The Roads Less Taken: TENMA Return

The Route

Well, the day started with a business meeting (yea, I know how to vacation). But I couldn't pass up a chance to see my old buds at Micron while in Boise. The meeting was good and I discovered another ST1300 rider in the process. Turns out one of the guys I have known at Micron for years is riding a blue 2004. After we got done with business the guys gave me some tips for a little alteration in my planned route to Salt Lake City...which was going to be all Interstate.

Most of the route was Interstate anyway, but a jump off for a jaunt down Idaho 30 was a nice break. Just after getting onto 30 I stopped for lunch. This is turning into the BLT tour. Today's was just ok. Oh well. The highlight was the welcoming committee...a weary black mut who greeted me as I entered the lot and held court at the Ox Bow as long as I was there.

Idaho 30 is also known as the Thousand Springs Scenic Byway. The spot where the springs are found is pretty weird. It looks like a wide underground river just flows out of a canyon wall...in (I guess) a thousand spots. Pretty cool.

The last sight was a pretty view of the Snake River, which cut a sharp gorge in the landscape just before I rejoined the Interstate.

The run into Salt Lake City, specifically into Bountiful, was largely unremarkable, but in the end featured some nice views of the mountains to the east of Salt Lake. What may be noticeable in the photos may be the smoke in the air from the Idaho forest fires that caused me to take this route in the first place. My original plan was go through the mountains of Idaho. Unfortunately the route ran right through the heavy fire areas, including places that have been evacuated...so no dice this trip. In any event, you may notice that skies got more and more blue as I got further south.

I cannot claim to be an authority on Salt Lake from the light view I got, but what I saw was clean, suburban and endowed with every chain retail and chain food outfit in the country...like so many places are. But Priceline got me the best $50 room on the trip so far. So it's all good here.