We decided to take a brief trip away from Elko for a few days. Due to Northern Nevada being so remote our only real options were to either head west to Reno, East back into Utah or head north into Southern Idaho. We decided to head north and go into Idaho. The journey to Boise took around 6 hours, but we did enjoy a few detours to some amazing locations en-route.
This is the State border between Idaho & Nevada. This photo was taken in a very small town called Jackpot. It’s appropriately named that due to Nevada being one of the few western states with legalized gambling. All of Nevada there are small towns on their state borders with centred around gambling. Idaho is huge, stretching from the southern border here all the way to the Canadian border in the North. It also has one of the lowest population density’s in America, as a lot of the photos here will show there’s no shortage of wide open spaces to be found.Idaho is known for it’s agriculture and produces a huge amount of food for the rest of America. It’s particularly famous for it’s potatoes and on the roads of Southern Idaho you can see no shortage of them growing.
Shoshone Falls, Idaho
Just on the edge of the town of Twin Falls, Idaho are the Shoshone Falls. Known as the Niagara of the West this enormous waterfall helps the flow of the Snake River on it’s course. This photo was taken in the winter of 2018, but still the flow of the falls is enormous. To get a size perspective, you can see to the left of this photo a 3 or 4 story building which is totally dwarfed by the waterfall to it’s right.The falls are named after the Shoshone Indian tribe who lived in the Pacific northwest prior to the western pioneers arriving. Before I moved to America I read a few books about what happened to these people. I would highly recommend “The Earth is Weeping” & “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”, Both these books tell the stories of how the land came to become part of the USA, and what happened to the people living out in the west.
Journey to Boise
Boise, Idaho
On arrival in Boise, we decided to head to a famous outdoor graffiti park in the city. This place is called Freak Alley. Situated in the heart of Boise it has a whole range of artwork on display and is well worth a visitThis is Albertsons Stadium in Boise. It’s the home of the Boise State Broncos and is very famous in America due to it’s unique blue turf. The day after this photo was taken the Idaho Potato Bowl was played in this stadium between Brigham Young University and Western Michigan University.
This is the Idaho State Capitol building in Boise. Idaho was the 43rd State admitted to the United States in 1890. With a population of just 1.7m there’s an awful lot of natural beauty to be found here. The front of the Idaho State Capitol Building. Below are some photos in and around the building. There’s a statue of Abraham Lincoln and a replica of the Liberty Bell which is pretty cool.
In our last evening in Boise we had dinner in downtown. Little did we know the pre game festivities for the Potato bowl were taking place in the town square.
Travelling back from Boise
This was further up the Snake River between Boise and Twin Falls. From here we went in search of another State Park, as we travelled the roads this was literally the emptiest place I’ve ever seen, but it was incredibly impressive especially the “big skies” above.
Balanced Rock State Park, Idaho
This is Balanced Rock State Park in Idaho. It has cool rock formations formed over the last few millions years. I would highly recommend going to visit this place and the scenery around it, as it’s literally incredible.
After leaving Balanced Rock behind we continued back to Nevada. During this journey i remember how dynamic the weather was, and how it seemed every 10 miles or so another rainstorm would come down from the mountains on to the road ahead of us. As I haven’t really gone through these photos in the last 18 months, I didn’t know i’d taken this photo of what I believe is a bird of prey in the upper right corner. If anyone can enlighten me on what It could be, feel free. I think it’s a pretty big one to say the least so it may be of interest.
Howdy, my name’s Matt. I'm originally from England but now live here in the Great State of Texas. Since moving here I thought it would be fun to try something new and enter the world of photo blogging.
View more posts
Lone Star Law 