Today we left Pendleton shortly after dawn. It was beautiful with the sun creeping
over the hills south of the Casino’s RV Park and making shadow lines in the
fields recently harvested. To the
north, there was a haze and we wondered if smoke from wildfires to the west had
found its way to this valley?
The
road climbed in a serpentine fashion quickly into the hills with the terrain
changing from golden fields to fir trees as the elevation increased. Surprisingly, cows grazed in grassy open areas around some of the trees.
Soon we were at 3,200 feet and the road leveled out and started to run
straight south gradually turning back into rolling hills covered in golden
grass and sagebrush.
Near Huntington, Idaho, large swaths of burnt landscape
claimed the hills. In some cases
the burnt areas covered hills as far to the west as we could see from the
RV. It was sobering to imagine
what I-84 must have been like when these hills burned. Seeing the news reports on television
is one thing. Experiencing the
sight of what remains following those wildfires is hard to fathom when you see that all that
is left is charred dirt. This is
somewhat of a remote area so no homes or businesses appeared to be
affected. Only 10% of these fires
start from lightning. Humans
cause the remaining incidences.
One can only hope the worse of it is over as cooler temperatures are
predicted in a couple of days from now.
The Salmon River sparkling in the sunlight greeted us as we
crossed into Idaho around noon.
Along the road wild Black-Eyed Susan flowers bloomed in abundance. We settled into Mountain Home RV Resort around 1:15 pm. We walked here tonight and
admired a rose garden in this park, watched a golden sunset glow beyond the
trees and listened to the sounds of a nearby high school football game. The universe is unwinding for the day just as it should in Mountain Home, Idaho.
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