Straight roads through the high desert on our BMW motorcycle

We spent yesterday in Boise, Idaho where I ran the Famous Idaho Potato Marathon and then we explored the downtown area. We discovered that one of the the largest populations of people with Basque heritage live in and around Boise. The Basque Block is a part of the vibrant downtown with restaurants and a museum, and we sat outside at Bar Gernika and watched people biking and walking on a beautiful, sunny afternoon.

Today we started back home, riding southeast on Interstate 84 for about 80 miles before turning off onto US Route 30. The day was cloudy, overcast, windy and cooler than our trip north, and we both wore part or all of our raingear for warmth at various times during the day. We loved having the Viking Cruise Roll Bag with the large zippered top opening for easy access to store our raingear when the weather warmed up, and then to take the raingear back out when the skies darkened and a cold wind picked up.

This part of US 30 is the Thousand Springs Scenic Byway that runs through the Snake River Canyon. We rode through bright green irrigated fields, crossed the Snake River, saw waterfalls spilling from the top of high bluffs, and watched windmills turning in the stiff wind. There are several fish hatcheries in this area that raise 70% of the trout produced in the United States.

This part of Idaho is completely different than anything we've seen so far, with towns every 10-20 miles, rivers and creeks, and leafy green trees. When we're on a motorcycle we notice the different smells, and today I was thrilled to smell and see lilac bushes, one of my favorite signs of Spring when we lived in Vermont.

We turned south onto US Route 93 for the rest of our 380 mile trip today, and as soon as we crossed into Nevada at Jackpot - an apt name for a town with several casinos - the landscape changed into the familiar high desert mountains, canyons and bluffs covered with rocks and sagebrush.

US Route 93 splits the Great Basin that covers most of Nevada and part of Utah. We saw snow-peaked mountains to the East and West, and the traffic thinned to tractor-trailers hauling freight and cattle, local pick-up trucks, and a few other motorcycles. Towns are much farther apart, with one sign warning that the next services were 115 miles away.

Our stop for tonight is Ely, where we ate lunch in the Hotel Nevada on our trip north three days ago. Ely was founded as a stagecoach stop along the Pony Express, and later became a booming copper mining town. We ate dinner in the Silver State Restaurant and chatted with the friendly staff about the town and a grandson riding the PBR rodeo circuit out of Michigan.

Tomorrow our plan is to continue south on Route 93, riding around the outskirts of Las Vegas and finishing the day in Kingman, AZ. We're expecting sunnier skies with the same windy conditions, looking forward to more adventures on the BMW.

Elko, Nevada to Boise, Idaho on the BMW motorcycle

Traveling on our BMW motorcycle gives us the opportunity to find less-traveled roads and explore parts of the country we would never see on the Interstate highway system.

Today we started in Elko, NV and rode 259 miles north to Boise, ID. We rode for 190 miles on Nevada 225/Idaho 51 before we made our first turn of the day.

Sagebrush lined the road with views of the Independence Mountains to the west. The only trees we saw were around isolated ranches; otherwise the land was covered in rocks or sagebrush.

The road twisted through the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, rising up and down and then sweeping around the steep, rocky hills that fell straight down to the narrow - or often nonexistent - highway shoulder.

We've been traveling through the high desert for the past two days on our trip from Arizona to Boise, Idaho and I was excited to see the Wild Horse Reservoir that stretched out into the valley. It was built in the 1930's to store water for irrigation, and is also stocked with trout and bass for fishing.

Owyhee, NV was the first town we came to - 97 miles after we started our trip today. It's on the Duck Valley Reservation, home to the Shoshone and Paiute tribes. Luckily there was one gas station/grocery store in town so we could take a break and fill up the tank.

We crossed into Idaho less than one mile from the gas station, and rode on what was now called Idaho 51 - the same road we'd been on all day, just renumbered from Nevada to Idaho. The first 43 miles the road shot straight through the flat landscape with sagebrush covering every visible area. This is open range country, with signs warning us to watch out for 'cows on the road'.

Then the road started curving and sweeping around rolling and rocky hills, keeping the ride interesting until we finally started seeing bright green, irrigated fields and towering stacks of hay.

We crossed the Snake River and left the isolation of a 2-lane highway with almost no traffic and no stop signs or traffic signals for a city highway with stores, gas stations, traffic and stoplights.

It's a shock to our system to see green grass, rivers filled with water instead of a mere trickle or dry, and city congestion. Boise is the capitol of Idaho, and the most populous city in the state with just over 200,000 people and over 600,000 in the metropolitan area.  Early settlers must have felt the same way, because the name "Boise" comes from the French traders who named the river "la rivière boisée" which translates to "the wooded river".

Tomorrow I run the Famous Idaho Potato marathon along the Boise River greenspace. We'll take a rest day from the motorcycle, then Sunday head for a 3-day trip home along a different route, looking for new roads to explore.

Discovering Nevada on the BMW motorcycle

On our 459 mile trip today from Cedar City, Utah to Elko, Nevada we discovered:

Pioche, NV once had over 10,000 residents and was the largest mining town in southern Nevada. It was well-known as a lawless town of hired gunmen where supposedly 75 men were killed before anyone died of natural causes. We stopped at Tillie's Mini Mart (selling gasoline to vaseline) for gas in this quiet town of 1000 people.

Route 50 in Nevada, the loneliest road in America where we rode over 100 miles from one small town to the next.

After 36 miles of pavement and seeing only one other vehicle, Nevada Route 892 turned into a hard-packed, rutted dirt road. We turned around and retraced our route, seeing only one other vehicle. That was a total of 2 vehicles in 72 miles.

The speed limit on remote 2-lane highways in Nevada is 70 mph. Mike routinely piloted the BMW between 85 and 95mph.

More animals - rabbits, deer, cows - than people as we traveled in the middle of the Silver State.

The Hotel Nevada in Ely opened in 1929 (at 6 stories the tallest building in the state at that time) and hosted celebrities including Mickey Rooney and Clark Cable in the hotel/casino/restaurant that served bootlegged alcohol 24 hours/day throughout Prohibition. We ate lunch in the restaurant with motorcyle-theme upholstery on the chairs.

Snow-capped mountain peaks reaching over 10,000' and long valleys, one with a 14-mile long dry, sandy lake bed. During lunch in Ely, the waitress told us it snowed in town last week, and that we're lucky to experience 70-degree temperatures and sunshine today.

Tomorrow we ride into Boise, Idaho for the marathon Saturday. I wonder what we'll discover?