I Should've Taken a Picture!

Signs, sights, and surprises of the last week:
--a cow in the health clinic parking lot in Montezuma Creek, UT. Cattle wander around like squirrels. You see cows in the dirt, cows on rock, cows dotting every conceivable and inconceivable landscape. I don't know what they live on.

--a planned forest fire south of Salt Lake City. Signs along the road reassured drivers there was no need to call it in. The smoke made the sunlit valley hazy like a Bierstadt painting and provided some welcome, if eerie, shade for me.

--a replica Delicate Arch at a mini golf place in Provo

--orange flags you can carry while crossing the street in SLC and some spots in Montana. There are little buckets on either side for picking them up & deposit when you make it very safely across.

--some kind of defense facility near Promontory. Signs promised a Rocket Display, but it was in the opposite direction I was going. Wonder what those holes in the hillside are for.

--"Idaho is too great to litter"

--Central Idaho is where God dropped his toys. It's mostly flat and sagey (in color and smell), but mountains are scattered improbably like a young child's train setup. Also strewn about (and sometimes piled into levees) are black lava rocks, so looking across the land creates a craving for mint chip ice cream.

--Idaho National Laboratories owns a vast percentage of this alien land, and mileage signs for Idaho Falls and Pocatello (a captivating, European-looking hillside town) are interspersed with arrows to sets of initials. Tour coaches with "Idaho National Laboratories" emblazoned on the side pass regularly. How'd that be for a business trip?

--Huckleberries are all the rage in the northern US Rockies. I had a huckleberry shake and homemade huckleberry ice cream, but missed out on pie, jam, candy, or any of the other dozens of permutations.

--Electronic sign at entrance to Grand Teton: "Hitting a 2000 lb buffalo will ruin your car. It will ruin your day."

--Jackson, Wyoming, is a precious hole. The Ripley's Believe It or Not hall is architecturally similar to Wall Drug.

--Standing in a cloud of steam is an essential Yellowstone experience. The steam is hot, but quickly cools you as the wind blows. It can be so thick it's all you see.

--the Old Town Cafe in West Yellowstone is a RIP OFF. Many things in that town probably are. The pharmacy in Ennis, MT has a nifty old soda fountain and, while not a bargain, is a much better value.

--Hail that hits like gravel won't necessarily do any damage to a car. Watching storms in the mountains should be on everyone's bucket list.

--Colorado + Illinois = Montana

--two things in Apgar Village in Glacier NP caught my eye: a green and yellow shirt with a John Deere logo, but a closer look revealed that the text was "Glacier National Park" and the leaping animal was a moose; a photo of the turn-of-the-last-century prospectors who first inhabited Apgar--rough and tumble guys with steely eyes, one of whom was holding his cat for the photo

--regular gas goes back to 87 octane in Kalispell

--when driving the Kootenai River Valley, definitely stop for the Falls. I didn't because I'm dumb.

--Bonners Ferry, ID = Little Falls, NY

--the Idaho panhandle must have been the inspiration for their license plate

--Washington is probably pretty cool, but I wouldn't know

--driving drowsy really is like driving drunk