Day 29: July 4, 2021
Happy Birthday, America
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This is where I ate breakfast. It's also where I ate dinner last night. I walked to it for both meals because Snake River Grill and my motel are connected by a common parking lot in Frog's Landing.
The first town I passed through after returning to the route was Shoshone, ID.
The sign makes it official that I'm on a scenic route and the next picture offers some proof. It is, in fact, supplying the scenery for three US Highways. Far flung lava fields comprise a fair amount of that scenery.
At Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, with the temperature in the 90s, I did my sightseeing from the driver's seat. There are some interesting things to see but nothing that made me want to climb a small mountain as some did.
This gal may or may not be named Martha but she does a fine job advertising Martha's Cafe in Blackfoot, ID. She was about half a mile off of my route. I didn't do my homework, and didn't realize she was engaged or I'd have gotten a better picture of her ring.
The Idaho Potato Museum was on my route and it is just up the street from Martha's. It has everything you would expect in a potato museum including large collections of peelers and mashers. There are examples of the role Ohio has played in potato history. I suppose it isn't too surprising that a group from Cincinnati's Procter & Gamble, at the time the makers of Pringles, set the record for "World's Largest Potato Crisp". The little red riding slicer was made in Canton, OH. There is a cafe attached which often sounds like the staging area of a Harley-Davidson parade when groups place their orders. I had the huckleberry flavored potato ice cream.
Today was Independence Day. I ended it in Idaho Falls, ID. Had I been here yesterday, I could have seen a parade and "the largest Independence Day fireworks show west of the Mississippi River". As it was, the town seemed almost shut-down (possibly to recover) and the only fireworks I heard were random pops in the area around my motel. I thought I might encounter a parade or other sort of celebration in one of the smaller towns I passed through but I did not. Nor did I spot any particularly eye catching holiday related displays along the way. There were plenty of flags displayed and it belatedly occurred to me that I could have snapped pictures as I drove and made a nice collage. With no suitable photo from today, I'm using one I took nearly two weeks ago.

I was driving gravel roads in the eastern part of Montana when I saw the flag on a fence post. It was probably a couple of miles from the nearest structure and five miles from the nearest pavement. Possibly because of thoughts I'd had a day or two before, I was prompted to photograph it as it waved in the middle of nothing with no alterations other than the beginnings of some naturally occurring fraying. I've become quite tired of flags with blue stripes, black stripes, orange stripes, rainbow stripes, green stripes, or any other off-color stripe. I'm burnt out on flags with overprinted eagles, Gadsden snakes, or silhouettes of rifles, pistols, cannons, or Marilyn Monroe. I was born burnt out on grafts of the flag of the United States of America and the Confederate battle flag. I really appreciated that single unmolested U.S. flag looking like something of which George and Betsy would approve. I didn't use the picture on the day I took it, but it was on my mind. I'm glad it was there for today. Happy Birthday, America.

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