Traveling Astray Among Bestest Of Plans

You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.

Like a new alternator, for example.

My recent three-week excursion north to Montana and back makes for the stuff of legend, or so it seemed at the time it was all happening and certainly the tales grew in magnitude each time I told them to inquiring folks along the way. Since memories slip and, as the song says "tales grow taller on down the line", I best publish these stories here so there is no doubt as to what went down.

I tend to build my road trips around national parks and monuments to take advantage of my annual pass to such places. Of course, I usually structure the routes so that I hit the parks along the way but end up at a relative or friend's house as a destination for each leg of the trip. This time around, I shot to Phoenix, then up through Laughlin and Las Vegas (bypassing the Hoover Dam bottleneck entirely), then hit Highway 93 north through Nevada, Idaho, and into Montana. If you like scenery, Highway 93 is your two-lane path to glory. It's also a road that will test your vehicle's ability to generate power on its own...well, either it was the highway or it was the fact my car has well over 185,000 miles on it. That episode comes later, though.

The mountains north of Las Vegas are long ridgelines running generally north-south with wide open valleys in between which is where the highway runs. At some points, the road turns east-west and crosses the mountains through passes. The town of Caliente (Spanish for "hot") had an interesting bright white rail road station so I shot a photo of it as I rolled through town. On north from there is Ely, Nevada, where I holed up in my staple lodging: Motel 6. It is said they leave the light on for you, but in this case the sunset really put on a show behind the Motel 6 sign and made the electric light seem dim by comparison. The next morning I split off from my northward route and spun over to Great Basin National Park which consists of an enormous mountain peak and no entrance fee. Somewhere around 9000 feet elevation (signs along the road tell you just how high you are) I parked and enjoyed the view. Gravity and I had a fun time coming down to the valley again which made for a good swift start to the rest of my day. North through Ely again and up to Wells, Nevada where 93 crosses the interstate. A couple signs just north of the intersection beckoned me to what sounded a lot like houses of ill repute. I didn't go but somehow the traveling journalist in me said I should have visited these "ranches" if for nothing else but to render an unbiased report.

North of Wells is the town of Jackpot on the border between Nevada and Idaho. As the name implies, the main function of the town is to support a rather large casino operation. The marquee said some country singers were coming to town to put on a show. It wasn't enough to get me to stop but I did see some for sale signs on property there. A friend of mine said Jackpot is the hot spot for real estate investment. Perhaps he is right, but I'm not buying it.

Into Idaho I went, up through Twin Falls through the volcanic rock fields and into the Snake River area. As scenic river drives go, Highway 93 along the Snake River is hard to beat. I now tip my hat to Idaho as rivaling Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana for scenery. On the other hand, in Stanley, Idaho, I spent the most for a tank of gas I have ever spent in my life: $2.789 per gallon. Thirty-five smackers to fill my tank. Of course the views were worth every penny. Then the battery light on my car came on. I pulled over and shut off the engine, then restarted it and the light did not come back on. It flashed a few times then was not lit up again the rest of the time in Idaho. A battery light coming on means your alternator isn't doing what it is supposed to do and your battery is not taking a charge from the engine activity like it should. My assumption was a loose alternator belt. Soon enough the Welcome To Montana sign appeared and I dropped down off the pass into my home state. I'd traveled this section of road in 2000 during the raging forest fires so my memories of the Snake River and entering the Bitteroot Valley of Montana on Highway 93 were very smoky memories to say the least. It was refreshing to see this part of the country without smoke. As I drove through Darby I remembered the big fire fighter camps, the thank you signs along the highway, and the areas that were ablaze five years earlier. On through Hamilton and the sun set in the west and lit up the clouds much like it had back down in Ely. I'm firmly against people yacking on cell phones while driving yet I somehow feel it is entirely okay to shoot photos while driving. I'm not sure what my logic is, but until I can rig up a hands-free camera on top of my car, I will do my best to pull off the road to shoot photographs. If you see a shot of mine with blurred bushes or trees in the foreground, that should tell you what I was doing at the time.

In Missoula I called my Mom who lives about an hour away and let her know I was going to be arriving around 11 pm. Soon my cell phone reception degraded to nothing at all and I topped Evaro Hill, still on Highway 93. This is where the story gets good.