatory right there in the park. Julie was pretty pumped to know there was a huge telescope right there, although the observatory wouldn’t be open while we were there. We still thought it was cool as hell. It turns out that in addition to being a dune-viewing destination, Bruneau Dunes State Park is a popular star viewing destination.

The bathroom gave us a lot to look forward to when the sun rose.

We slept like logs and woke up to a scenery that floored us both. 

The dunes, one of which is the tallest single-structure sand dune in North America at 470 feet, were huge and right there. The scenery was gorgeous desert with views of stunning flat desert floor, small rolling fields filled with yellow grass, and 360 degrees of mountains, mesas, and sand dunes. The sky was beautiful and clear and the air was fresh as could be. 

It wasn’t long until we were discussing our Idaho itinerary to see if we could swing it to stay here an extra night. It is often on this trip that we say the words “we didn’t want to leave”. And it is true every time. This time we felt it so strongly that we decided to do something about it. 

We also both liked the idea of a day in place to catch up on all sorts of things – writing, resting, various other to dos. And Ryan made it clear: “I am going to stand on top of the tallest dune there is here.”

After a morning resting and working in the van, Ryan headed out for a desert run while Julie worked to secure another night at the campground. Ryan suggested calling the visitors center since, when driving in the night before, he didn’t remember where it was, or how far away it was from the campground, but however far it was, he knew it was some amount of miles. Julie was excited to find the visitor’s center and to do so by bike through this incredible landscape. She had no idea if she was about to bike two miles or ten, so she geared up with plenty of water and electrolytes and the GPS, just in case something happened, and set out on the road.

There weren’t any signs pointing back to the visitors center, so Julie wandered a bit, and discovered one marvel after another. Just next to the campground was the observatory. Julie was so curious to see inside of it and look out the telescope they had. She biked on and ended up at the shores of a beautiful desert lake! This was no mirage. This place just kept getting better. Though the lake was a beautiful find, it was also a dead end. So, Julie turned her bike around and headed back the other way, passing a beautiful frame of Ryan cresting a slight hill running toward her surrounded by browns, beiges, and striking desert scenery all around him. This is Ryan’s favorite landscape, so Julie loved seeing this image of a man completely in his element, especially a man she was as fond of as this guy.

We high-fived as we passed in opposite directions, Ryan on foot, Julie on two wheels.

Julie soared down the downhills, loving the freedom of riding an empty road in the middle of this wide open landscape, and she pumped up the uphills feeling the freshness and dryness of the air fill her lungs and chap her lips. She loaded up on water until she finally came upon the visitor’s center just shy of two miles from the campground.

She booked another site for the night, purchased a Gatorade, bought a Bruneau Dunes State Park magnet to add to the growing collection on the van’s sliding side door, and hopped back on the bike, ready to enjoy more time lazing in the van with the back doors open and the fresh air whipping through. 

The hours of the day slipped away in rejuvenating and productive bliss.