TRIP 06 DAY 03, Wednesday, May 20, 2009: Kuna-Mora Road to I-84
Having pre-driven this section on Sunday, I was not particularly looking forward to this long, mostly straight stretch of nearly featureless hiking. However, as is usually the case, the view from the ground was more interesting than from a car.
We did our usual transcontinental shuffle procedure, with Joe walking first this time. From the shelter of the car, it looked like a beautiful day with cloudless sunshine. However, Joe stepped out into a stiff northerly wind at a temperature of 49 degrees, but substantially cooler with the chill factor. I drove ahead and read for over an hour before he arrived. When I began walking, I added running pants, long-sleeved tee-shirt, and windbreaker as layers over my normal shorts and tee-shirt. This was barely sufficient.
Within a mile, most cultivation receded from the road, and I was flanked on both sides by sagebrush. The scenery did not change much. A couple of guys in a van stopped, rolled down the window, and one said, “Say, would you happen to know how to get to Swan Falls?” I almost laughed. Maybe we need to check out Swan Falls. I did not have a spare map to give them this time, but told them where the road was.
Later on, another person stopped and asked if I was walking for exercise or what…they were just checking to make sure I didn’t need a lift somewhere. These Idaho folks are right friendly.
When I picked Joe up after his last segment, he had walked a couple of extra miles, ending at the freeway, and we decided to extend the day’s distance to give ourselves better options for the next day. This would make today’s distance nearly equal to the total for the first two days of the trip.
When I then walked that section, the car was parked at the end of a dirt road dead-end at the fence that runs along I-84 freeway. Joe was not there, but had climbed through the fence and hiked another couple of miles down to the truck weigh station. I managed to ease through the barbed wire without any serious damage and walked almost three miles to the same place I had stopped on Sunday and gotten permission to park. Partway there, I met Joe walking back to the car. He continued north to the car and then drove around and onto the freeway and down to the weigh station. Actually the weigh station was closed for the day because a crew was applying tar to cracks in the pavement of the off-ramp, which we had to carefully step around.
Walk rating: 4.0
Money found: Day: $.33 Trip: $.44 Project: $14.87
Distance: Day: 13.9 miles Trip: 29.2 miles Project: 524.2 miles
Starting point: 43 27.556N 116 18.856W (elevation 2805 feet)
Ending point: 43 25.851N 116 03.469W (elevation 3377 feet)
Significance: None.
We drove back to Nampa via the freeway, arriving at Morgans’ at 4:15 p.m., just giving is time to clean up before dinner. I packed my suitcase to move since company was arriving a day earlier than planned and needed my bedroom. So I would sleep across town at the home of Leon and Willa (Eloise’s sister) Powers (see reports at end of previous trip).
We had an excellent group dinner at the Copper Canyon Restaurant in downtown Nampa. Good place. Afterward, I drove to Leon and Willa’s for the night.
Don’t give up, folks – this trip gets a lot more interesting from here on.
