I wake feeling better rested than any other night on the trip – perhaps due to a combination of a slightly warmer night and setting up the tent on a comfortable slope.

There is no more sausage and we are forced to fall back to oatmeal. Historically, this is the fork in the road that leads to either a return to civilization or the Donner Party. We will return to civilization later in the day… hopefully.

Camp is broken and we make our way south to the Painter’s Pots. The valley containing these pools of bubbling mud is almost entirely filled with steam.

Making our way to the western exit of the park, we stop at Gibbon Falls to take pictures. Although the falls are impressive, I am disappointed that a.) there do not seem to be any gibbons and b.) that I am not very good at taking pictures of waterfalls.

A final buffalo bids us farewell and we soon find ourselves in a seemingly empty corner of Montana. There is little, if anything, notable about the drive from Yellowstone to Idaho.

Panda Express for lunch in Idaho Falls, then down to Blackfoot to visit the Idaho Potato Museum. My expectations are low and when we arrive they are met appropriately. Aside from some spectacular whitewashing on why Idaho is a great place to grow potatoes even though it’s effectively a desert (“We can more accurately irrigate the crops”), the most entertaining thing about our visit is listening to Terry grill the woman who runs the front desk about the Idaho Potato Council’s executives and their recently launched (and completely bizarre) comic book series.

I buy a coffee mug that depicts a potato-themed version of American Gothic and a Vitruvian Potato magnet.

Our next stop is the Collector’s Corner Museum, a recommendation from the Roadtrippers app. From the outside it looks like a bodega full of Precious Moments figurines. I tell Terry and Matt that I’m going to sit in the car if we find out they charge admission.

An elderly gentleman greets us, yelling towards the back of the building for his wife to turn on the lights because they have visitors. Partially inspired by both their charm and a burbling of sympathy for the obvious lack of foot traffic, I hand over five dollars to buy my entry.

The woman tells us that flash photography isn’t allows as she eyes our DSLRs. I frown. She says, “But if you want to take pictures of your friends standing in front of something, that’s OK.”

The interior of the museum is larger than it seemed from the outside and is filled with dozens of glass display cases. Some of the collections are moderately interesting – in particular, a knife collection contains several Nazi and Axis blades. I notice a number of swastika-bearing items I’m fairly sure are both difficult and in some cases, illegal, to purchase and collect.

The old man is a WWII vet and shares stories and a neat scrapbook with us that contains news clippings from the war. “Germans attack with robot planes” is one of the more interesting headlines.

His wife chimes in with random facts about each of the collections but seems to have a good sense of when she’s hovering and never becomes annoying. Both seem to love their collecting hobby and I can’t help but feel a little sad that the things they’ve collected (and the surrounding history) that matter so much to them won’t mean much to anyone in a few years.

I loathe junk, junk stores, and junk collections, often looking down my nose at people who are passionate about collecting “things”, but the tiny couple that runs the Collector’s Corner gets a pass (for all that my approval matters). I can’t manage any cynicism or spite towards them, even when I try.

Our home for the evening is a surprisingly clean Super 8. The front desk clerk gives us one of the few, decent, non-apathetic restaurant recommendations I’ve ever received from a hotel clerk.

I am normally dubious of any restaurant claiming to serve “kobe” burgers, but would recommend the Snow Eagle Brewery to anyone passing through Idaho Falls. Given that they serve high-point beer and I am very tired it’s possible that the burger was just OK and my recommendation should be taken with a grain of salt. But it is probably very good, possibly maybe.