Eastern Idaho's Falls

The Idaho Falls

Our home in Idaho Falls was an apartment in a lovely Arts and Crafts brick house with an elaborate garden. But head off towards the river, cross barren gravel and railroad tracks to the other side, and you're in a trailer park of prefab houses and dilapidated grimy siding. One house for sale has rubber tires bulging out of broken glass windows and two nice pink velour sofas on the lawn. Mixed in the neighborhood are an authentic log cabin and venerable flagstone saltbox houses painted white. One front door had a wreath of thorns with an American flag. I greeted a man with a big belly and thick glasses whose property was posted with no trespassing signs.

Our garden in Idaho Falls

Across the busy peripheral road abundant willows and sycamores border the rapid waters that rush to Idaho's Falls. Further on are the jet spires of the Mormon Temple, the gleaming white space ship to heaven. A man in a bulldozer was continually smashing into a tree.  "Why doesn't he just cut it down?" asked Jacques.  Another man directing us away from the commotion said, "Big men, big toys, you know?" At the Visitor's Center Jacques argued with a self-satisfied old codger who had served as missionary, as far away as Albania, about the insurance policy of faith. "That was Pascale's argument," said Jacques. "Believe, just in case there's a god." "It's your soul we're talking about," said the codger.

An Idaho Falls bumper sticker reads:

Get a taste of religion: Lick a witch

Just across the tracks

Signs in town have a moral ring to them:

Dangerous Water. Stay Out and Stay Alive.

Hypnosis - Change your Mind, Change Your Life

Work Zones: Pay Attention or Pay the Price

and then:

Warning to Tourists: Do Not Laugh at Natives

Auto repair shop

Outside Idaho Falls are horse farms and cattle feeding on the emerald valley. At a filling station, a man has a t-shirt that reads:

I used to have supernatural powers, but my therapists took them away.
At the side of the road a deer arches her neck in a fresh puddle of blood beneath her sleek tawny body. In the sage prairies are elephantine cliffsides of rock.

Palisades Reservoir

Swan Valley parts for the silky gleaming Snake River, with cottonwoods and aspen and firs and willows dripping green. Below, tiny people in inflated boats race over rocks, a sheen of white light and green waters below alpine slopes. The rapids open out into a river valley of leisurely massive trees and the pristine Palisades Reservoir. Across blue waters pine woods harbor all manner of foxes, bobcats, bears. Abundant cutthroat trout nourish raptors that return to their nests each year.

Near Harriman State Park

The slopes are alpine near the water, with poplars, pines and log chalets. Away from the Snake arid hills are balder, but everywhere sleek horses and cattle graze. There is snow in the rocky mountains ahead.

Billboards read:

sWINDle:
Not clean - not cheap- not good for Idaho

Paid for by the Energy Integrity Project (with a picture of windmills)

Idaho Armory - guns and ammo

Trophy Elk Hunting

Pig Out at Dave's, 15 miles ahead

Bleeding Cowboy Tattoo

Emergency Preparedness - Survival Items in Idaho Falls

Mesa Falls

Harriman State Park was a cattle ranch that Averell Harriman gave to Idaho in 1977. The cattlemen had found the land thick with game and fish while they drove their beasts (there's still a stockyard series of wooden traps in Idaho Falls). Pristine conservation preserves the park's stately alpine beauty.

We were joined by American families with myriad--at least 6 each--children, taking photos of their young adolescent girls who stare in aggressive competition.

At Mesa Falls we entered the mist that surrounds broad violent thundering waters that pass 387 million to 967 million gallons per day into the Snake River. The falls seem mythic, surrounded by volcanic rock, smooth tuff on one side, while hexagonal columns of basalt support the cliffs on the other. Then, through green woods to the lower falls, a hiking trail teaches you the names of plants and trees and berries enjoyed by the Indians and bears. We spotted a marmot and a magnificent field bird ruffling its feathers.