Hitchhiking USA & Europe: Chap 3 (Idaho)

---September 21st 2013---

Living the Dream

Idaho was the first state that I had no clue on how hard it would be to get rides. Being mostly farms and ranches, I thought I would have to wait much longer. Usually, you picture ranchers not liking hitchhikers. I knew most of my trip was going to take place within these ranchers land, and I was expecting to wait longer on the side of the road for a vast part of my trip. Once more, hitchhiking proofed me otherwise, as hitchhiking through Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nevada and New-Mexico turn out to be extremely easy. These five states were the one I was a little more scared for, these five with Arizona, but I was right for Arizona.

My first destination was the Bruneau Sand Dune. The park was created to protect the highest single dune in the United-States. The sand picked up by the wind gets dropped at the park when the vortex created by one of the mesas blocks the fast flowing wind, creating this dune. There are one or two other dunes, but they mostly focus on the bigger one.

By the time I got there, the Sun was pointing toward early dawn. I wanted to enjoy the sunset before it was too late, so I rapidly put up my tent, and walked toward to bigger dune with my thumb up. Surprisingly, it took me two rides to go less than a kilometer. The first one, a ranger, told me that despite being an opaque green, the small lake between the two dunes was ok to swim in, and the second one was a golf cart also driven by a ranger.

Once at the foot step of the main sandbank I started climbing, at running speed, but my cardio mixed with the once more scale-less dune forced me to stop running, and start climbing slower, and slower. Eventually, I got to the top. I took a few picture of the step free crest, and a few of me walking peacefully on it, and finally, just sat down on the top and enjoyed the Sun making its way down through the thick dark grey cloud. And as I was enjoying the moment, the song Terminal Frost from Pink Floyd started to play. It was the perfect song to enjoy the bright and deep orange of sky, both hands in the warm sand, and while a comforting breeze was brushing my skin. I took the time created by this perfect moment to think about the last few days, the things I had seen, the people I had met, the stories I had created in just two weeks, and I simply couldn’t stop smiling. There it was, I was truly living my dream, and say that I almost quite in Vancouver. My dad was right, the first few days might be hard, but once you are in gear, everything become perfect. I tried many time to live that perfect moment again, but this one came so unpredicted, that it never got topped. And the fact I was still very early in my trip, meant that I still wasn’t used to this lifestyle; hitchhiking still wasn’t normal at that point for me.

Bruneau Sand Dune

The next morning, I had one thing in mind: sand boarding. I went to the visitor center, and rented a sandboard for the day. There was one little problem though; I had never done any snowboarding; well here and there, but I never manage to stay up on a snowboard. Oh well, let’s not do it for the skills, but for the experience. You can see me coming, I wanted to hit the big slope, but first, I decided to head for the small dune to get the hang of it. I got up, waxed my board, started sliding, and tumbled down the sandpit. I took my board off, got back up, waxed again, started sliding and tumbled down the hill again. Eventually, I managed to make a few turns before falling, and after over an hour, I could complete a full descent. That was my que; I was ready to hit the bigger dune. The small one had a lot of people playing in it, so the sand was a little moist, bumpy, and noisy. I wanted to slide down the virgin dry sand of the bigger one, and enjoy the quietness of it all. I hitchhiked toward it, and once there, I started the climb. Being much longer, the first few tries involved finishing with my head in the sand. But eventually, I managed to go down as long as the wax from my board would let me. Despite all the fun, sandboarding was quite demanding. After every run, I had to hike back up. Walking in sand meant that almost half of my steps were wasted pushing sand down, so it was almost twice the effort to head back to the top. My cardio was being run down, but I still wanted to keep on going. And the hardest part was that my shoe didn’t fit on the board, so I had to walk barefoot. For the hike up, it wasn’t too much of a problem, but once at the summit, the time needed to wax the board and put it on meant my feet would get burnt by the sand. It was quite painful, but once more, I was determined to enjoy the experience, and I did, very much!!

