See you at the Green Expo

Just a reminder: This weekend is the 3rd Annual Idaho Green Expo down at the Boise Centre. I am going to try and make it down there for the Green Jobs panel and the worm composting workshop. You'll find a full listing of events, exhibitors, etc. here.

Admission is free, and the first 500 moms attending on Sunday (Mother's Day) get a free stainless steel water bottle, too.

Play ball! (And blog about it, too ...)

The 2010 baseball season is about 10 days old. I've been an avid baseball fan since childhood, when I rooted for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the days of Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and (a little later) "Goose" Gossage. These days, as far as I am concerned, there is no better way to spend a fine summer Southwestern Idaho evening than at a Boise Hawks game.

The Hawks have been in the news lately since the team is mulling the possibility of building a new stadium in the not-distant future. So it's great to see that Hawks General Manager Todd Rahr has tossed out the opening pitch of a new blog, Rahr Insight. (Todd, by the way, is a fellow graduate of Ohio University, lately famous for beating Georgetown in the first round of March Madness. And if we're lucky, our 'cats are going to show up at the H-Bowl one of the next few years, hopefully not against Boise State. But I digress ...)

Todd's first post is rather long but definitely worth reading, as he addresses several issues surrounding the Hawks' future. Personally, I'd love to see a new ballpark near downtown Boise, ideally along the Greenbelt and/or with skyline views. I also like the possibility of a new, upgraded stadium being the centerpiece of a true riverside downtown district for Garden City. However, I can see the advantages of building in Meridian, which is more centrally located for the entire Treasure Valley. Real baseball fans will follow the Hawks wherever they go.

Todd also promises to blog more about the possibility of Triple-A baseball coming to Southwestern Idaho someday. It won't be soon, but given our growth in the past few decades, we may be ready in another dozen years or so. That's another reason why I'll be rooting for the Hawks to continue to prosper in 2010 and beyond. You can follow the Hawks at their website, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. See you at the ballpark!

The arts: no longer a political hot potato

The chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, was in southern Idaho on Monday to get a firsthand look at how NEA funding helps our state. His visit, arranged by Rep. Mike Simpson, was covered by the Idaho Statesman and The Times-News.

It's heartening to see that the NEA is not the political hot potato it was in the 1990s, when I wrote this op-ed for The Wall Street Journal to share some of the same sort of success stories Landesman saw yesterday in Boise, Jerome and Twin Falls. Despite stories like mine from all over the nation, Congress slashed NEA funding that decade, mostly in response to outcries over the works of a few controversial artists who'd received NEA grants. Funding levels have risen gradually since then, but the NEA remains smaller than it was 15 years ago. The Obama Administration's FY 2011 request for the NEA is $161.3 million, or about 52 cents per American.

Not so rural

This article from the Daily Yonder website breaks down the voting patterns of rural Democrats on last week's health insurance reform vote. For Gem State residents, the most interesting point is that Idaho's 1st Congressional District is not among the 100 most rural in the nation. Only about a third of the district is considered rural; the rest is urban. And yet Idaho politicians and parties consistently focus their appeals to the rural and small-town vote.

Why is this? Perhaps it's because all Idahoans, no matter where we live, identify with and love the outdoors - our magnificent mountains, our wild rivers and canyon lands, and the high-desert stillness abundantly available just minutes from our largest metro area. But the fact is, Idaho is increasingly urban, with the sort of issues - traffic, clean air and water, crowded classrooms, economic development - that dominate metropolitan life. We play in the mountains and enjoy small-town weekends, but we live, work, and go to school in cities and large towns.

Our state's current political leadership is rural in the extreme, with ranchers running the show. When will Idaho's metropolitan population rise up and vote for representation that identifies with the state's increasingly urban needs?

The facts might set us free

The Idaho Statesman's Kevin Richert penned a column in today's paper about new research from a Brookings Mountain West report showing that the Treasure Valley faces a highly uncertain path to economic recovery. Kevin does a good job outlining the study's findings, which included the sobering statistics that the Boise Metropolitan Statistical Area has seen some of the nation's steepest declines in housing prices and employment levels. (In both areas, we rank among the worst six of the nation's Top 100 metros.)

The Brookings report also was the topic of yesterday's Urban Lunch at the Boise Watercooler, featuring talks by Dean Melissa Lavitt of Boise State's College of Social Sciences and Public Affairs and Boise City Councilman David Eberle. My main take-away from the session was that - for the first time ever - the Boise metro area has extensive, fact-based research with which we can compare ourselves to other metro areas in the Intermountain West.

