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Report from the Hot Spring Heartland by Doniphan Blair
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The Great Basin Desert.
AFTER GETTING RAINED OUT OF MY
"ditch camp” in a highway pull-out, I recuperated in Idaho City, a two-horse town about an hour north of Boise.
First, I had an all-American breakfast, which is often the only decent meal available in the heartland: two eggs, toast, hash browns, coffee and orange juice.
Then I grabbed some free wi-fi off the visitors’ center, the only place where they were wearing masks. Finally, my recovery was completed by Dee McClennon, a fifty-something native.
Upon seeing my gear-crammed trunk, Dee asked, ““On the road? From where?”
When I said Oakland, he responded with a broad grin, “I was there once.”
“Had a blowout on an overpass and was saved by two black girls. They parked behind me, turned on their flashers and even helped me with the jack.”
“It was pretty incredible, since they were in heels. They were working and they invited me to a motel. I told them I was honored but they would be way too much for me. I was just a 26 year-old country boy.”
The beautiful buttes of southern Idaho.
After thanking Dee for his insight into the magic of travel and cross-cultural kindness, I headed up Highway 21. It goes right by the Sawtooth Mountains, a great name for one of Idaho's many, if often not that long, mountain ranges.
Actually, I was looking for what was in the valleys since, I could see from my guide book, the area was fly-specked with hot springs. Indeed, Idaho has 94 hot springs listed, almost three times as many as California.
As I drove, I listened to Boise State Public Radio, not a mean feat, considering all the wattage or repeating towers needed to get signal through those mountains. Sounded a lot like Bay Area public radio—yet another cross-cultural indicator.
It was such a relief to get out of my studio, the endless chores and the sheltering-in-place, which evaporated as soon as I loaded my gear and drove out of the parking lot. Not only was the road invigorating, I was fascinated to find out what was actually going on outside of Oakland (although what is going on in Oakland is also fascinating, see cineSOURCE article).
The more divided and rancorous this country becomes, the more people like Dee are polevaulting the gap. Of course we'll need millions more vaulters to clear the looming year(s) of medical, political and economic distress.
Wilbur Hot Springs Resort.
But having just driven 1000 miles across America, I am encouraged.
My first night out was at the venerable old Wilbur Hot Springs, where a sweet, multicultural crew was readying that elite Northern California resort for their first guests, since the pandemic started, on July 1st.
A day later I was cooling off in an egalitarian swimming hole on the Yuba River's Middle Fork, a tenth less crowded than the South Fork—which the cops had to close due to social distancing scofflaws. It was filled with frolicking Latinx, Black, Israeli and Caucasian kids and their families.
I had a great swim, especially after getting some form pointers from Oriah, a voluble eight-year-old Israeli-American, who reminded me of my daughter and our swims at that very spot.
Then I went north on Highway 49, a drive I'd long been wanting to do. Downieville I found to be a fantastically quaint, little river town, with a playhouse and great eats, like La Cocina de Oro.
After a ditch camp—on a gorgeous mountain overlook that time—I headed for the little known Great Basin Desert of Northern Nevada, which also covers parts of Utah, California, Idaho and Washington. "The great empty quarter" is what my mountain-climbing Uncle Harrison, who crossed it often, used to call it. Saudi Arabia also has a region by that name.
Very green this time of year—indeed, it was raining as I drove through—the Great Basin seems to have plenty of arable land. “Don’t let any one know," a guy I mentioned this to responded.
Cooling off in the Middle Fork of the Yuba.
One of my big questions, before starting my trip, was what would be the reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic.
99% of the people don't wear masks, given the boonies have built-in socially distancing. Some stores and information booths require them but in most restaurants, it was only me, while the tables were barely social distanced.
“I haven’t seen bodies in the streets,” Oriah's father Uri responded, when I asked him about it. Indeed, infection rates are very low in the area.
At La Cocina de Oro, where I had fabulous fish tacos, masks were required to enter. “Some people get angry and storm out," the inked-and-pierced waitress told me, "Probably because we’ve had only had one case in the entire county.”
In Idaho there is virtually no masking, except at state offices and in some town centers.
That may seem understandable, given the state has only some 5000 cases and a hundred deaths for its 1.5 million people. Alas, that puts them on a statistical par with the similarly-populated Alameda County (which includes Oakland), where most of us mask.
Indeed, Grangeville, in south-east Idaho, has seen an outbreak; Boise just endured 400 new cases in one day and is being upgraded to a hot spot; the governor is re-instituting closures.
Despite the occasional untoward glances, I wear my mask religiously.
Meanwhile, regarding the other fraught issue of our day—the Black Lives Matter movement—right wing talk radio, often the only station with the wattage to reach the boonies—along with Christian and Latinx—rails against it, incessantly.
A Boise mural.
Nevertheless, Boise had many marches for BLM—though that's a confusing acronym, given the city is surrounded by Bureau of Land Management country. They were totally peaceful, one participant told me.
On my drive through the town, I did notice the Whole Foods, murals and coffee shops that a universal markers of a hipster quarter.
Even the small town of Salmon (population 3,000) had a BLM protest. It was attended by about a dozen people, holding signs and chanting, none of them Black, although there are about six living in Salmon.
I was informed of this by a very friendly twenty year old in an American flag camisole—it was the Fourth of July—who also mentioned she was Native American.
"We welcome everyone here," she added, drawing nods from the Goth-tatted towheads behind her. "We depend on the Latinos to harvest our crops."
In fact, there were very few indicators of public counter-protests, aside from one store selling the bumpersticker “All Beards Matter.” I have seen under a dozen Trump signs and bumperstickers thus far, which is not bad for over 1000 miles of boonies, although the one hanging off the front of one of my motels was a cause for concern.
