“Don’t write about us.”
The young woman who uttered that was standing in front of me in a faded bikini as I soaked in a small pool of steaming hot water on top of a mountain deep within the Boise National Forest in Idaho. Around me, families with small children laughed and lounged under the backdrop of a dark green forest with the peaks of the mountains just visible above. After I confessed to the locals who were enjoying the Rocky Canyon Hot Springs that Saturday that I was a writer, Bikini Woman’s demeanor had stiffened slightly.
“We don’t want any more people moving here,” Bikini Woman said. “They ruin everything.” I couldn’t quite tell how she meant it, but there was reason to take her at her serious tone. The “everything” she referred to could only mean the rugged and mountainous landscape of Idaho, its multitude of hot springs, its still-wild open spaces, and the curious geological wonders that drew me to explore this state to begin with.
I had never been to Idaho before. It was one of those states that seemed off the radar and slightly mysterious. I had of course Googled some basics. Informally, it’s known as “the Potato State,” the largest potato-producing state in the United States. Farmers began growing potatoes in the 1830s, when missionaries moved west to teach the Nez Perce to grow crops. Then, when gold was discovered in Idaho in 1860, potatoes were grown to feed miners in the gold and silver camps. There is something called the Idaho Potato Commission, which says the state is an ideal spot to grow potatoes because of its volcanic soil, a mountain-fed irrigation system, and warm days and cool nights. It’s officially called the Gem State — it produces up to 72 types of precious and semiprecious stones and up to 240 different minerals. And then there was acclaimed American novelist Ernest Hemingway and his Sun Valley legacy.
I’d seen pictures, of course. More than baked potatoes and gems, it was the call of the
