Skip to main content

2013, November: Idaho Falls, First Impressions


I visited Idaho Falls for the first time last week. Christian is already there, settled in a wee studio apartment on a "numbered street" in town (apparently that's a cool thing) and loving his job. My first impression was quite bleak. The weather was cold and the sun and the mountains were nowhere to be seen. On closer inspection, however, I quickly fell in love. The historic downtown is artsy and quaint, with great restaurants, coffee shops, and artist-made benches. The Snake River winds through town surrounded by the Greenbelt, with walking/biking trails, views of the river and falls, and more awesome benches. For a small-ish town (population is almost 60,000) there is a lot of culture. I explored the Museum of Idaho, The Art Museum of Eastern Idaho, and the Idaho Falls Arts Council, which includes two art galleries and the Colonial Theater.


House-hunting in Rigby, 20 minutes north of Idaho Falls gave me the distant view of mountains that I needed, and we found great old farmhouses surrounded by fields, fruit trees, and potato silos. (Side note, Rigby is known as the birthplace of television, due to famous high school student Philo Taylor Farnsworth, who drew up his first blue-prints of a television while he was a resident.)

The best part of the entire experience for me though was driving up to the west entrance of Yellowstone National Park. We couldn't go into the park since the roads were closed with drifting snow, but I needed to prove to myself that it is close enough for a day trip, and it is! On a less-snowy day I can be at Old Faithful in two hours (the same amount of time as my current commute, one-way), drinking coffee at the Inn, wandering the boardwalks around the hot springs, or hiking through the forest. My absolute favorite place in the world.


Christian's new workplace - the Caribou-Targhee National Forest - is beautiful too, especially in the snow, though we only peeked at a fraction of its 3 million acres.

It looks like I'll be making the big move several months earlier than planned, since I got a great job and they need me to start in January (more on that soon). This is terrifying because there is so much to be done, never mind the 2,200 mile drive in the middle of winter with five cats, but I cannot wait to get back out there to continue our western wilderness adventure. You can see all of my photos from this first visit on Flickr.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2016, January: Who Should Pay for the Arts

Working for a small nonprofit after the Goliath that is the Smithsonian has been an eye-opening experience. We're constantly doing - as my boss likes to call it - "the hustle." A great deal of time, energy, and resources is spent (and stress, sleepless nights, and several tears are experienced) while chasing funding instead of working on the mission, while the mission remains crucial to bringing in the money as well as being the reason we're all here. It's difficult to maintain that balance while keeping the organization afloat and the staff (mostly) sane. It's made me think a great deal about who should pay for what we do. I believe the arts are critically important and I am incredibly proud that a town the size of Idaho Falls (serving a population of around 100,000 in the city and surrounding rural areas) has art galleries, a large, historic theater that brings in nationally touring productions, and the-first-of-its-kind interactive art and technology cent...
Post a Comment
Read more

2015, September: Plagiocephaly, aka Declander the Amazing Helmet Boy

Declan started wearing a helmet last Friday. We knew he had a wonky head - for the first four months of his life he always slept in the exact same position - but we were hoping he would grow out of it. I knew I was supposed to be doing something about it (wedging him to sleep on the other side somehow), but it was enough of a celebration just to get the kid to sleep that I couldn't deal with anything else. At four months old he started rolling and would sleep in a variety of positions, but unfortunately the damage had been done. At his four month check-up the pediatrician said it wasn't too bad and that we should just keep an eye on it. At six months, however, a different pediatrician said "hmmm. We should probably have a specialist take a look." The specialist came from Salt Lake City and said that Declan had a moderate case of plagiocephaly (wonky head) due to slight torticollis (weak neck muscles on one side). Now that he's holding his head up fine and sitt...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Successful Trip!

I turn 40 this week. Yellowstone National Park is one of my favorite places in the world, so I decided we should go spend the weekend in the park for my birthday. As we got closer, I discovered I wasn’t really looking forward to it. Both kids are exhausting at the moment, and Ophelia especially does not do well in the car. Or in the cold. Or in any situation where her indecipherable needs are not being met. When I saw that thunderstorms were forecast all weekend, I almost canceled. But we’d paid a deposit on the cabin so we decided to take a chance and see what happened.  Well. The weather worked out almost perfectly and the kids were amazing! They handled all the time in the car, they hiked, they even (mostly) behaved themselves in a fancy restaurant. Ah. Maze. Zing.  On day one, we headed up to West Yellowstone and had our usual giant pancake lunch before venturing into the park. Then we drove down to West Thumb geyser basin, where both children managed to a) n...
Post a Comment
Read more