It’s Scenic, But It’s Sure Slow

A pickup pulls out to pass a row of cars and motorhomes as we cruise down the backbone of Idaho.

We round a bend, start downhill. The pickup is still in the other lane, and now there’s a Winnebago headed straight for it.

Drivers are all hitting their brakes as he swerves back in, just in time. Welcome to Idaho’s main north-south route on a sunny afternoon.

“I think it’s great - I love it,” says Jim Stoicheff, the state representative from Sandpoint who drives the route more than a dozen times a year. “It’s scenic, and we haven’t walled in every side all the way down.”

“If we start improving all our roads to where they’re just practically like freeways, you might as well be in New Jersey as in Idaho.”

The drive down Highway 95 can be harrowing. Sure, it’s scenic. There are red barns resting amid green hills. Golden wheat fields rolling in treeless splendor. Rivers dotted with brightly colored rafts that seem to overflow with happy people. Steep, wooded canyons.

But if you’re heading from, say, Coeur d’Alene to Boise with some intention of getting where you’re going, there’s a problem.

You may get there much later than you thought.

Between the slow traffic on the two-lane, twisting road and the need to stop off to eat, read historical markers and lie on rest-area grass, we figure we averaged 33 mph for the trip. For 12 hours!

That many hours of sun in the eyes and children in seat belts seems rather punishing for a simple trip to our state’s capital city.

Stoicheff usually makes the trip in about 8-1/2 hours. He brings sandwiches for the trip and doesn’t stop. He says the traffic drops off after Labor Day, and in the evenings.

But if you really want to get from Point A to Point B, there’s another way: Head for Point C. It’s almost all freeway if you drive the decidedly non-scenic Interstate 90 to Highway 395 through the Tri-Cities, then cross the Blue Mountains on Interstate 84. You can use your cruise control.

Yes, you’ll miss the sights, and you’ll actually cover more miles. But you’ll be there in under eight hours.

You won’t find Stoicheff taking that route, though. “Phooey,” he says. “I’d rather see the people and the countryside and the towns.”

Could there be another?

Ah, rolling into Pinehurst. The steep-walled, narrow valley. The many pine trees. The Little Salmon River? That’s right. Idaho has another Pinehurst. The Silver Valley town has a cousin down south of Riggins that shamelessly identifies itself as Pinehurst, home of the Pinehurst Resort and Pinehurst Trading Post. It’s not much more than a wide spot on the highway, but it does have nice scenery and a few local businesses. The name brings a little touch of the north to southcentral Idaho.

Cowboy country

“Kick back and enjoy Nevada’s Cowboy Country,” a large billboard announces, just south of Lewiston. But it doesn’t mention that Nevada is still some 400 miles away. A disoriented traveler headed down Highway 95 might just think he or she is supposed to kick back and start enjoying right then. Hmmm. When did Nevada ever have so many trees?

, DataTimes