Sandboarding

When my heart gave up, I got up for one last ride, mostly to grab my tripod, and shoes, and headed toward the green pond for a well-deserved swim. Being infested with green algae, the bottom of the pond was slippery as ice, but the water, other than looking abnormally dirty, was at perfect temperature. And just as I got out, I notice an older couple I had just met while sandboarding getting a snack. I waved at them, and they signaled me to join them for a snack.

Being refreshed from the swim, and the snack, I headed back to the smaller hill, this time to film me. I stayed there for an hour or two, and headed back to the campground. Having not much to do, I went to talk with people who were playing a horseshoe game, and eventually, got to jump in the game; but they were out of my league.

After a few games, I got back to my tent, and started preparing food. My neighbours, who saw me the night before, noticed that I was once again only eating a small bag of rice. Feeling bad for me, they came with a plate of pork chop, potatoes and veggies, followed not long after by a piece of cake. What a feast indeed, but I wasn’t the only one enjoying this feast, as hundreds of huge flies decided to gather round. There were so many flies, that I couldn’t see my cake anymore, and before every bit, I had to blow on my food to get them off. I obviously could keep on eating outside, so I put all my food between the two layers of my tent, to reduce the amount of flies, then entered in my tent by the other side, and one after the other, I would unzip my tent, rapidly grab one of the plate, put it in my tent and zip it shut until all the flies had calm down.

After a now alone feast, I got out of the tent, and went to thank my neighbours. When they offered me the food, they seemed a little afraid of the dirty hitchhiker, but as I came by, they asked me where I was from, and as I started telling them about my trip, they went from scared to amazed. When Sun’s light ran out, they invited me to tag along to go to the observatories for a presentation on the universe, followed by a night walk with black lights to see the local scorpions, great when you are camping.

Scorpion

The next morning, when they saw me wake up, they immediately invited me for breakfast. Bacon and eggs, sausage, pancake, etc. were waiting for me. I ate like a pig, trying to store as much energy as possible. Finally, after my breakfast, I got back on the road.

My next target was then Balanced Rock. I waited for a little while on the side of the road, but it was only for five or six cars. Finally, a car completely packed passed me by before turning back and pulling over. When I saw them the first time, I thought: “Well at least they really couldn’t pick me up”. And on their way back, I started wondering why they turned, I mean they had absolutely no room. But they were determined to help me, and after having pushed things around into places that were already jam-packed, I had myself a little place to sit. I couldn’t wear my seatbelt, but with my 60 lbs cutting the blood circulation, there was no way I was in any danger. It is always weird to see these people that truly cannot take you in, but still do so, where others will use any excuses not to pick you up.

There Are Still Good People Out There

After having visited Balanced Rock, a huge 48 feet tall bolder balanced on a 5 foot base, I headed toward City of Rock. The closer I would get to the park entry, the more people were scared for me. They would all say: “You know you will never be able to reach it. People are not friendly here, and they will most certainly not pick up a hitchhiker. Turn while you still can”, but I had learnt not to listen to scared people, as they never seem to know what they are talking about. That being said, I was starting to head quite deep into ranch land, especially when our car got blocked by two horseback riding cowboys using the road to move their cattle.

City of Rock

The rest of the day was indeed very hard, but not for hitchhiking, the heat, mixed with the long walk and the lack of water and food got me pretty exhausted. As I was targeting Shoshone Fall for a place to camp, I got picked up by Cheech and Chong. Ok, they weren’t the real one, but they were in every way identical. The driver, Cheech, had a red tuque rolled up, a mustache, leaning forward and holding the steering wheel just like Cheech would, and had the same body language as he talked. As for the other one, Chong, he was wearing a bandana, hiding his dirty massy hair, had a beard and looked a bit older, and he was sitting with his back curved half on the seat and half on the back, and finally, he kept on saying “dude” with his scruffy smoker’s voice. They were identical to the original.

Finally, they left me at the south end of Twin Falls. I had being beaten up by the blazing Sun all day, and the last thing I wanted to do was carrying my bag across the city, but what choice did I have. Eventually, I walked to a gas station to ask direction to the falls. I knew where they were, but I was hoping to get a ride by looking like I was lost. I went to talk to the first lady I saw, and asked her for direction.

