Vegan MoFo Post #6!
I would like to pretend that I was super camping hardcore, but alas, I am not. Our last night booked at Yellowstone we woke up to a wet tent and it continued to rain all day. We were supposed to take the tent down and move locations, setting up an already wet tent for the nights. So we wimped out and decided to leave and stay in a luxurious budget hotel (Super 8) for the night in Idaho Falls instead. Don’t judge me, sometimes you just need to go with the flow to avoid the cranky and we only lost out on $24 split between two people. In the meantime, I will improve my camping equipment and learn how to properly put on the rain guard to seem more outdoorsy for next time.
Whew..anyway. Now that THAT is in the open…Idaho Falls wasn’t that interesting, but the hotel had two beds and wifi and I managed to get vegan food there and be warm and dry and not sleep with a giant root in my hip so I call it a win. I learned that those little sleeping mats people bring camping are TOTALLY worth it. Next summer…I will be ON TOP OF that. So yes…Idaho Falls apparently has one of the highest populations of Mormons in the US…fun fact! Vegan food was minimal and the city was super suburban, but it was a suitable stopover and this restaurant Thai Kitchen had a pretty good vegan tofu curry. I checked there was no fish sauce involved. A little sauce rearranging was done (garlic sauce instead of something with fish in it), but my dinner was pretty awesome in the end…and I didn’t have to build up a fire for 20-30 minutes to cook it…luxury!
Alright, back to nature. Idaho is bigger than you think. If you’re from the area, you probably know this. If you’re like me, you assumed it was a tiny small .5 hour drive across, since no one talks about Idaho much. YOU WOULD BE WRONG. We drove a lot while still being in Idaho. Over eight hours actually. However, there is a pretty cool/weird park there called Craters of the Moon…and it is all made from DRIED LAVA. It looks like a crazy alien landscape! First example, this weird bare spindly tree!
Another random ass tree on top of a LAVA MOUNTAIN. It’s all alone! It will be okay lonely tree!
We went spelunking unsupervised!! Aren’t we so badass?! This was called the Beauty Cave because who knows why and there was a lot of crawling involved. We even saw ice in the middle of the summer in one of the caves, so I think we officially earned our badassery back.
One of the clearest examples that EVERYTHING USED TO BE LAVA! Lava rock! How cool is that!? This was inside one of the caves, can’t you just imagine the lava flowing?!
The very windy path leading between all of the caves at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve.
Inside the tallest cave. Creepy, but beautiful. It is not as pristine as it seems from the pictures because there were some VERY loud tourists with children screaming about ice and where the exit was, but we can pretend.
Spelunking accomplished, it was on towards Boise. The thing about really flat land is you can see rainstorms coming from miles away and it is super ominous. Look at this rain cloud…can you see the line to the left! It looks like we are about to drive straight into DEATH. I almost pooped myself, not gonna lie.
Okay so back to the food. We stayed with some awesome AirBnB hosts just outside of Boise in the suburb Meridian. They took us to this chain called the Yard House, which was possibly the best chain I’ve ever been to! Not only did they have over 200 beers ON TAP, they also had Gardein on the very large menu a beer flight sampler of ONLY IPAs and and clearly labeled vegan options. Win win win. I went for the smaller portion of angel hair pasta with lots of veggies. I will say that for $11 (I think?) dollars it shouldn’t have been the small portion, but the taste was good.
The aforementioned IPA flights. All IPA-style beers to taste, yessssss. 
Doesn’t look like it, but this was a great salad. Candied walnuts, avocado, lots of veggies and a great simple balsamic vinaigrette, getting my veggies in!
So it is possible to eat vegan in Idaho…hurrah! Next stop is vegan wonderland…Portland, Oregon!
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