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It was a long weekend of travel for us, instead of driving our usual 200 miles or less we tackled a whopping 504 mile journey. We maybe could have shaved off a few miles by taking smaller roads but this time we stuck to the Interstates. As I mentioned before, the Idaho Panhandle is rather isolated from the rest of the state due to some incredibly scenic yet very rugged terrain. So in order for us to get from Hayden in northwestern Idaho to Ashton in the southeastern corner of Idaho near Yellowstone National Park we had to leave the state and drive through Montana. Just over 400 of our miles were spent in Montana!

It was a lovely day for a drive, the weather was sunny and mild and there was very little traffic on the road. As we left Coeur d’Alene, I-90 was squished between the side of a mountain and Lake Coeur d’Alene. Apparently Idaho presented the biggest challenges to the construction of our northernmost Pacific-to-Atlantic Interstate. Running from Seattle, Washington all the way to Boston, Massachusetts I-90 is the longest Interstate in the country traversing close to 3,100 miles. The section along the lake was one of the most difficult stretches for the government and it required the construction of a huge bridge, which offered us great views of the lake as we headed east.

Leaving the lake I-90 crossed over Fourth of July Pass before dropping down into the Coeur d’Alene mining district more famously known as Silver Valley. Prospectors flooded to the area in the 1880s when placer gold was found. The gold was quickly played out but by then large veins of silver, zinc, lead, and copper ore had been discovered and the mining boom was on. Silver Valley has produced more silver than any other mining district in the country. Looking out the window at the peacefully meandering south fork of the Coeur d’Alene River, the tall trees, and the lush green grass in the narrow valley, it was hard to imagine the area’s violent past.

If money is the root of all evil then in a place as rich in mineral deposits as the Silver Valley it should come as no surprise that greed brought out the worst in men. When hard-working miners went on strike to protest a 50 cent drop in their daily wages, at a time when the mines were producing close to $10 million in valuable ore a year, tensions in the valley ran high. The mine owners employed various methods to break the strike, some of them more devious than others. Anger increased to the point of bloodshed on both sides. When the town of Wallace, the largest in the Silver Valley, bragged of its high percentage of millionaires, you can bet that none of them were men that actually did any of the digging.

It seems that the citizens of Wallace like a good fight. In 1976 when the federal government announced plans to route I-90 right through the middle of town, residents designed a way to get every single building listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That move forced the project to be rerouted over the northern edge of town which took a few extra years and several million more dollars. When the bypass was opened in 1991 the last remaining stoplight on I-90 was officially retired. From I-90 we had a good view down on the old buildings and narrow streets of historic Wallace. As much as some people fought the new roadway, I-90 has connected the Northwest, decreased travel time, and increased tourism throughout the area.

Shortly after Wallace we left Idaho and began our steady climb up to the 4725’ Lookout Pass. It was all downhill from there to Missoula. Originally planning on driving through, we made one spur-of-the-moment stop in Montana’s second largest city when I saw a billboard announcing Big Sky Brewing Company’s new brewery. It didn’t take much to convince Lance to stop and check it out. There is one reason why I love Big Sky Brewing—they brew the indescribably delicious brown ale, Moose Drool. I fell in love with the Drool the summer I worked at Glacier National Park and I always feel fortunate when I can find it. So we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to sip it freshly brewed. After a nice visit and a great conversation with some locals we were back on the road—but don’t worry, we only had a couple tiny samples, I promise!