“You look tired”, she said. “Where are you planning to sleep? I don’t know if you know, but there is no camping at the fall, so if that was your plan, it might be disappointed.”

“Well, that was the plan. I mean, I’m exhausted, the Sun ran me over like a train, and all I want is a place to lie down”, I said in a slow way using every bit of energy I had left. “That being said, if there is no camping at the fall, maybe I’ll be able to find a place to hide near it. It won’t be my first illegal night.”

“Alright”, she said as she was thinking, “just hop in. We’ll see what we can do.”

As we were driving through town, taking about my so far adventure, I noticed we were going the wrong way, but I as I usually do, I just trusted she knew what she was doing. Finally, a few minutes later, she pulled in a driveway. She looked at me and said: “I know you are trying to reach the falls, but I think right now you need to rest and have a good night rest. So if you want, I can bring you to the falls now, or you can stay here for the night, eat a little bit, take a shower and wash your cloths. And tomorrow, I can bring you to the waterfall, so you don’t have to walk all the way. How does that sound?”

It sounded amazing. I was going to be able to wash my clothes for the first time in 24 sweaty days, a record I still haven’t broke. I have to say, I was hoping for something out of my “lost” situation, but I never thought I would get that much.

Stuck with a Stereotype

My goal was to visit the Black Magic Canyon, but not only have I never found any sign or the road I thought I needed to take, but no one in the area knew about its existence, so I gave up and headed toward Crater of the Moon. I got there early next day, so I had a full day to visit the park. I first went on a hike, then another, followed by a visit of the Indian Lava Tube, but what was cherry on top of the Sunday was the Scout Lava Tube. Once you get in, you build yourself down a rocky underground butte, and finally, after a few feet walking through the pitch dark tube, you get to a feet-and-a-half high path you need to crawl through. The only light I had was my weak headlamp, just about 2 feet diameter beam. What a blast!!!

Crawling through the lava tube

Finally, I got back to my camp for the night. I have to say, I shivered a little that night, and little did I know that it was going to be the first of many cold nights, bringing me all the way to New-Mexico. When I woke up the next day, my tent was covered in ice. The humidity of my breath had frozen on the inner part of my tent. It was only the 19th of September and already, there is a little bit of ice here and there.

I got back to the side of the road, and after a few freezing cold minutes, a pick driven by a girl stopped next to me. Just as I reached for the handle, she locked the door, and rolled down the window about an inch.

“Wait a minute, it is not decided if you get the ride. Who are you? Why are you hitchhiking? And why are you on such a remote road?”

With my usual wide smile, I answered: “Hi, my name is Eric, I’m from Canada. I got this crazy idea to hitchhike across the United-States to explore its extraordinary landscape, such as Crater of the Moon”, as I pointed toward the park entry. “I thought hitchhiking was the best way for me to meet the people who live in every state, and get an idea of who they are. In other word, I’m not hitchhiking because I need to, but because I want to.”

With her severe look, she looked at me, scanning from head to toe and back as I was still smiling. Finally, the severe expression of her face turned into a smile, and she unlocked the door. She used to pick up hitchhiker all the time, but out of the many many hitchhikers she picked up, one was I bit off. He was running away from police who had being looking for him. She said he didn’t do anything bad, and didn’t even look as he was going to pull anything on her, he just needed a ride. Scared, she didn’t want to kick him out, so just brought him to his intersection. But now, she remembers that one bad experience. “It’s too bad that despite having met tonnes of great people by picking up hitchhikers, one bad experience changed my will to pick up. At least, I’m still willing to help, only know I look at the person and ask him to give me some explanation.”

After over an hour where we exchanged travelling stories, we got to Idaho Falls, where she dropped me at the very entrance of the big town, or small city. I started walking, and walking, only to keep on walking, but eventually, I gave up. I had crossed the most part of town, and there was a nice place to pull over. Despite having lots of local traffic, I still had good traffic. To my grateful surprise, I got picked up within 5 minutes. Joe, the driver, was heading to Jackson, Wyoming, which turned out great since my next target was the Grand Teton.

PHOTOS