Short Drive to Victor, ID

Occasionally, we will spot what seems like a good buy on a home somewhere and we are curious to see if it really is as nice as the ad appears. Yesterday, there was a home in Victor, ID, that caught our attention and we wanted to take the short drive and do a drive-by.

Victor is a small town, just over the state line from Jackson, and is located at the bottom of the Teton Pass that we take each time we travel to Idaho Falls. The other aspect of driving to Victor is that it is the nearest location to buy lottery tickets. Wyoming is implementing the lottery, including Power Ball, next year - but in the meantime, folks that want to play the lottery travel to Victor to buy tickets. So, we could kill two birds with one stone by taking the trip.

There are some wildfires burning in western Idaho and the haze from those fires has reached Jackson. Like last year, the views are becoming cloudy from these fires and are affecting the beauty of the Tetons. We stopped at this pasture along the road to Victor, and just before ascending the pass, to take these shots of the impact of the haze on the mountain views:

We also couldn't figure out what the next step would be for the huge mounds of hay that were scattered around in this pasture. We are used to seeing hay in bails, rather than these huge stacks. 

The drive-by on the advertised home was typical of most advertised homes - too good to be true. The home was nice enough, but it was not in the nice, open area with great mountain views that the picture in the ad portrayed. It was surrounded by other homes that all were on about a half acre lot with just ho-hum views. We also picked up a few lottery tickets while in Victor, so the trip was a good break in the week for us.

It's now our first day off and time for the big hike to Josie's Ridge on the mountain top behind us. We are expecting a terrific day, weather wise, and will make sure we have plenty of water and some snacks to take along. Hang on for a report tomorrow on our much anticipated climb up the Sno-King mountain to hike the trail named Josie's Ridge...

Day Three to Hagerman, ID

The 275 mile trip to Hagerman, ID from Ely, NV was a much more economical trip, fuel wise, than the day before. We averaged over 9 mpg with the truck which is much better than the previous day's average of 6.8 mpg. There was still lots of snow in the hills:

and the trip took about 5 1/2 hours. The time zone changed from Pacific to Mountain, so we lost an hour which made our arrival an hour later according to the clock. We regain that hour today.

The RV park in Hagerman is named High Adventures River Tours and RV Park. It is not what we expected although we really had no idea what the River Tours part entailed. We were greeted by a Realtor who was showing the property to a prospective buyer. The office was closed and she indicated that we were suppose to select a space, fill out the form and leave the money ($20 after our Passport America discount) - along with the form - in a night drop box that was outside the office. Highly unusual, to say the least. The campground is not bad and is very convenient to the Interstate which is why we selected it in the first place. It is located at Exit 147 on Interstate 84 and is less than a block from the exit. Our site is a very nice one:

and there are only about three other rigs in the park.

The temperature is more mild at 47, although still a bit cooler than when we left AZ. We went through a couple brief showers yesterday - just enough to eliminate the nice effects of the washes we did on each vehicle before we left. I'm sure there will be more rain as we travel to WA.

We took a drive into the town to check it out and discovered it was located on the Snake River which explains the River Tours aspect of the RV Park. Other than that, it was a quiet evening and we rested up for today.

The trip today is totally on the Interstate - 345 miles - and should be an easy trip to Hermiston, OR, where we will spend the night tonight...