Sun Valley, ID

25th-29th April: Days 17-21

Another 170 or so miles of very pleasant highway driving takes us up the gently ascending valley, towards Sun Valley. Here we pass through Hailey (home to Shorty’s Diner, originally built and owned by Bruce Willis), and come to rest just outside Ketchum. This small, but swanky town is the service town for the much better known Sun Valley, the home of the USA’s first purpose-built ski resort and the world’s first chair lift. The facts just keep a’coming, folks.

There is only one RV park in this neck of the woods, and we managed to squeeze ourselves in..

…yes. Just us. It seems we are a tad ahead of the summer season tourist hoards.  It is a little colder up here, and although we are fairly well equipped for it, we perhaps weren’t quite mentally prepared.  Our plan had been to escape an NZ winter yet we find ourselves still surrounded by pockets of snow and temperatures in the low 40’s, even in mid spring. One morning we woke to a temperature of 38 degF/ 1 degC INSIDE the Tin Can for crying out loud.

                

Ketchum is an aesthetically pleasing place, happily devoid of any fast-food or shopping chains (except a stylish Starbucks) and sits surrounded by beautiful ski mountains. We have caught it at the trough of low season. Skiing finished last weekend, and its still too cold for too much biking hiking or fishing. So it is currently also quiet. No fighting for a parking space for our ridiculously large vehicle…happily.

Our first day here we filled with loafing, laundry, mooching around town and a trip to the movies. We watched a matinee of ‘Going In Style’ which was most notable for its over-commentary of the action, like verbalised stage directions of a play. This seemed quirky to say the least, but it is a Zach Braff movie, so we accepted it as an artistic statement. Apart from one other lady we were the only ones watching.  On our departure we discussed this with a cinema employee and it transpires that the projectionist had run the version of the movie for the visually impaired.   Dodging a significant downpour of hail we found a very noteworthy microbrewery and restaurant, Warfield, that served very tasty un- American fayre and a passable pint of English bitter.

The day also saw the purchase of a ukulele for me. Nick is so pleased, as you can imagine. I suspect I will be banished to The Beast for practice.

There are now three of us in the Tin Can…Us and Bob. We have discovered Bob FM. A quite spectacular local radio station with NO talking and minimal adverts. Just a near constant play of all our favourite tunes. It’s like it is reading our music minds…

The next day was beautifully sunny and bitterly cold. Despite this we put on all our clothes, and looking a bit Michellin-esque, we set of on the bikes.  An amazing bike trail along the old railway runs all the way up and down the valley. It has blacktop to shame the whole of NZ.

We set off back to Hailey, an imperceptibly downhill 8 mile straight line. It was also, in retrospect, downwind. We arrived with chilled extremities having expended about 20 calories. Shorty’s Diner defrosted us with a coffee and then, as it wasn’t quite lunchtime, we wandered around a little nature reserve down by the river.  Lunch barely earned we headed back to the diner. Little did we know that we were going to need the sustenance…

Going home was not so easy. A brisk headwind and the gradual, relentless incline was a bit miserable. The mile markers ticked by ever so slowly and we arrived back at our still private RV park quite pooped. Strangely not so cold now.

Our next day here was going to involve us driving to Stanley which is a small town about 60 miles further up the valley. Lots of nice hikes and views if the weather is nice but the forecast was for snow so we decided against it. Shame really as it was one of the reasons we came up this way. Instead we got back on the bikes, cycled the other way from yesterday back into Ketchum and followed the trail round up to Elkhorn and Sun Valley Villages. Took the double hit of headwind and incline in better spirits this time, as we knew coming home was going to be a doddle. With lunch well and truely earned today we found ourselves in the Ketchum institution that is Leftys. Apparently you can’t visit town without trying their Monkey Fries. More like thick hot crinkle cut crisps (‘chippies’ for the NZers) covered in a spicy paprika dust. Not sure what monkeys have to do with it, but they were worth the visit. Coming home was indeed a doddle.

Ketchum’s other claim to fame is that for a time it was home, and is the final resting place of Ernest Hemingway. Here he wrote ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ and a year later shot himself in the town in 1961. A visit to his grave and memorial seemed obligatory tourist activities.