Day 4, Tuesday, July 8 - Lander to Idaho Falls

 

The theme for the day is "surpassing." I passed though 3 mountain passes today. The other theme is photographic disaster - I'll get into that later.

I left Lander at 0645 local time with a temperature of 58 degrees chilly. US-287 North took me past the Shoshone Rose Casino. This is part of the Wind River Reservation, for the Shoshone and Arapaho

I passed eroded mountains from a previous uplift. These were the synclines and anticlines, where one side is tilted, kind of a flatiron on one side. At seven o'clock in the morning, the road was pretty lonely, although that would not last.

Hit the junction with US-26 at 30 miles in as expected, and pressed on towards Moran junction. The road passes mountains of multiple shapes, as well as multiple colors. The Crowheart was area was a very nicely watered Valley. They do hay and alfalfa, and it's grazed and irrigated. I passed thick layers of red sandstones, some mixed with layers of other colors; I wonder if one of some of these multi-colored sandstones might be part of the Morrison Foundation, which is home of dinosaur fossils.

I passed Dubois (Duboys or Dubwaa depending on how you pronounce the name) – either way, it's on the Gateway Scenic Byway. I'm not sure which mountain range I'm going through right now, but I'm peaking  at the top of the Tegowee Pass; the Continental Divide here is at 9858 feet of altitude. 

 That was a good pass. I headed on down the road towards the Tetons, taking multiple pictures on my way down. 

                                                From the pass

Once I got down to the Tetons, I did some exploring, spending several hours taking the back roads and looking for reflection pictures. Little did I know that when I got back to the motel room and checked the pictures that only about a dozen from my primary camera took. Even worse, I didn't take one of everything with my pocket camera. That is a lesson that I will not forget the rest of the trip.

 

I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant called El Abuelito on the outside of Jackson, and headed on Wyoming 22 up into Teton Pass. That's another great pass; it's even steeper, hence slower going, than the other passes.

I came out finally on the Idaho side into at the wide valley. Then ID-33 took me through Pine Creek Pass, elevation 6564. It's also part of the Targhee National Forest. Now I'm in a verdant valley with wheat and alfalfa growing. Finally, I pick up US-26 following the Snake River. I reach Idaho Falls about 4:15. I find my motel room. Everything's wonderful in the motel room,

Setting up to the process the pictures is when I discovered that the disc failed on my primary camera. A trip to a nearby Walmart to buy a new one (and the back-up that I thought I already had) to get ready for tomorrow.

For the day, 297.4 miles. 1,361.8, for the trip.

Tomorrow I'll be taking US-20 to Craters of the Moon National Park and eventually ending up on an interstate highway, going through Boise, Idaho, and spending the night at Ontario, Oregon.