Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Holiday in the Gem State can be cold, but plenty cozy, too
The Kats! Bureau at this writing is in Boise, Idaho’s capital city, and the cultural and commercial hub of the Treasure Valley.
Every holiday season, I write a column during my adventures crisscrossing the state as I visit my family. Today’s adventure began on a clear morning in Lava Hot Springs, just southeast of Pocatello, and ended with a three-hour drive in a near-blizzard to Boise.
The winter weather is a whole thing in Idaho. You must respect the forecast, or wind up hood-first in a snowdrift on I-15, or worse. On Thursday night, lounging in Dad’s rumpus room in Poky, we learned a storm front was moving in with such insistence that the news anchor said, “If you are planning to drive tomorrow, get outta town early.”
So it was a last, quick trip to drop off some provisions at the Lava Hot Springs Inn, Dad’s quaint bed-andbreakfast at the town’s entrance. Then, I would make the drive west across the Gem State to be with Mom.
We forget what we take for granted, living in a warmer climate (and yes, I know it dipped below freezing last week in VegasVille, too). Such as, walking. Dad and I were ambling down his graded driveway the other day and my foot flew free, nearly tossing me to the concrete.
“Ah!” Dad said. “I must have missed that spot with the salt.”
Yes. In Idaho, food seasoning is used as a life-saving substance on icy sidewalks and streets. Similar to steaks, vehicles are caked with salt around here.
My favorite it’s-dangcold story from Idaho is about 10 years ago, I drove my then-new Mazda 6 to Idaho and had been playing a Christmas CD (Frankie Moreno’s was in rotation at the time). After arriving, I left the CD in the player. The next morning, the car was completely frozen over, looking like a giant raspberry Popsicle. I crept into the driver’s side and turned the ignition key. The CD immediately ejected, and it, too, was frosted white.
Lava Hot Springs (population “about” 415 and covering less than a square mile) is a warm retreat from these low temperatures. We soak in the natural hot baths around the main, brick building, which was completed in 1924 as the Lava Hot Springs Sanitarium. The building served as a nursing home for a time, and had been closed for years when Dad bought the building in 1988 and turned it into a bed-and-breakfast.
The Las Vegas and Idaho worlds converged in September 2015, when I led a barnstorming tour of the state with the creative team from “Idaho! A Comedy Musical,” specifically Smith Center execs Myron Martin and Paul Beard, set designer Andy Walmsley, script writer Buddy Sheffield, composer Keith Thompson, choreographer Michele Lynch and director Matt Lenz.
Lava Hot Springs also achieved some national notoriety last year when Dad’s place was featured on the season-ending episode of “Ghost Adventures.” Zak Bagans and his crew showed up for three days in the summer of 2015. Their equipment captured all sorts of images, including a woman trudging around the old surgery room (now the Inn’s reading room), and dubbed the business “a nuclear reactor for spirits.”
And that’s just the staff (ba-zing!).
I never felt the inn was haunted, actually, but if any place is haunted, it’s this one. But really it’s similar to the rest of the state, refreshingly absence of posturing or pretense. Idaho is a reliably dial-down experience, and a welcome counter-balance to my frenetic life in VegasVille.
A couple of days ago, Dad and I were walking along downtown Lava Hot Springs. We were about halfway between the town’s two stop signs when we stopped, realizing we had no real destination and were in no heapin’ hurry to get there. We were just moseying along, and for this holiday season in the Gem State, that’s just fine.