I woke up to the sound of an electric razor from the behind the wall. I'm glad, since I'd been up late and had no alarm clock. A wake-up call was impossible.

I went to the Old Faithful Inn for breakfast and sat in Amy West Virginia's section. She introduced me to Amy Pennsylvania (Johnstown) who was filling water glasses and setting tables, and then I met Amy Pennsylvania (Altoona), who seemed to be a manager of some kind.

I got a picture of the three Amys with the Double-Naught Spycam on the condition that I mail them a copy.

Amy Pennsylvania (Altoona) majored in geography, and I'd brought in my atlas, so she sat down and we showed each other where we had lived and where we wanted to go.

I left the inn at 9:30 and realized that I had at least an hour of driving before I was even out of the park.

I detoured slightly to stop by the West Thumb geyser basin. This one is right on the lake, and a few of the bubbly pits were actually out in the lake.

I crossed the Continental Divide twice through Craig Pass and one more time heading south. That brought the two-day total to eleven crossings. The first ten I had not performed the ceremony since I lacked the proper state of physical preparedness, but I am happy to report that I was able to pay my respects before leaving the divide behind.

I saw a lot more fire damage on my way south, both in Yellowstone and later in the northern part of Grand Tetons National Park.

I'm sure many early English-speaking explorers and trappers and wanderers named geographic features after body parts, but I assume do-gooders removed the shameful names and gave them more respectable titles.

Apparently the do-gooders didn't speak French. Grand Tetons, as far as I can tell, means "Big Hooters".

I'm not sure that's the name I'd have given these mountains, but they are very impressive. Across a lake for the first park of my drive, they rose steeply and sharply to snow-capped peaks. I read that this is one of the youngest ranges in the country, and it shows. Very little smoothing is apparent.

I took an inner loop through the park that carried me across a wide flat plain covered with sagebrush. The sky started to clear a little.

I heard a radio ad for a Spuds Drive-In Theater, which claimed to have a huge potato out front. I was determined to visit. I also wanted to visit the Otto Brothers Brewery, which made the Teton Ale I'' had the night before.

I got stopped by road construction in Jackson Hole, at the south end of the park. While waiting for our turn to go down the one lane road, I saw an airplane landing in front of the mountains. The airport was just ahead. I didn't have time to get out the real camera and just got a digital picture. Luckily another plane landed before I had to move. We'll see how the pictures turn out.

I saw another of those black birds with white wing tips.

Just north of Jackson I stopped in the National Wildlife Art Museum. It was nice. There were some wonderful photographs and some decent paintings.

I asked the girl in the gift shop about the birds. She said they were magpies, but I looked in a Birds of North America guide, and the picture didn't look like the bird I saw.

On the way out I stopped to take fill out a survey in exchange for a cookie. The cookies were being guarded by Emily, who made sure that people who didn't take the survey didn't snag them.

Emily told me that the Spuds Drive-In was past Victor, Idaho, and that I'd have to drive through "The Pass" to get there. She drew me a map to get there and to the Otto Brothers brewpub in Wilson.

Emily is originally from Charlottesville, Virginia, where she attended the University of Virginia. We briefly chatted about the conference. It was nice talking to someone who understood what I meant when I said "the Tournament".

Jackson is a very touristy town, combining a fake Wild West façade with fancy upscale ski stuff. I saw some green snowless slopes as I drove in.

I saw a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum and suddenly remember that this is where the World's Largest Barbed Wire Ball resides. After confirming that this was, indeed, true, I paid my money and went inside.

I found the usual assortment of Ripley's stuff, both real and reproduced. They had a model house constructed of match sticks, a deer that was stung to death when a hornet nest got lodged in its antlers, a doe with antlers, a bear with his face full of porcupine quills, the world's largest belt buckle collection (4538), a walkway through a rotating room, and other fun things.

The sun was actually shining, and the sky wasn't too cloudy, so I put down the top as I left town. Otto Brothers was closed, so I kept going.

The climb up to the pass was very steep and very beautiful. The descent was, too.

The welcome sign said "Celebrate Idaho With Us".

I passed some signs that said "Fresh Beef Jerky" and "Also Buffalo Jerky" leading to a trailer by the side of the road. I wonder how important freshness is when applied to jerky. I thought the whole idea was preserve it.

I saw rain coming as I pulled into Victor, Idaho, so I put up the top. The giant potato was actually in the next little town, Driggs. It was raining, of course, but I took a few pictures. It is sitting on the back of a truck.

I had to go back into Victor to turn south toward Idaho Falls. The tall mountains gave way to smaller green ones.

I hit U.S. 26 again (I had left it in Jackson) and the speed limit changed to 65. I put down the top and set the cruise control for exactly 65. The land had flattened out a great deal and was mostly cultivated. I don't know if these were potato fields.

I briefly joined Business U.S. 20 in Idaho Falls, then continued south on 26. I passed some huge grain silos that proudly proclaimed that Idaho barley is used to make Budweiser and Michelob.

In Blackfoot I went to the Idaho Potato Expo. With my AAA card admission was only $1.50, which included a free baked potato! Inside were displays, mostly pictures, that told the history of the potato in Idaho; the way that raising potatoes has changed over the years; and how potatoes are graded.

The World's Largest Potato "Crisp" was on display here. It's a little broken on one edge, and it really isn't that big (maybe a bit over a foot across). It is actually a Pringle's potato crisp, made from ground up potatoes and whatever else they put in those things.

I would have been impressed with a big real chip, even if it wasn't this big.

There was a little room with "potato cellar smells" and another room with potato farming equipment.

I bought a T-shirt and some postcards from Amy the Assistant Director before going to the kitchen to get my free potato.

In addition to the baked potatoes, they also had potato fudge, potato cinnamon rolls, potato chip cookies, and potato ice cream. I didn't sample those.

Apparently most of the kitchen, and probably the museum itself, are donated. Signs on the wall told me who sponsored the refrigerator and the floor.

They have a large baked potato against the side wall outside the Expo center. In the postcards it is out by the street, but Amy told me that they had really bad winds one day and it blew the potato into someone's yard, damaging the back. Until they get it repaired, they are hiding the damage against the wall.

I thought about going on to Pocatello, just because I like the name, but instead I doubled back to Idaho Falls, which is closer to my first stop tomorrow: the first nuclear power plant in the world. I also get to drive U.S. 20 out there.