Cautious Expectations in a Traveler

There have been pleasant surprises this summer in Idaho. It has been comfortable at elevations of 5000 feet; elevations in that range are relatively easy to find. (Anyone who has spent a lot of time on the Colorado Plateau would expect a lowly 5000 feet to be hot.)

Secondly, insects have not been the problem that I thought they would be. Of course when you don't arrive until July, the odds are in your favor.  Early summer is buggier.

Wildfires have not been a problem this summer, so far at least. Once again, credit some good luck.

I never would have expected to get much pleasure from looking at needle trees, since I still think that trees are meant to have leaves. But the needle trees here are so tall and straight that I just have to admire them. Besides, they produce dense shade which is one of the best things that life has to offer.

 

The scenery is excellent here, an important secondary interest to me. I took very easily to the bizarre notion of water flowing in the creeks and rivers. (Bizarre to a Southwesterner.) It takes some adjustment to expect low altitude river trenches, holding most of the towns and highways. And it is hot down there in the trench.

A vacationer or RV newbie will smirk at my next compliment to Idaho: the forest roads are well-graveled, graded, ditched, and graced with culverts. If it rained, and you drive a two-wheel-drive vehicle (without a locking differential), non-muddy roads are very important to you.

Why are the forest roads so much better up here? Perhaps it is because of the healthy forest products industry. It was impressive to descend White Bird Hill, south of Grangeville, and see one logging truck after another grinding its way up that hill. A local told me that they can weight 80,000 pounds -- can that be right?

This might seem like a strange thing to admire, but a person can get tired of states that think the sole purpose of public land is to look pretty for metropolitan mass-tourists, prancing around in the magic gumdrop forest in their little REI hiking costumes. 

Overall it has been a good summer, so far. I have avoided West Yellowstone and the Sawtooth Mountains, where most of the tourists are.

And yet it has been rainless and sunny every day. Sometimes cloudless. That has been a disappointment.

Much of this summer's success is based on cautious and realistic expectations. There is no excuse for an experienced traveler not to be good at managing their own expectations.

It is a bit like the anecdote Boswell gave, in "Life of Johnson."

I [Boswell] went to him [Johnson] early on the morning of the tenth of November. 'Now (said he,) that you are going to marry, do not expect more from life, than life will afford. You may often find yourself out of humour, and you may often think your wife not studious enough to please you; and yet you may have reason to consider yourself as upon the whole very happily married.'