Day 4: Suttle Lake, Oregon to Boise, Idaho

Day 4: Suttle Lake, Oregon, to Boise, Idaho
Note: Finding any internet at all has proven a challenge, and finding fast enough internet to allow me to upload pictures with any speed is almost impossible. It may be a while before I can publish any more pics. Sorry.
As we packed up our things, we thought of all the people we knew who would thoroughly appreciate the Lodge at Suttle Lake and how, someday, we would have to come back for a longer stay. We walked back down to the Boathouse for breakfast because guests of the resort receive a coupon for a 50% discount on breakfast. As kind of a breakfast appetizer, they brought out a fruit plate for each of us, two pieces of fry bread dusted with powdered sugar, and marionberry jam. I don’t now what exactly marionberries are, but they are very popular around here. I had a breakfast burrito with chicken, chorizo, avocado, egg, and cheese, topped with tomato salsa. Aaron had a bacon, cheese, and mushroom omelet with hashbrowns. It was all very good and plenty of food to avoid stops for the rest of the day.
As we checked out, the clerk talked cordially with us about our stay and gave a small box of snacks as parting gift. Aaron and I looked at each other in amazement and, when got back to the car, wondered aloud “Best Hotel Ever?” We’re not hard to please.
As we left the Deschutes National Forest, the trees thinned and the farmland returned, but you could still see the snowcapped mountains in the distance. As we drove east, the farmland got sparser and sparser, and scrubby plants and small, gnarled trees replaced the meadows and towering pines. Furthermore, all evidence of human life vanished except for some barbed wire fences and a few power lines. All of this under a sky threatening to rain made for an eerie scene. The towns that had been listed on the map were barely more than a few buildings, most of which were closed. The strangest one we saw was Hampton, Oregon, which, at least from Route 20 appeared to be nothing more than an abandoned gas station.
After we got east of Burns, Oregon, the clouds lifted and the landscape became more arid. But for the Malheur River, which followed along the edge of the road, there was almost no evidence of water on large, gravelly mountains on either side of the road. This leg of the journey was marked with minutes of silence as the radio scanner turned over and over in search of a single signal.
As we approached Idaho, the land became dominantly agricultural. Although there were many crops that were familiar to us (mostly corn and wheat), there was one we couldn’t recognize. It was low to the ground and looked like small clumps of grass. After a better look, we saw bulbs coming out of the ground and concluded that these were probably onions. We later came upon a billboard confirming our suspicions. We were in “Onion Country, U.S.A.”
As we got closer to Boise, probably the largest city we had seen since leaving Seattle, the small farm communities of Onion Country gave way to suburban developments indistinguishable from every other suburban community in the country. We made our way into Boise and checked into the J.J. Shaw House Bed and Breakfast. We were warmly greeted by the innkeepers and shown up to Shaw’s Retreat, the attic that had been converted into a suite. The suite was very large, with a king sized bed, a sitting area , and a private bathroom in the back. The room’s décor was Victorian and unapologetically feminine, with bold floral wallpaper and silk flowers hanging from the rafters over the bed. In addition to the plentiful reading material (including numerous National Geographics and an amusing coffee table book entitled “Wedding Bell Blues: 100 Years of Our Great Romance with Marriage”), there was a binder about the Angel Inn Network, a charity effort started by the inn’s owners and managers Junia, Norma, and Serena Stevens (I believe they are mother, daughter, and granddaughter). As a member of the Angel Inn Network, the inn donates a portion of its income to help the poor. The ultimate goal of the network is to establish a website of other Angel Inns to allow travelers to reserve a room at an inn to help the poorest of the poor. The J.J. Shaw House is currently working with Cross International and donates a monthly portion of room revenue to provide young women in Belize with education, clothing, and hot meals. I’ve never seen any program like this, but it is a fantastic idea and I hope it catches on.
For the evening’s entertainment, we went to the Western Idaho State Fair which we had passed on our way into Boise. The fair was every bit what one would expect, acres of land teeming booths, food concessions, neon lit rides, a petting zoo (including the world’s largest hog at 1,000 lbs), and agricultural pavilion for judging and auctioning off livestock. Our first stop was the large ferris wheel which was nice but a little bit tame. The next ride we found was called the Crazy Train. A train of about six trapezoid shaped cars rode along a vertical oval track, flipping end over end. Then the track itself started rotating on a horizontal axis. The whole effect made the spectator think, “oh, no way I’m getting on that,” but then you had no choice but to get on. We climbed up the stairs and piled into the two person car which had a glass front and faced another trapezoid car with two girls. The worker came and swung the creaking top shut and worn padding clamped down on our thighs. This was nothing like the sanitized safety of the wonders of engineering at a large amusement park. Part of the thrill was that lingering thought that the ride might just be as dangerous as it looked. As the train began to climb the tracks upward, the car facing us tilted in toward us and finally landed on our car, bringing us with 8 inches of the noses of our new best friends, the girls in the car facing ours. The ride threw us around the track and against each other for about ninety second (though it felt like much longer). We finally got out jangled, dizzy, and very happy with our $10 investment.
To settle our heads, we went over to the cattle auction. We watched as young members of the local 4-H club lead their dairy cows around a small arena. Although the auctioneer’s melodic ramblings were initially unintelligible, we quickly caught on and learned that most of these animals were being sold for between $3000 and $3500. We thought that perhaps we could find a cheaper souvenir.
After the auction, we watched a comic juggler performing in small pavilion. He started off with small tricks like juggling metal cups and pins. The act naturally progressed to ever more impressive stunts, but what the juggler had not anticipated was as the evening drew on, the wind picked up, making the most difficult tricks even more impressive. For a finale, he juggled a pink flamingo (particularly challenging in the wind), a machete (real? Who knows?) and a black of Spam. As he was juggling these objects he took two hearty bites of the Spam. Anything for a laugh.
Next we toured the food concessions for dinner. Most of what we found was typical carnival fare: sausage sandwiches, elephant ears, French fries, Icees. But we did see a few local items that we had not seen in other carnivals: Basque chorizo, churros, and, most enticing of all, the TaterPig. The Idaho TaterPig is a sausage served within a loaded baked potato. While Aaron stuck with the tried and true German sausage sandwich, I could not leave Boise without trying a TaterPig. It was exactly what you would expect. All the gooey goodness that is generally packed into the poor unsuspecting potato, except you got a prize in the middle. It was absolutely a full meal in itself.
After dinner we toured the winning vegetable entries (the largest cabbage was probably the most impressive) and returned to the J.J. Shaw House for the night.