Indeed, Idaho has come a long way from when it was known for neo-Nazis, centered around Hayden Lake, which was a bit of a media exaggeration. When they tried to mount a 100-Nazi march in 1992, they got only 60, while nearby University of Idaho at Coeur d'Alene held a teach-in attended by over 5000.
About 50 miles north of Idaho City, I finally entered hot spring heaven.
Kirkham hot springs, Lowman, Idaho.
It starts at the entrance to the Sawtooth National Forest and goes for about 175 miles, along Routes 21 and 93, following the Payette and Salmon Rivers, respectively.
Given it features hundreds of pools, some right on the highway, others a few miles drive in, a handful a hike in, and doesn’t have a catchy tourist name, I will take the liberty of dubbing it "The Hot Spring Highway."
As I was relaxing in a shallow, muddy one—right on the edge of the Salmon River, with a breathtaking view—a couple of hipsters appeared.
"How is it?" the woman asked. "Not too hot," I said. "Forget it then," she responded, spinning on her heels. "We're checking out all the springs," her bearded male associate explained, "but just trying the good ones."
Admittedly some pools are just rough circles of stones in the river, keeping the hot water in and the cold out, often unsuccessfully. But if you take an hour or two piling up the stones and caulking them with mud, you just might earn yourself a world-class soak.
The Hot Spring Highway featured all sorts of folks, aside from the ubiquitous, camper-truck-driving senior couples, who can be cute to watch working things out in their own eccentric ways.
There were plenty of Latinx, including at the hot springs—picnicking, hanging out, taking a soak—in bathing suits, as is the community custom in Idaho.
There were even a few African-Americans and slightly more Asians, although the biggest tribe in evidence, other then the seniors, was the bikers, mostly of weekend warrior variant.
Biking is big in Idaho, with innumerable real-dealers, tattoos, piercings, beards, pumped men and gorgeous women, both in tight Ts, as well as big bikes, some fully saddlebagged for actual camping.
A cooler Kirkham pool.
There were even some bicyclists, peacefully plodding away.
One immigrant from Spain, with two very hippie-looking young sons, told me she was having a fabulous time, driving around almost all the Western states, although she did miss her homeland’s cuisine—I’ll bet!
Generally speaking the North-West wreaks of the westerner vibe. What that means is they won’t draw their six-guns without ample cause; they make their own decisions independently, even of talk radio; and they are usually happy to interact with outsiders, unlike more parochial places in the US and the world.
But like those more isolated places, it is best to make an obvious gesture towards the local culture, be it looking them in the eyes and nodding, wearing a beat-up hat, or easing into conversations—not leaping in aggressively, a la New Yorker which I am.
Yes, there is some conservative backlash.
At one of the Hot Spring Highway's best—Bonneville, with ten pools and an almost-boiling waterfall, I met Bill from Bend (Oregon), luxuriating the next pool over. He said he thought Black Lives Matter was creating more racial tension than it solved. Bend had one Black, but he recently moved away, Bill said.
Bonneville hot springs, Idaho.
“You can not bring people together by advocating tribalism,” he said. When I asked what he’d recommend, he responded, “Give everyone LSD.”
But other hotspringers, also from Bend, seemed more understanding.
So was the gang intervention counselor, whom I met on the pass into the Hot Springs Highway, checking his trailer's tires.
"Don't want these babies to go with baby on board," he explained.
A Latinx, originally from outside Oakland, he moved to Boise about 15 years ago and was currently working with the police, which he said was a pretty good force. The Boise Police did kill a woman last year, who was "acting erratically" and pointed a BB gun at them (she was white, see story)
"Boise was pretty sleepy when I arrived," he said, "but now it has some typical big city gang and drug problems, mostly methamphetamines." Although Idaho is a red state, Boise has a democratic mayor. “She has been pushing them fast into the future,” he said.
Boise is becoming quite the getaway place, especially popular with Californians, with developers and others finding it ripe for the picking. Many people fear an even greater gentrification, although the pandemic recession will put that on temporary hold.
Crop patterns near Salmon, Idaho.
The state is certainly is a woods-person’s paradise, from the kayaker to the mountain climber and hiker as well hot springer.
Indeed, the Hot Springs Highway has literally thousands of campgrounds. Some are developed, for which you have to pay $15 for the night or $5 for the day, especially at ones associated with hot springs. Others are just a fire circle and a fantastic view, found by following teepee markers along the road.
Plus there are dozens of toilets and hundreds of pull outs—showing a real care for the camper and traveller, much more than California.
Hence, the hinterland situation, far from the ravages of pandemics or street demonstrations, is doing pretty well. Although they suffered from the collapse of tourism, they are back to fully booked, as of the July 4th weekend, the manager of the nice Sourdough Lodge in Lowman told me.
Salmon, where I spent the Fourth, is a real gem, not quite Montana's Whitefish but closing in. Indeed, it has TWO health food stores—one featuring raw milk at $5.50 a gallon, compared to $17 in Cali—and some great motels.
At the River Inn, run by the hard-working and infectious-laughing Christy, I got a room looking out at the lovely, rushing Salmon River. It also has the fantastic Steele Memorial Hospital, with its efficient and friendly emergency room, as I learned the hard way (story for another day).
Fourth of July celebration on the Salmon River in Salmon, Idaho.
At any rate, Idaho is enjoying its independence far from the hub-bub, especially on the Fourth.
Nevertheless, everyone's news dosage is elevated enough to be aware of what is happening elsewhere. Hence, underneath the enjoyment and camaraderie is a feeling of trepidation, wait and see and hope for the best.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer, musician and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached .Posted on Jul 05, 2020 - 04:55 PM