Today we started heading home. From where we were we had two options to get home one way was to head for I-84 at Boise and the other was to take I-90 to Spokane and head south. After some discussion Ton decided we had not ever stopped in Boise even though we had driven thru it at least 10 times.
After that decision we decided to take the back way. After taking the Interstate thru Butte a city we both remember as being particularly ugly, we took some back roads thru some hills and small valleys. We came into the Big Hole Valley and ran into the Big Hole Valley National Battlefield Monument. The battle of the Big Hole Valley was between the 7th Infantry and the Nez Perce Indians. The story of the Nez Perce is very sad as they were a pretty peaceful tribe forced off their lands and were essentially just trying to retain some freedom off the reservation. The Monument is very well done as are most National Park operations. Of course we are biased but we think the National Park Service is one of the best things going in our country.
After that we drove down the Salmon River Scenic Highway the opposite direction we had gone a few days before. At Sydney we turned onto the Big Pine Scenic Highway and pulled into a beautiful Forest Service Campground at Lake Stanley. We had Lake Stanley and an incredible view of the Sawtooth Mountains right outside the back of Scout.
