Idaho Is Too Great...

It's official. Idaho has a special place in my heart. The preconceived notion that Idaho was only good for potatoes has been replaced, in my head, with the following slogan:

IDAHO - POTATOES AND SECRETLY BEAUTIFUL MOUNTAIN COMMUNITIES

We all know (or should know) about Sun Valley. But tucked away an hour and a half to the north is a small town (pop. 100) called Stanley that I fell in love with. Mary worked at a summer camp close to Stanley a few years back and couldn't wait to show it to me...and I'm glad she did.

The town survives on tourism in the summer (mostly rafting tours) but after labor day slowed way down. Not too good for Stanley I suppose, although I'm sure the locals would argue that, but it was great for us. It seemed like we had the place to ourselves. We camped, did some day hikes to mountain lakes, and stopped by Mary's summer camp to say hi.

Idaho was a very good week for us, outside of Stanley even. As such, I'd like to lay out the top five reasons why Idaho is too great...

5. WinCo Foods
We stumbled upon this gem of a grocery store during a gas stop in Meridian, ID. It had a Costco feel to it (warehouse layout with food stored on pallets) but you didn't buy in bulk. Just normal grocery store quantities, which is good when you are storing everything in a small cooler. The best part was how cheap it was! $0.42 mac-n-cheese, $0.82 for an eight-pack of chicken hot dogs, $0.30 for a can of tomato paste and $3.75/lb for Turkey sliced at the deli counter (to name a few...I saved the receipt I was so excited). We spent $59 and we still have more food after 10 days and only eating out once. If only there were more (we only came across one of them).

4. Free Camping
No one lives in central Idaho. Lots of land + no people = endless free campsites for Mary and Eric to stay at. Of course, the free campsites tend to have a slight deliverance feel to them, so we paid $5 to camp at the sites with some amenities, aka pit toilets. Still the large supply of freebs makes me like Idaho more. This is a picture from one of our campsites:

3. 75 mph Speed Limits
Apparently the government in Idaho understands that their citizens and visitors don't want to spend a lot of time near any metropolitan part of their state (except, of course, to shop at WinCo Foods). To facilitate this, they upped the speed limit on their interstates to a respectable 75 mph. Thank you Idaho for getting me away from Boise quicker than most other states would (legally) allow.

2. Great Mountains
You don't hear a lot of chatter about the Sawtooths or the White-Clouds, but they are some seriously cool mountains. The Sawtooths are very rugged and powerful, and the White-Clouds definitely win the award for most unique. I can't wait to get deep in there on a future trip.

1. Road Signs
Most of the time, road signs are used to display useful information to drivers. Now, I've driven a fair amount and Idaho definitely felt like it had a higher concentration of quality road signage (I'll have to discuss this with Mary's dad before stating it as fact). This makes me happy as a driver since hours on the road can get monotonous and there's nothing better to break up monotony than a quality road sign. The winners of Idaho road sign contest are best displayed visually (honorable mentions: Chuck-a-rama all you can eat buffet and the Potato Museum in Blackfoot, ID):