Onward Journey -Pocatello Here We Come!

Sunday morning, 18th Jan. , we woke early for breakfast and after a quick check-out, drove to downtown Salt Lake City for a look-see and for some shopping for the trip to Pocatello. However, we found the streets deserted and all shops closed - now we know, Sunday mornings nothing happens in SLC, or for that matter in many other American cities......So, with no other option, at 11.00 am we started off on Highway 15 heading north for the Utah - Idaho border.

We went quite slowly on the highway,- partly because we wanted to be careful as we were sharing the road with many container trucks, but mainly because of the magnificent views we encountered along the way - we saw miles after miles of snow-capped mountains on both sides of the highway, so very beautiful, no words can do justice to what we saw. We had expected a tough drive, what with the cold weather and so on - but, it turned out to be quite manageable. The US highway system is so well developed - road conditions are good and well sign-posted with plenty of Rest Stations where one can stop for rest, coffee, meals, shopping, directions. And we made a lot of stops as driving for the four hours on a straight highway with only mountains to see was making me feel sleepy......

We finally arrived in Pocatello at 3.00 pm and made a bee-line for the Tourist Information office to get all the information we can can get and to get directions to the Marriot TownPlace Suites where we were to stay. We chatted with Gerald, the volunteer manning the office - a nice old man. We asked about line dancing - he suggested we checked out the 'Green T' or the 'Texas Roadhouse' by the Mall. We were telling him about our visit to see our son, Kelvin Ang who just moved to Pocatello last November - and he immediately recalled seeing Kelvin last year when he had come by to ask for directions - what a memory! or maybe it's a case of not many chinaman coming by that office.

Located next to the Tourist Office, the town had put up a statue of the Shoshone Indian Chief Pocatello after which the town is named and we were able to read a bit about the history of his town. The big Chief Pocatello and his Shoshone tribe used to own the whole spread of territory in South-eastern Idaho. Between 1843 and 1869, the 'Oregon Trial', starting from Kansas City in Missouri and going through the wild western states of Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and California saw the greatest migration in America. First came the mountain men (fur traders), then the gold-diggers after gold was discovered in California and finally the settlers seeking a better life out west. Chief Pocatello was 'persuaded' to sell off a big chunk of his tribal territory to the white settlers or face dire consequences and, so the rest is history..........

With the directions given to us, we made it to the TownPlace Suite at Via Caporatti. What a nice hotel - in a great location on a hill top, surrounded by, guess what? - snow-capped mountains and with the surrounding grounds still covered with snow from last week's snow fall. The temperature was really, really cold for us - minus 7 degrees C - much too cold for us - we quickly checked in, had a good rest and, in the evening, met up with Kelvin who drove us to his favourite chinese restaurant -

Chang's Garden for dinner. After that we had a quick drive aroud town - it's a small town, with only 55,000 residents, a lot of whom are students and faculty members at the Idaho State University. So, we saw a lot of young people about - all very well behaved and helpful. We like it here already - looking forward to an enjoyable stay..................