My Own Private Idaho

There is a scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that has always haunted me. It was the one in which the flavor-of-the-month female companion of Indiana, played by Kate Capshaw, finds herself in a cave. She hears a sound – a moist, writhing sound, but it is dark, so she doesn’t know what it is. But c’mon. She should know she is only in for trouble with a sound like that. Then she finds her light and sees bugs, huge, hairy, slimy bugs on everything. Crawling over each other. They must be inches deep. They are on the walls, they are on the floor, they are on the ceiling. In fact, they are crawling on her, in her hair, her clothes. Today, in Sun Valley, Idaho, on top of Bald Mountain, I felt her pain.

It all started innocently enough: Todd and I took the chair lift up the mountain with plans for a picnic. I had begun to compose an apology letter to Idaho in my head. I had anticipated that Idaho would be a silly little diversion on our way to Yellowstone, with nothing to offer my fancy California self. That was before I discovered that downtown Boise had vegetarian food and was actually pretty cool. That was before I came to Sun Valley. Oh, Sun Valley, I can see why people flock to you from far and wide, causing you to have real estate signs that say “Sotheby’s International Real Estate.” If I were rich, I would want to have a spare home here too. And the hiking and biking trails! My letter was going to go something like that. So we went up the mountain to drink in the sunshine. But Lo! As soon as we got off the chairlift, I was under attack by every flying insect and ant in the Sun Valley area. I was swatting at myself only to find that Todd appeared to be bug-free. In fact, all the other people that I saw, including a woman wearing her bikini top instead of her shirt, appeared to be fine. There they were, all tan and smiling, frolicking in the sun, with no concern for the bugs of death. Apparently, I was wearing my invisible bug target today. The irony is that earlier in the day, Todd and I had come across our bug spray, only to put it away and not bring it up the mountain.

The picnic didn’t last long. The views were spectacular, however:

Idaho also has a whole lotta volcanic activity going on. Witness the lava fields of Craters of the Moon National Park. Due to movement of the earth’s crust, the geothermal hotspot that now lies under Yellowstone first traveled across Idaho. I’ve decided that geology is fun.

Idaho has also really made me appreciate the diversity of the Bay Area. Idaho, and Oregon, for that matter, is WHITE. All these white faces, everywhere. Until we went to the local Thai and Indian restaurants (which we did in Sun Valley and Bend, OR, respectively) and we saw families of color running the restaurants. In Sun Valley, when we went to the grocery store, there appeared to be 2 lines: One that was solely composed of white people, and the other that was for Latinos. It was totally unconscious, I think, but there it was. So, Idaho, as much as I’ve come to like some things about you, this is something you’ve got to work on.