We were in tiny Midvale, ID for the eclipse (which was fantastic!). Afterwards we headed south to Boise, but getting through Weiser (“WEE-zer”) was a major jam because there are only 2 bridges across the river south of town – major choke points (here’s a map).
Stuck in the parking lot that was usually highway US-95, I looked at the map. We got off the highway and went west out of town to end-around the jams. Once across the west-most bridge I again went west to some dirt farm roads leading south. Some were a little rough, and I have a Jeep so we were fine, but any car could’ve done it. Maybe Waze did not pick up that route around the traffic because those roads were dirt.
By the time we rejoined the highway far south of Weiser, traffic was heavy but flowing at the limit. I love Waze and Google Maps!
Yeah, about that…
We got stuck in a huge traffic jam on I-580 (accident, not eclipse-related). Apple maps suggested we could save 35 minutes by taking the back roads over Altamont Pass, so we tried it. We then got stuck in a massive jam, as everyone who uses that app (and presumably Google Maps, too) tried the same thing. At one point, we were in a neighborhood, and had the windows down, and I overheard one neighbor comment to another that they had never seen anything like this before. I leaned out, showed her my iPhone, and said “It’s the Apps!"
I saw the total eclipse at Hells Half Acre near Casper, WY - you know…where the filmed part of Starship Troopers.
I was expecting huge traffic snarls and left the Black Hills at 1 in the morning expecting us to have trouble making it. Unexpectedly, not a huge amount of traffic and we drove right there in a normal amount of time.
Actually … I did turn it into a long road trip vacation. Because I’ve always got thingsToDo, placesToGo, and peopleToSee. We saw many sites in southern Idaho, which is wonderfully scenic. And yes I returned recently.
The sites included:
Shoshone Falls
Twin Falls: the waterfalls, and the beautiful and dramatic Snake River Canyon and base jumpers off the Perrine Bridge
Idaho Potato Museum, in Blackfoot ID: all of educational, informative, and hokey
Arco, ID: the first community in the world ever to be lit by electricity generated solely by nuclear power
Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve: excellent!
EBR-1, Experimental Breeder Reactor I, in 1951 it became one of the world’s first electricity-generating nuclear power plants
scenic McCall, ID
I watched the eclipse about three miles east of one of the properties of the Idaho National Laboratories. Was surprised to see that I was close to one of the more important areas in the development of use of nuclear power in the US.
