Freeze, Idaho, USA

It's always noteworthy when the outbuilding is bigger than the barn. Both look like they are of similar age. If fact, both look like they have prolonged their existence beyond their useful lifetimes. Their destiny is simply to succumb to the elements. [2019]

Blackfoot, Idaho, USA

Does your city or town have a museum that honors local culture? Blackfoot's contribution to the nation has been putting potatoes on the tables of Americans nationwide. In fact, that has been the contribution of Idaho, as well. Ergo, the Idaho Potato Museum in Blackfoot. [2020]

Mountain Home, Idaho, USA

Food trucks like Mely's have the power to turn outdoor parks into fair-weather dinettes. Wouldn't it be great if every meal could be a picnic? if every meal were blessed by the elements? if every meal were free of screens? [2020]

Hagerman, Idaho, USA

Wool became the economic base of the Hagerman Valley after the railroads came through in the late 1800s. To honor the pioneering sheep ranchers, many of whom were Basques, one of the locals commissioned a full-scale memorial to the sheep "trailin' home." [2020]

Boise, Idaho, USA

"Emma Edwards Green: Artist and Designer of official Idaho State Seal". The year was 1891, and her design included both a man (representing work) and a woman (representing justice). Mrs. Green remains the only woman to have designed a state seal. Today, its significance is even more impressive because it is the centerpiece of the Idaho state flag. [2020]

Glenns Ferry, Idaho, USA

Odds and Evens, Ones and Twos, Singles and Doubles, Which one be You? Here is one way the mating of the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Michelin Man works out. Actually, it's just better to think about him as Stay-Puft, here serving as a ghostly harbinger of Halloween. [2020]

Idaho Falls, Idaho, USA

Odds and Evens, Ones and Twos, Singles and Doubles, Which one be You? Here are two Grant's zebras grazing and bonding, and maybe grooming later. The setting: the Idaho Falls Zoo as a stand-in for the African savannah. [2020]

Boise, Idaho, USA

Idaho was born 131 years ago today, and the state began life with Boise as its capital. A new state house was built about thirty years later, very much in line with the style of the U.S. capitol in Washington. Most Americans could not tell you when their state celebrates statehood. In Idaho, at least the date it easy to remember: a day before the nation's birthday. [2020]

Freeze, Idaho, USA

You are in the Wheat Belt but you are not on the Great Plains. Where are you?  In The Palouse, close to the border between Washington (3rd largest producer of wheat) and Idaho (6th largest producer of wheat). The harvest starts in July and continues into September. [2019]

Twin Falls, Idaho, USA

♫ These Are a Few of My Favorite Things ♫ ~ Water Features: Water, whether it takes the form of streams, lakes, seas, or waterfalls, is always photogenic. Shoshone Falls ranks as the Niagara of the West and is one of many along the Snake River. See the rainbow? [2020]

Bliss, Idaho, USA

♫ These Are a Few of My Favorite Things ♫ ~ People: Dad's a trucker, but when there's nothing to haul he shares the road with his boy. Blissful, isn't it? Meeting people anywhere and everywhere is one of the joys of traveling as a geographer. Sometimes they pose, and sometimes they don't. [2020]

Mountain Home, Idaho, USA

Advice from the Little Prince: "Let your dream consume your life lest your life consume your dream." Le Petite Prince is among the most widely read books of all time. It has been translated into over 300 languages. Who is the author? Dévorez la fresque murale. [2020]

Boise, Idaho, USA

 

"Wear a Mask": It takes so little effort. Why not think about the greater good? Why not think about the welfare of your neighbor, not just yourself? Plus, if you think about what you are doing, you will soon discern when you can take it off and go mask-less without threatening anybody. But it will take cognitive abilities that the anti-maskers do not have. [2020]

Hagerman, Idaho, USA

"A book is a dream you hold in your hands." Like libraries everywhere, the one in Hagerman seeks to inspire a love of reading, a love of learning, and a love of dreaming. Maybe we should draw more inspirational quotes out of the books in that building and put them all over town. What would you pick for the gas station next door? [2020]

Twin Falls, Idaho, USA

Who presides over the activities that take place on the Twin Falls commons? That wide-eyed cow on the wall, of course! After all, Idaho is the nation's third largest milk-producing state (outranked only by California and Wisconsin). As for the activities: seems like a form of tai chi. [2020]

Tensed, Idaho, USA

"Only YOU can prevent forest fires": so says Smokey Bear. But who can prevent coronavirus? Maybe we need signs like this erected at the border of every municipality to communicate the "Coronavirus Danger Today." [2019]

Lewiston, Idaho, USA

L is for Lewiston, Idaho. It is right across the Snake River from Clarkston, Washington. Their contiguity reunites the team that brought back so much geographic information to President Jefferson: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Don't be surprised if there is a Lewis County, a Clark County, and a Jefferson County in both Washington and Idaho. [2019]

Twin Falls, Idaho, USA

Futurist Alvin Toffler points out the downside: "Overchoice takes place when the advantages of diversity and individualization are canceled by the complexity of the buyer's decision-making process." Psychologist Henry David Thoreau offers a remedy: "Our life is frittered away by detail. . . simplify, simplify." Yes, psychologist. [2003]