Postcard #178 (Going-to-the-Sun Road)

Driving on the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park this week in Montana instantly goes down as one of the best drives of my life.

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Postcard #177 (Glacier National Park)

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to finally see Glacier National Park in Montana. I can’t limit it to just one picture so here are my three favorites that show glacier, lakes, and Jammers. 

 

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Postcard #176 (The Roxy Theater—Missoula, Montana)

On Monday I drove by The Roxy Theater in Missoula. Montana where I was able to take a few shots before the early evening sun became hidden by a large cloud.

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Postcard #175 (Hemingway’s Grave)

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
—John Donne (from the poem For Whom the Bell Tolls)

Yesterday I visited Ernest Hemingway’s grave in Ketchum, Idaho. After college I did the drive around the county and find yourself thing and made a stop in Ketchum. This was in the days before cell phones and points of interest were harder to gather and I missed seeing his grave.

I read my first Hemingway book when I was 17 years old. Not because I knew he was a literary giant, but because The Old Man and the Sea was the thinnest book of the selection that my American Literature teacher offered us to chose to do a report on.

A couple of years later I visited Hemingway’s house in Key West and wondered what Key West was like back before it became a cruise ship tourist mecca. I wonder the same thing about Ketchum. It’s a much more refined town than when I visited back in the ‘80s. It’s more like Aspen than Ketchum of the 1950s and 60s when Hemingway liked to rub shoulders in bars with everyday people. But it’s a fine mountain town that I’d love to call home.

The Sun Valley Lodge is just a mile or so from downtown Ketchum and is said to be where Hemingway finished writing the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls.

P.S. Here’s the view looking west from Hemingway’s grave. Fitting for a man who had a love for nature going back to his younger days spent in northern Michigan.

Scott W. Smith 

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Postcard #174 (Shoshone Falls)

When I visited Shoshone Falls yesterday I overheard someone say “I didn’t even know this was here.”  But it’s right there in Twin Falls, Idaho. It’s off the radar for many people, but not far off Interstate. And and it’s not only been there quite a while, but said to be 100 feet taller than Niagara Falls.  I was fortunate enough to stop by on a blue sky day and still catch a rainbow.

Scott W. Smith

 

 

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Postcard #173 (Old Idaho State Penitentiary)

Visiting the Old Idaho State Penitentiary definitely reminded me of my trip to “The Real and Creepy Shawshank Prison. ”

Scott W. Smith

 

 

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Postcard #172 (‘Breaking Bad’ in Boise)

“Right before [landing the role in] Breaking Bad I was struggling to pay my rent . . .  I had no money and I read the pilot for Breaking Bad and I knew I had to fight for it.”
Actor Aaron Paul

Three-time Emmy-winning actor Aaron Paul, who played  Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad, first decided he wanted to be an actor while a student in Boise, Idaho. He left Boise and made his mark as an actor.

I took the above photo at the Freak Alley Gallery in downtown Boise.

Scott W. Smith

 

 

 

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Postcard 171 (Fanci Freez)

Who doesn’t like a retro sign and a blue sky. Took this photo yesterday at Fanci Freez in Boise, Idaho before I had my first ever banana milkshake.

 

 

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Postcard #170 (Liberty Theater—Lewiston, Idaho)

I took this photo of the Liberty Theater yesterday morning in Lewiston, Idaho. I don’t know how many of these postcards have been photos of classic main street movie theaters in the United States, but this isn’t the first and it won’t be the last.

Scott W. Smith

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Postcard #169 (Lewiston Hill)

I took this photo today overlooking Lewiston, Idaho. 

According to Wikipedia, “Lewiston is located at the confluence of the Snake River and Clearwater River, thirty miles (50 km) upstream and southeast of the Lower Granite Dam. Because of dams (and their locks) on the Snake and Columbia River, Lewiston is reachable by some ocean-going vessels.”

This is the region where the Lewis and Clark expedition passed on its way to finding a passage to the Pacific Ocean.

Scott W. Smith

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