We drove north from Mountain Home onto I-84, exiting at Exit 74, Simco Road. It was less than 2 miles from here to yesterday’s end point. I walked first, again paralleling I-84 on old Highway 30. At 3.6 miles, we did the shuttle shuffle, Joe starting back at the beginning while I re-parked the car and continued walking from there. From the spot where the car was, the road split, the old highway continuing to a dead end while the main traffic angled left onto Squaw Creek Road on a due east bearing. A few farms interrupted the fabric of the vast sea of sagebrush. At about 5 miles, the road turned south onto Ditto Creek Road. While walking along this 1-mile stretch, I almost stepped on a very large snake lying next to the pavement. My first instinct was that it might be a rattler, but was probably dead. Both assumptions were incorrect, and I jumped when it moved its head and started to coil. I quickly observed that the tail had no rattles on it, and concluded that it was another bull snake. It did not seem too excited, and I did not approach it.
Shortly thereafter, I turned left onto Martha Avenue and walked about a quarter mile to the end of the pavement. From here on was gravel and dirt road. Joe arrived at that moment, and we again shuttled the car.
Continuing from here, I walked along a road that was at first a hard-packed dirt road with few stones in the roadway. I passed a couple of nice-looking small cattle ranches, including a house Gus Gustafson used to live in. Here is his comment:
“It’s in the eighties now so watch out for wild flowers and snakes. Neither are very aggressive but both would rather not be stepped on.
When you go by the second house on Martha Avenue notice the pine trees in the front yard. I planted them as seedlings about twenty years ago. When we bought the place it was an abandoned farm house and we spent about ten years improving it. The new owners have taken good care of it and we are happy to drive by once in a while to see the progress.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t get this note until after we had walked this segment, or I would have included a photo of this house.
At another cattle ranch near the end of the walk, a young white lab came out barking at me, but did not act too aggressive. I ignored the dog, and it went back toward the house. A couple of minutes later, I heard a light footstep behind me and turned around to find FOUR dogs, two white labs, one black lab, and another black dog, right behind me, curious and seemingly friendly. I started petting a couple of them, and they all seemed to be having a great time with this strange new entity in their world.
That was the last ranch, fading out of sight behind me as the Danskin Mountains came closer and more into focus in the view ahead. The walk ended beneath a line of heavy-duty power lines that stretched southeast toward Mountain Home across the dry prairie.
I walked back a couple of hundred yards, and Joe arrived in the car within a few minutes, trailing a plume of yellow dust. Other than that, only one other vehicle passed me during the 75 minutes I was on Martha Avenue. It is walker’s heaven when you are on a road that takes you where you want to go, and you and the snakes have it all to yourselves. I drove Joe back for his last 3 miles, then waited in the car at the end, reading my book as clouds of flies and beetles flew past and sometimes harmlessly into the car window.
Walk rating: 7.5 (extra credit for the snake)
Money found: Day: $.01 Trip: $.45 Project: $14.88
Distance: Day: 10.2 miles Trip: 49.3 miles Project: 544.3 miles
Starting point: 43 19.682N 115 55.389W (elevation 3332 feet)
Ending point: 43 16.273N 115 46.423W (elevation 3436 feet)
Significance: Starting the “Big Shortcut.”
We grabbed a couple of tacos at Taco John’s in Mountain Home, recognizing the likelihood that another big dinner was in the works. We arrived back at Dick and Joanna’s to find that Dick had spent the afternoon getting some ribs ready for the grill. Okay, this goes quite a bit beyond a B&B now, doesn’t it. I just hope this does not intimidate potential future hosts of this project who might think this is the expected standard….no, folks, we are happy to live a minimalist existence while doing a walk….a bed and a shower is about the extent of it…and wireless internet! But what is not to love about good cooking? Chef Dick did a masterful job on the ribs, describing in detail how he managed to get the particular barbecue taste into them that drove us in short order to abandoning civilized eating utensils in favor of using our fingers. And then Joanna brought out this cake with whipped cream on top that was another stroke of epicurean genius. Conversation included stories of the twenty-some years Dick spent coaching at Mountain Home High School, seven years as head football coach, and the state championship game they almost won.
We may need to stay a few extra days. We can find a reason.
My sister called in the evening to give me the news that she had become a grandmother today, making me a great uncle. I shared the news with Joanna, as the same event made her a great aunt. She is the aunt of the baby’s dad, and I am the uncle of the baby’s mother. Hopefully there will be more news of a similar nature before the trip is over. (Note: One week later, my grandson Corbin Addington was born in Medford , Oregon, on May 29, 2009.)
