Land of Potatoes

i went on my first excursion from victor yesterday and discovered, first of all, that victor, idaho is as small as i believed it would be.  i’m happy to report that there is a gas station, post office, convenience store (not a grocery store), one fast food place (subway), and one blinking light at the center of “town.”  if you blink, you’ll miss the whole thing. 

it has been snowing since i got here, not a lot of snow, but i think there is probably at least 6 inches on the ground, it’s hard to tell since i’ve never been here before.  i imagine there is probably more, my cousins have been snow blowing every morning and the plows have been busy. anyway, after my grand tour of victor, we headed out for idaho falls, which as it turns out, with the road conditions and such, is more like a 90 minute drive.  between victor and idaho falls there is…..a gas station.  yep that’s about it, that and wide open spaces.  according to my cousin, those wide open spaces are probably filled with potato fields in the spring – and this goes on for miles and miles and miles.  and since everything is covered in snow, it’s actually kind of pretty right now.  but the drive feels like forever. 

my cousin and brother took my mom and i to idaho falls.  they have to go there to buy groceries as well as for the walmart trip.  seriously, this is a long, stinking way to buy groceries!  i learned today that there is a small grocery store in a closer town but a box of cereal is $5 there – i guess if those were my options i might drive 90 minutes too.  ok, so obviously i just wouldn’t live here, but that’s a whole different point.  anyway, they seem to dread going to the “big city” so i was expecting, well boston, los angeles, i don’t know.  whatever it was, i was just a little surprised that it seemed like such a small town when we arrived.  it seems the population is about 55,000 and i guess i was expecting a quarter million or something, you know a fairly good size city!  but in their defense, they had a lovely walmart, and even a pier 1, nice mall with a macy’s, barnes and noble, oh, oh and a starbucks!  see, i don’t need much to make me happy, just a starbucks. 

so i visited my first super walmart to go grocery shopping and tried to think of anything and everything i could possible want for the next 7 days because this is it – my only chance to get to a store.  once we head back over the pine creek pass, i’m out of luck until i find myself back in the comfort of my own, vegetarian friendly state (but don’t even get me started on that issue). 

later this week, we will probably head back to jackson hole, wyoming (where i flew in) to see what interesting things they have there.  apparently there is a park filled with antlers (i can’t figure out why, but nonetheless, we will go see it).