back to Salt Lake City!
Not on the original plan, but Ruth left her new White Buffalo Stone (a form of turquoise) pendant at Wildflowers, so it's sort of on the way back so......
Up promptly this morning as we had a fair drive in front of us. Thought we'd try the breakfast at the hotel, and as it turned out that was a mistake, glacial service, indifferent food and poor choice at that. So, on the road, it was cold,about 40F and squally, so on with the car heating and off we went. Up out of Mammoth Hot Springs and onto the road south. A very pretty drive and as we drove south the sky cleared and became a lovely sunny morning. Half an hour wait at the roadworks and then on to the West Entrance to the Park following the Madison River. Some wide meadows but no moose.
Just outside the Park is a little town called West Yellowstone, a very pretty little town lots of old buildings and hotels/motels. We continued west along Route 20, gradually heading south, through Henry's Fork, a lovely dive through open forest, with occasional meadows and it was getting warmer. More farmland and, of course potatoes - we were in Idaho. They even have a potato museum and a potato research station.
Soon we reached Idaho Falls, a sprawling city which we decided to drive through rather than stay on the freeway. Mistake! A not very attractive city and the map we had was so small I couldn't read it to navigate. Eventually we made it back to the freeway, now I15, and charged south - the speed limit on the I was 80mph. On through farming country and empty potato fields, quite odd in some areas there were green fields on one side of the road and desert scrub on the other; the power of irrigation!
The road carried on through the high plains, all very dry in the autumn sunshine, yellows and Browns, except where the irrigation booms had kept the land very green. We got bored with the I15 and the opportunity arose to leave it at Route 91, an older, more direct route now superseded by the I15. A lovely drive through farming country with little towns along the way. We stopped at Logan, at a Walmart as we thought ewe ought to experience the Walmart way. Well the shop was huge, vast, contains just about everything you could think of. We found what we were looking for, an snow and ice scraper. We'd seen one at the Sassy Moose and decided to find one. Simple things , eh? We also found a True Value store where we bought some superb barbecue tools. Now we really needed to buy an extra bag to bring everything home in.
We diverted through Brigham City as we were low on fuel and passed the monstrosity of the Mormon Temple, opposite it's quite pretty predecessor. Gassed up and discovered the young lady at the cash desk was from Scunthorpe, married an American and moved here.
A little way down the road we passed through an area around Willard growing a lot of fruit trees and pumpkins. Pumpkin stalls lined up along the road for miles, all trying to cash in on the Halloween celebrations. Soon we rejoined the I15 and hammered down the the great Salt Lake on our right, glistening in the late afternoon sun. Not too much traffic but concentration needed. It was strange to see the same centre lane owners club as we have in the UK but this time on a five or six lane highway. Spotted a turn off for a street we recognised and easily found our way to Wildflowers.
Wildflowers was much as we remembered from a week ago, the host was very friendly and showed us to the same room. A lovely warm evening, 70F. Out to dinner at an Italian place called Trio. Delicious rosemary flatbread with goats cheese followed by tagliatelle with prawns and chorizo, a wonderful meal. One of the waiters was from Tonbridge Wells, of all places, such a small world. Anyway we asked our waitress, sorry, server, what ice cream she had. She replied that the only ice cream they had was vanilla, but they also have buttermilk or limoncello gelato! When she had gone we were creased up laughing! When she brought our ordered limoncello gelato, we found it was the buttermilk. We didn't have the heart to send it back....
