Potatoes to Eat and Potatoes to Drink - Irwin, ID

Irwin, Idaho
Riverside BLM

As we drive to our next spot we remembered that we've been here a few years ago.  LOTS of potato fields.

OOooo, Ice Cream!

Many of the fields have been plowed up and have cover crops that are blooming.  It looks so pretty to see huge swaths of yellow amongst the green.

The Snake River.

We had a headstart on my brother and thought we'd have our pick of sites.  Unfortunately all the electric sites were taken so we took this long pull through for the night.  We walked around and talked to those that were scheduled to leave in the morning.  I found 2 side by side sites and we took them once they opened up.  It was a HOT day so we took a drive around until things cooled off.

The evening in the shade was very relaxing. And cooler.

Our even longer site the next day with power.  Yay for air conditioning!  We've not used it much this year until now.

 

There is another much smaller campground across the river just below the dam.  Right on the river, but much smaller spots.  No electric either.

Uh oh.  Not sure this is a good sign.  A bus full of yoots!  We thought we'd get no sleep but it turned out that it was a nice group of teens on there way to do some backpacking.  I didn't get a picture of all the tents they put up.  They were actually very polite and quiet.  Good for them for spending some of their summer in the outdoors!

 

The next morning Steve made a yummy breakfast of fresh blueberry pancakes, bacon and sausage.

Then we drove into Jackson.  My brother had not been here since we were kids and Diane had never been.  We took the usual picture under the antlers in the park and walked around, window shopped and had lunch.

Some great food and beer tasting for the guys.

We only had one day so we drove out to where we stayed years ago to a nice lake and campground with great views of those majestic Tetons.

That's the campground, Alder Creek, that we stayed at years ago.

The dirt area you see is the Gros Ventre Slide.

Our next drive was to Mormon Row.  The iconic barns are out here.  Unfortunately we saw no buffalo this year out here.

While we saw very little buffalo, we saw many moose.  It's hard to see, but that's one in the middle at the base of the tree.

There he is.

 I found a nice crystal walking around.

We got back late in the day just before a large storm blew in.  It hailed, rained and the wind was horrible.  It did give us a lovely sunset though.

The next day was bright and blue.  My brother and I hopped in his Ranger and scoped out some possible fishing spots.  I made him stop once in a while for some photo ops.  He hates that.

We came upon a Veterans Memorial spot that someone had built next to their house.  It also had a geocache put there.  Very nice picnic spot they made.

We found a back road to take us on the other side of the Snake River that had some easier access to get to the water.  We did have to share it with the cattle, but they didn't seem to mind.

The fishing wasn't so great so we drove back over the river to do some off roading.

More cows but the dirt roads were nice and smooth.  They started out promising, but didn't go too far.

We passed a distillery earlier in the town of Driggs so a stop was planned.  I found a Groupon for a tour and a free jar of special Huckleberries to put in your Vodka.

The owner took the four of us on a little tour and explained his process to us. 

Then we got to do a tasting.  While I wasn't too interested in them I did find it interesting that Channing Tatum had his own blend done here.  Hmmm, how come I couldn't be here when he was visiting?

One of their T-shirts.

 

On our final day The Steves had taken a back road in the Ranger after dinner.  It was getting dark so they headed back.  My Steve panicked when he couldn't find his phone and figured he lost it out on the ride.  It took him awhile to turn on his tracking from his computer and we were quite amazed that it showed the exact spot on this backroad where it was.  I copied down the coordinates and we took off in the truck.  Luckily we could get to within 300 feet of where it was with our truck.  Problem was it was now dark.  I pointed the highbeams in the direction of the hill and up Steve went while I called his phone every now and then.  The cows weren't too thrilled he was there though.  He found it on a rough patch of trail where he thought it would be UNDER an inch of soil!  We were so lucky as his phone died just after that.  We would've never found it otherwise. Crisis averted!