Boise, ID

Our family is all about traditions, and when we find something we enjoy, we usually try to make it a regular thing. One of our favorite October activities is our annual fall drive and picnic. The basic instructions for this outing are: pack the car with the kids, some riding-along activities, some CD’s a picnic, and a camera and head to the mountains. Watch for beautiful autumn foliage (along with keeping an eye open for hunters and maybe some cows in the middle of the road), take pictures wherever the spirit moves, and ultimately find the perfect spot for a cool weather picnic. This may be in the back of the SUV, on a flat rock, or at a campground picnic table—whatever is available when you get hungry and ready to eat. Much like the menu suggested in Fall Fun Part 2, the picnic is most tasty and appreciated when it includes warm foods, like soup or hot chocolate in a thermos. Another great option is something that really fits the fall theme—in our case, our favorite pumpkin cake. This year, our autumn mountain trip took us on another adventure to add to our scrapbook, although there were parts of it I probably won’t care too much to remember.

For some reason, my husband and I have this goal to someday make it to Atlanta, Idaho, just so we can say we have I guess. We didn’t get a very early start, but we decided to head that direction anyway and see how far we got. Heading out past Lucky Peak damn, we took a left at the sign pointing to Atlanta and headed off on a winding gravel road that took us along Arrow Rock Reservoir.

Near the beginning of this road there is a large beach area where you can camp, fish, or put a boat in. It was kind of funny to drive down right to the water’s edge, and the kids enjoyed getting out and throwing rocks for a few minutes. An outhouse was also available at this point, and they are few and far between on a road like this. After this brief stop we continued the very adventurous drive. Pretty, yes. Safe, well I didn’t really feel so. It’s a narrow road and there was quite a lot of traffic up there, mostly hunters probably. Most of the way, there is a significant drop off between the road the water. There are many curves where you can’t see what might be coming from the other direction until you are about to meet face to face, at which point there is no place to get over far enough for both vehicles to pass. So this is the part of the trip I did not enjoy so much. Eventually, however, we came to a place where we could either keep heading for Atlanta, or turn off toward Prairie. We opted for the latter, since at this point we were already quickly approaching sunset and I was definitely not in favor of taking this trip in reverse after dark.

Even in the “scary” parts, the drive was beautiful and we did finally get into brush and trees glowing in autumn hues of golds and reds. After the turnoff to Prairie, we also found a good place to pull off and picnic on the side of a hill that we shared with some open range cattle—they weren’t interested in our hotdogs and pumpkin cake, however and ambled off and away from the human invaders of their turf.

A beautiful sunset capped off our meal and sent us packing back into the car to continue the drive. Not too much farther down the road we passed through the great metropolis of Prairie and began descending the other side of the mountain. Thankfully there were no grand precipices on this road, though being out in the mountains there was also no light whatsoever. Surprisingly, at one point we did pass a semi truck and trailer heading up the mountain in the dark. To keep us all entertained I began a sensational story about a whistle pig family (don’t ask!) that lasted the entire hour it took us to descend back to the valley. Just before re-entering civilization my husband stopped the car for all of us to pile out and look at the amazingly starry heavens, blazing in the light of millions of glittering stars not visible when in town. That definitely put a magnificent and awe-inspiring touch to the end of our adventure! Afterwards, I finally finished my amazing tale just about the time we passed the airport, having to decline to tell another one if for no other reason than that by that point my voice was beginning to desert me.

At the conclusion of the story, my husband I conferred quickly and quietly and decided to cap off the evening the same way we did last year, with a stop at Krispy Kreme for some doughnuts. Yum! A sweet ending to our mountain adventure, and another rousing success for this favorite family tradition.

To take your own mountain drive, head off out of Lucky Peak, Mountain Home, or just about any place where there’s a road that aims for the mountains. An Idaho Gazetteer (a special atlas-style map that shows all parts of the state in good detail) is a handy reference to give you a good place to start, and to keep you from getting completely lost somewhere in Idaho’s mountain wilderness. There is a lot of beautiful scenery within one tank of gas from your backyard, and getting out of town even for an afternoon is both invigorating and restful.