For as long as I've lived in Idaho (21 years this spring, including six years in Boise and 15 in Twin Falls), we've considered ourselves too small and too remote to be included in serious public policy research, and outsiders have certainly seen us that way too. But Lavitt and Eberle both made the point that BSU's participation in the five-school Brookings West consortium - coupled with the Boise metro area's population growth - make that serious research possible for the first time.

Unfortunately, the results may not please us as much as the myriad (albeit subjective) Top Places to Live-type lists that Boise has deservedly found itself on over the past decade. But facts are facts, and Boise's abysmal placement in employment and housing value metrics - together with Idaho's long-term lack of support for higher education and blurry economic development vision - should make us all take notice. We know what a great place Boise is to live, but it won't stay that way if we don't realize that this is the first recession that we can neither build our way out of nor solve through outdated economic development policy.

Update: The Idaho Business Review's Robb Hicken has a report on the study, too.

Vancouver, without tickets

In this article from the Pacific Northwest news site Crosscut, Whidbey Island writer Sue Frause tells of an Amtrak trip to Vancouver, just to check out the Olympic vibes. It reminded me of a day trip my daughter Natalie and I made to Salt Lake City eight years ago during the Winter Games in Utah. (It was a relatively easy drive from Twin Falls, where we lived at the time, and where the Olympic torch relay had visited not long before the Games.) We didn't have tickets for anything, but we had a good time just walking around the then-new Gateway area, which was packed with free activities and exhibits.

I worked on the first edition of Lonely Planet's British Columbia guidebook, so I spent a lot of time in the province a decade ago. I haven't been back much since then, save for a lovely family vacation on Mayne Island three summers ago, but I really enjoyed the opening ceremonies of these Vancouver games. It's probably too late for most Idahoans to plan even a quick trip to Vancouver during the Olympics, but British Columbia is well worth considering for a getaway later this year.

From Thai to trout: Idaho's Magic Valley

I took a road trip this week to the Magic Valley, where I lived my first 15 years in Idaho, from 1989 to 2004. The occasion (and highlight) was a Let's Talk About It program on Edward Abbey's classic book Desert Solitaire at the Kimberly Public Library, but I managed a few other stops.

Twin Falls is a commercial destination for a wide region, since it's the biggest city by far between Boise and Pocatello. Most people beat the path of least resistance to the retail center of Blue Lakes Boulevard and Pole Line Road, but downtown Twin Falls is a charming, walkable area where you can visit such locally owned businesses as Rudy's - A Cook's Paradise; see a first-run movie at the historic Orpheum Theater; browse at the Magic Valley Arts Council's Full Moon Gallery; and have some of the Northwest's best Thai food at Prasai's. The latter's original location at 428 2nd Ave. E. (a few blocks from the downtown core) is perhaps my favorite restaurant in Twin. Check out #52 - spinach, chicken, and peanut curry - on its wide menu for one of our state's best meals.

Driving into Kimberly on Thursday evening, I noticed that the lights were still on at The Quilt Barn on the small town's main drag. It turns out that tiny Kimberly has become something of a destination for quilters. (There was even a quilt show at the library.)

I stayed overnight at the Best Western Twin Falls, which used to be an Ameritel. I was most impressed here by the recliner in my room; by the half-dozen or so varieties of cookies set out in the evenings (I reluctantly chose just one); and by perhaps the best breakfast buffet I've seen at any chain motel, complete not just with hearty starters including waffles and biscuits and gravy but healthier fare such as peaches and cottage cheese. The scrambled eggs were good, too, especially with salsa.

I skipped I-84 for the first leg of my trip home on Friday morning, instead sticking to US Highway 30. After a stop at Filer Elementary School (where I accompanied the students on their 50-mile walk in May 2003 for an article for Parade magazine), I drove on into Buhl, also known as Trout Capital of America. Buhl's highlights include the Cosmic Jolt Cafe, Cloverleaf Creramery (in the former Smith's dairy store), and this fantastic piece of public art by Cindy Darnell installed in 2006 on the main corner downtown.


Twin Falls and the Magic Valley are a worthy overnight or weekend destination anytime of year, and they'll be even more so come spring and summer, when the roar of Shoshone Falls and festivals like the Snake River Canyon Jam give travelers extra incentives to visit.

Julie Fanselow is the author of several books including Idaho Off the Beaten Path, the most frequently updated guidebook to the Gem State.

Story and photos copyright 2010 by Julie Fanselow