Little Jimmy's notes from the road, Part 1

SOUTHWEST IDAHO—Sometimes life can get difficult after days and weeks on the road, but not nearly as difficult as life must have been for the crazy bastards who started the westward expansion some 165 years ago.

After a later-than-planned departure from Boise, we found ourselves struggling slowly down US 84 toward Utah. It's surprising to find out new things about another person after living with them for quite sometime, but the road seems to pull new and exciting experiences out of even the most mundane interactions. And sometimes these new revelations aren't always so welcome.

For instance, how was I to know that Caroline had never before in her life encountered "Easy Cheese"—Kraft's ingenious method of aerosolizing processed American cheese into a can that has a handy applicator tip? And how could I have known that such a small can of road-snack pleasure could lead to such discord?

The late start had left me hungry for lunch, but with a schedule to keep, we had no time for a sit-down meal. Instead we nibbled on nuts and berries in the car along the way like Romulus and Remus long separated from their she-wolf's teat. Although sustaining, such natural comestibles are not nearly as satisfying as a large glob of aerosol cheese on a Triscuit cracker. So of course I began demanding that Caroline uncork the Easy Cheese and start it flowing like the mighty Snake River.

After fumbling with the "easy-open" cap, she managed to squeeze about a half a pound of the tangy yellow ambrosia into her lap. The mishap also snapped one of the tongs off the applicator tip, meaning that any attempt to draw a sunny smiley face of cheese onto a cracker would end up making the Triscuit look like it had suffered a mild stroke. Everything on one side of the face was drooping.

Not only that, but our supply of "natural" sodas ended up tasting like water in the bottom of a can dredged up from a cattail-chocked slough near the banks of the Snake River that had been previously spat into by someone chewing stale Copenhagen. So much for road snacks this day.

Just as I was bitching about our misfortune, a sign for Glenns Ferry and the historic Three Islands Crossing for the Oregon Trail distracted me from what was sure to be a 10-minute treatise on rotten luck and gypsy curses bestowed upon my family several generations earlier.

The excellent Three Islands Crossing State Park told the terrible tale of pioneers risking it all trying to cross the expansive Snake River with their families and Prairie Schooners weighted with everything they owned, including, in some cases, children or elderly persons stricken with the Cholera. The fortunate found passage to the other side; others lost everything. Some of the relatives of the unlucky apparently still live in the community of Glenns Ferry, like the little waitress who served us a delicious patty melt after we gave up all hope of sticking to our schedule and resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be reaching Park City well after dark.

After learning that Oregon Trail emigrants spent most of a year eating biscuits and old bacon, our road snacks of nuts and berries and bacon-flavored processed American cheese spread on a festively woven cracker—all washed down with a cold funky-tasting soda—didn't sound so bad after all. It's staggering to think that thousands ventured west in creaky old wagons without cell phones, iPods or Igloo coolers. It amazing that no emigrant dined on Doritos or Lean Cuisine microwave dinners, or called Sunday a success after filling a crock pot full of Little Smokies and a bottle of K.C. Masterpiece just before Nascar on television. Compared to our ancestors, we are a nation of pathetic weaklings.

The museum at Three Islands Crossing also told the terrible tale of how the U.S. Government cheated the Shoshone-Bannock Indians out of their lands and forced their members to march for 500 miles to reservation land. A similar thing happens on a smaller scale today that the Government likes to call "extraordinary Rendition," a euphemism for injustice just like "relocations to reservation land" or the "Indian Child Welfare Act." Like the historic sanctioned mistreatment of Native Americans, people don't like to talk much these days about the sanctioned mistreatment of new "inferior people" under the auspices of the War on Terror. But I digress.

Although I tried my best at the Three Islands Crossing museum, I could offer no consolation to these unwitting players in American history.

The Three Islands Crossing is a testament to True Grit, and each year during the second week of August, the community of Glenns Ferry turns out to re-enact the treacherous river crossings. According to the woman at the museum, some years the players are successful, other years they aren't. And like the emigrants of old, sometimes oxen or mules drown when wagons overturn. We were sorry that our timing for our trip did not coincide with the annual spectacle.

The patty melt and tater tots in the small bar and grill near Glenns Ferry's main street worked their magic, and soon we found ourselves 50 miles to the southeast and off the interstate traveling through rural Idaho. Here farmland dominates the landscape, and homes and farms have changed little since they were first built 100 years ago. Massive fountains of water spew from the craggy volcanic cliffs high above the Snake River valley, cloaking the landscape with lacy liquid doilies of fertility. Ski boats zig and zag up and down the river while registered Herefords graze lazily on emerald fields of grass.

This is Mennonite Country out here on Highway 30, home to robust-looking peaceful folk. In Buhl, Idaho, we stopped in at a local dairy for a late-afternoon milkshake. It was rich and creamy. Perhaps a little too rich and creamy. Soon we found ourselves driving into Utah with queasy bellies awash in butter fat, wishing for a strong cup of coffee or a two-hour nap.

Somewhere along the way we came across a scene that seemed to echo our sentiments for the day. A rusting old car and several submerged pieces of farm equipment lay abandoned in a sea of what could very well have been natural soda pop. There was no explanation for the mysterious watery graveyard, just the steady twittering of red-winged blackbirds in the bright, hot sunlight.

As we made our way to Park City, we thought seriously about getting a milkshake at every milkshake establishment we passed. And in this region of the country, they were as common as 3.2 beer. I bet Caroline that I could down two more shakes before I erupted with an dishonorable discharge. She bet I could only muster one. We wondered what fraction of one we could down if we asked the shake vendor to add a half a cup of chopped onions? Unfortunately we'll never know.

The darkness concealed the snootiness and rampant, out-of-control development of Park City, but we would soon discover those things along with miles and miles of fabulous biking trails later on.

For now we were content to sleep the sleep of weary emigrants after a very, very long day.

See you on down the road.