Heading east on I-90 we looked for a billboard we had seen many years ago when we drove this stretch. We were not disappointed, soon after leaving Missoula we saw the sign that again elicited laughter—the sign proudly proclaimed the dates for the annual Testicle Festival. The sign listed a few of the festival’s activities, including a Rocky Mountain Oyster eating contest. I have absolutely no desire to attend but obviously quite a few people enjoy the festival since it has been going on for over 25 years and as the sign said, “Everyone has a ball…”

It was almost dark by the time we reached Butte so we didn’t have time to explore the old copper mining town. Really besides the gaping hole in the ground called Berkeley Pit which contains a lake loaded with arsenic and other heavy metals, and a practically abandoned historic district, there isn’t much to the town. Once one of the wealthiest towns in America, Butte’s heydays are long over. Today the area struggles on as a copper mining town, though the richest copper ore has been depleted and over half of the population has moved away. I don’t blame people for moving, the decades of mining created one of the largest Superfund sites in the country. In 1995 a flock of migrating geese made the mistake of landing on the lake inside the Berkeley Pit. Before the flock could continue on their way south over 300 of them died from the toxins in the water. Of course the mining company denied that toxins were the cause but autopsies on the poor birds revealed lethal doses in their bodies.

Which makes me wonder why anybody lives there at all. Not coincidentally the dangerous toxins might have been the motivating force behind Our Lady of the Rockies. Astride the Continental Divide on a high hill to the east of town towers a 90’ statue of the Virgin Mary. In 1979 as a local man’s wife was battling cancer, he made a promise to build a statue of Madonna if his wife recovered. What he originally intended to be a 9’ monument soon exploded into one ten times that size. In 1985 the statue, dedicated to all the women of the world, was lifted into place. It was easy to spot the largest Madonna in the country during the waning daylight but we were even more surprised to see it so clearly at night. Apparently, someone pays to light up the Good Lady.

We spent the night “drycamping” in a parking lot. Basically that means we didn’t pay for an RV spot somewhere and couldn’t hook up our water or electric. Which was probably a good thing, since I wouldn’t want to drink the water in Butte anyway. That does not mean we went without power. Most of the lights in our RV are 12 volt—they run off the auxiliary batteries—and we have a battery-powered water pump in our fresh water holding tank. We could also run our generator, but we really dislike the noise, and besides it runs on that most precious and expensive commodity: gasoline.

The next morning we backtracked on I-90 a few miles to the junction of I-15 south. Again we had good driving weather and hardly any traffic to deal with. I-15 traverses some gorgeous country, with mountain ranges rising on either side of the high elevation valleys. Winter must be quite harsh in that part of the country—there didn’t seem to be a whole lot going on out there. The valleys were dotted with tiny ranching and agricultural communities where cows far out number people. After a little over 100 miles we climbed over Monida Pass and were officially back in Idaho.

Among the cattle and fields we spotted a couple herds of Pronghorns, several Bald Eagles and of course, multitudes of our most ubiquitous raptor, the Red-tailed Hawk. Our long trip was almost over, about 25 miles north of Idaho Falls we turned off I-15 and worked our way over to Ashton, our home for the next week.

Tiny little Ashton is not only conveniently located near the entrance of both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks but it is the “Seed Potato Capital of the World.” There are two factors that make the Ashton area so ideal for seed potatoes. First, the area has a really short growing season which means most crops, including potatoes, can’t grow to full size before the first frost. Normally you would think having undersized produce would be a bad thing but in this case small tubers are in high demand. Thankfully for local farmers, these tiny tubers are what other farmers around the country need to plant to grow the millions of spuds that we consume each year. The second and most important factor is the area’s long winters.

During the winter the soil in the region is subject to hard freezes that go deep into the ground, killing all mold spores including Phytophthora infestans. Seed potatoes farmed in the Ashton area grow in soil naturally free of this destructive organism that causes potato blight. You’ve probably heard of this bugger before, it was responsible for the devastating failure of the potato crop in Ireland which led, with other events, to the Great Famine of the 1840s.

That is not why we were staying there though, we had plans to tackle the country’s—and the world’s—first National Park over the coming weekend. It would be Lance’s introductory trip to Yellowstone and we were both looking forward to it. And by now you’ve probably guessed what I’ll be writing about next time…

Photos: View our photographs from Leaving Idaho on Our Way to… Idaho.

Dates: We left Hayden, Idaho 09/06/08, and stayed in Ashton, Idaho from 09/07/08 to 09/14/08.