Did you know Idaho gals like their spuds LARGE?

Potato Museum in Blackfoot, Idaho

We had ice cream doled out to us with a square ice cream scooper. These treats were messy since the cones were still round – imagine that! We had coffee in downtown Lava Hot Springs at the Wagon Wheel and they had square mugs. Hmm… we drove out of square-ville and headed north to the potato capitol of the world – Blackfoot, Idaho.

Not far from “Poke-a-fellow” is this interesting little town that really takes the potato to heart. They have signs all over town, large spuds scattered everywhere for tourists to pose up against while pictures are taken, lots of fresh spuds to taste, and don’t forget the POTATO MUSEUM. Well, I nearly fell off my bike. Surely I would learn something new here. I made an immediate bee-line off the freeway to check it out.

Things I learned at the Idaho Potato Museum:

You can make clothes out of burlap potato sacks.

Marilyn Monroe dressed in Idaho potato burlap.
They made themes for Mr. Potato Head that I wasn’t aware of growing up.

And finally, there are no french fries served in Australia! It’s true; check out the migration path of the potato in the image!

We left Potato-ville and headed towards Salmon, entering the Atomic Valley. Now, “Atomic Valley” sounds scary enough. It certainly felt like there was strange shit going on out there. And then the wind blew! My god did the wind blow. This had to be by far the windiest stretch of road I have done. I even slowed down to 55 mph. When we stopped for a break, we noticed that the wind would travel across our water bottles and play a tune. I thought that was amusing, anything to keep from falling asleep I suppose. The atomic, windy, barren, landscape finally gave way to rolling hills.

We then crossed into two major forest areas. As I looked around and saw no trees, I pondered whether I really understood what lands the Forest Service manages. Maybe I have a limited view of that federal agency. Eventually, we reached the town of Challis, Idaho – where the drive finally began to support the effort in seeing it. It was gorgeous from Challis all the way to Glacier NP, Montana. Definitely a must see if you have never seen this part of the country. The road follows the Salmon River, which apparently has salmon that have traveled 900 miles inland (we actually saw a guy with a fish that would measure up even by Alaska standards). We spent the night short of Salmon, since we were too tired from the beating we got in nuclear valley.

Don’t forget to all come back now….

Michael chuckling at the size of the butter on that thing!