TRIP 06 DAY 04, Thursday, May 21, 2009: I-84 and Desert Wind Road
As this was to be the day we would move our “camp” from Nampa to Mountain Home, I packed everything up after breakfast before saying good-byes and leaving Leon and Willa Powers’s place. I drove back across town to Morgans’ house and said more good-byes there to my cousins and my 94-year-old aunt Gertrude. Let me tell you, the kind of hospitality we experienced here just makes the rest of what we do so much easier. Joe and I left about 8:15 a.m. and drove I-84 from Nampa through Boise and southeast to the truck weigh station. After I poked my head inside to make sure we still had permission to park there for 4 hours or so, I slathered on sunscreen in the large parking lot, and we headed for the southbound lanes of I-84. This section of freeway passes through an area of desert totally devoid of cultivation. The views consist basically of fairly monochrome brown stretching to the mountains southwest and northeast.
At half a mile, we scampered across the two lanes between groups of vehicles traveling at 80 mph. Everyone we describe this to shudders at the thought, and I had also thought it would not be practical to do. However, we found that there were frequent gaps in the traffic large enough to walk across, let alone run, and visibility was good for more than sufficient distance to be safe about it. We crossed the wide median on a gravel track used by state patrol to do a U-turn without having to drive miles to the next exit, then ran across the other two lanes to the north side of the freeway. And in case you still have a queasy feeling in your stomach about that, be assured that (I believe and hope) this was the last time we will ever have to do anything like that, as will be further explained in this report.
About 4 miles south of the truck weigh station is the nearest exit. As we approached this from the northeast side of the freeway, we found where old pavement branched off to the left, the overgrown remnants of the old Highway 30 that was used before the freeway was built. We climbed through 2 fences to walk along this old roadway through a cow pasture for about half a mile, climbing through another fence on the far side at the junction of Indian Creek Road and Desert Wind. We followed Desert Wind (labeled on Google maps as “Old Highway 30”) southeast paralleling the freeway, crossing from Ada County into Elmore County a couple of miles in.
We were able to walk together on this day as a result of help from Kaye Gyllenskog, who, despite enduring recovery from hip surgery the previous week, offered to come pick us up at the end of our walk today. Given the chance to experience the day's walk in tandem rather than solo, we had a long conversation and played a game in which each of us would have to name a person in American history whose name began with “A”, then “B,” etc. We expanded it to include any historical person since there were a few we weren’t sure about anyway. We only came up with one for “X,” but had two names for every other letter, including “Q.”
As we walked along this quiet road with minimal traffic, the freeway at least a quarter mile off to our right, I heard a funny sound and saw a blur of movement ahead in some bushes. I motioned for Joe to stop, and we watched as two badgers went around and around, screeching at each other in an apparent territorial dispute. After one ran off, the other one turned to sniff the air and watch us until we took a few more steps, and it disappeared into a burrow. See picture below.
This being the fourth day of the walk, we were coming into maximum soreness, each having acquired a blister the previous day. When Kaye and her driver friend Sally showed up, we were more than ready to stop for the day. They drove us back to the Simco Road exit (about 2 miles), and we drove north from there to the next exit and all had lunch at the Boise Stage Stop, a truck stop. It is possible that their breakfasts are good, but our counsel is to avoid the Reuben sandwich.
Walk rating: 4.5
Money found: Day: $.00 Trip: $.44 Project: $14.87
Distance: Day: 9.9 miles Trip: 39.1 miles Project: 534.1miles
Starting point: 43 25.851N 116 03.469W (elevation 3377 feet)
Ending point: 43 19.682N 115 55.389W (elevation 3332 feet)
Significance: Hopefully the last time we will ever have to walk on a freeway. Crossed from Ada County into Elmore County.
They then drove us on north to the truck weigh station. Here, we had them drop us off at the part of this complex that is for northbound trucks; having run across the freeway in one direction, we were now confident we could do it in the opposite direction, and this would save Sally and Kaye from having to drive an extra 15 minutes (another 2 miles north to the exit, back south the same 2 miles to the weigh station on the southbound side, on south to the next exit 4 miles more, returning northbound that same 6 miles for a total of 12 extra miles). Sally pulled the car into the parking area on the opposite side of the freeway from our car. We gave Kaye and Sally our thanks and started walking toward the freeway.
And then...a miracle happened…in the person of Gus Gustafson, East Boise POE Senior Inspector for the Idaho Transportation Department. Joe had talked to him the previous day, so he knew something of our project and realized we were parked on the opposite side. He was there observing our actions. He walked over to us and said, “You don’t have to walk over the freeway. We hate to see people splattered all over the pavement, so let me take you through the tunnel.” Tunnel? TUNNEL??? Sure enough, they had a secret concrete-lined tunnel from the building on this side passing beneath the I-84 freeway to the building on the other side. He unlocked the doors and led us through the long passage (which Joe said felt like being inside Hitler’s WWII bunker) and upstairs to the office on the other side! But that was not the end of it. He asked about our planned route, and we told him about our plans to walk to Mountain Home and then east on Highway 20. He pulled out one of their maps and showed us a better alternative that we would reach the very next day. This route would follow a well-maintained set of dirt roads due east from a point a few miles on down the road we were on and meet Highway 20 about 15 miles east of Mountain Home. The savings in distance by not having to go through Mountain Home amounted to well over a full day’s walking. This was just the kind of shortcut I had been looking for in studying Google Maps for months, so I was a little skeptical, although he seemed a credible expert. Once in the car, we decided to drive along this alternative to make sure; we found not only a shortcut, but a whole new adventure in exploring some interesting sections you would not have a clue existed by driving on the freeway. Suddenly the rest of the trip seemed much more full of promise than my earlier vision of endless, unbroken, featureless desert.
Once on Highway 20 (after completing our driving of the planned shortcut), we drove west into Mountain Home, finding Dick and Joanna Kellum’s place only after calling Joanna and getting guidance by phone. I had gone to college with both of them, but had not really talked to them at all since that time (43 years ago), so we had a good time catching up on each other’s lives. Dick even showed me another good shortcut along our planned route that would be quieter, shorter, and more scenic than the highway alternative. A big chicken dinner with key lime pie for dessert topped off a great day for the project. We once again marveled at hospitality Idaho-style.
