Burgy’s: Grace, Idaho: Flora’s Little Kitchen: Franklin, Idaho

To survive Winter, I indulge in coziness. I wrap myself in fleece blankets, rub coconut oil on my feet and swath them in warmed cotton socks. Make pots of steaming Chai so that my house smells of orange peel and star anise. Curl up in the corner of my big fluffy couch and spend hours looking out West, across the congested industrial district of the city to where the nothingness begins. If it snows, I can comfort myself in the knowledge that I am warm and wrapped up and safe. Then there are times when coziness transforms into claustrophobia. When the blankets choke me, when tea stops tasting good, when the view out my window is diminished. After two solid days of inversion, two days during which I cannot make out the outline of my neighbor’s house, I begin to feel the onset of panic; I need to see.

To escape inversion, one can go up or out. Fleeing up canyon has the advantage of expediency, but that means it is also expedient for everyone else in the valley. On a weekend day, when valley temperatures are suppressed by clouds of toxic emissions puffed out by the seven refineries located conveniently within shouting distance of my house, the trailheads to Donut Falls and Mill D become a parking lot of fugitives, basking in the up-canyon sun. Travel up or down Little and Big Cottonwood Canyons becomes labor intensive; a stop and go, congested, pain in the ass. Heading South provides equally marginal benefit. During the worst fits of January inversion, heavy red-tinted fog can stretch all the way to Nephi. Even when it’s not so bad, I-15 South hardly presents many opportunities for space and light, crowded as it is with bill boards and the existence of Provo and Orem. And then there is Idaho.

Passing from Utah into Idaho, I feel a visceral sense of relief, supported by an immediate drop in billboard numbers; Idaho spends a great deal less on advertising and tourism than Utah, and for that I am grateful. Driving North on I-15, the highway cuts through basin and over range, offering a view uninterrupted except for sheep and old pioneer outbuildings. And even though 79% of the state is purportedly Mormon, even more than Utah, the state also harbors a strong population of U.S. citizens seeking to make their own country; libertarians, anarchists, back-to-nature-off-the-grid-nuts-and-seeds-folks, generally people who have given the finger to the government and society as they head off into the hills. It is this combination of visual freedom as well as the freedom represented by the presence of beer with more than 3.2% alcohol in any old gas station that draws me up.

In winter, Southern Idaho presents a cold and barren landscape, but barrenness to me means uninterrupted light. It means space. It means stretching out my arms above my head or to either side, taking in a deep breath and hitting up against…nothing. It means farrowed hillsides, buried in snow, smooth rumps of landscape over which I could run and run and run, with my eyes closed if I wanted, without running into anything. And it means a landscape less traveled, by me or anyone else. In a way, I suppose, I fall prey to the old dream of the West when I approach Idaho. The dream of failed businessmen from overcrowded cities on the East coast, or the third sons of Scotch sheep-herders, coming from a country where the land had been used up and seeing all of this space as virgin flanks; moist, rich, plenty. It feels that way to me. Then there is the fact that in winter, I become a cheap date. I am so eager to see something new, anything new, I become unduly excited over the smallest novelty, easily pleased by minute discoveries.

And it is with this spirit that Adam and I head North before returning home after another visit to Maple Grove Hot Springs (A note: This time we spent the weekend in the Detroiter, the little rentable, Turquoise, 1950’s trailer positioned just off from the hot springs. I recommend it with some caveats: If you go on a weekend, be prepared to listen to rowdy, late night, weekend soakers until about midnight; the place livens up around 8. Also, the trailer is, after all, 60 years old and has suffered a little water damage so it smells a little musty. If you bring some pine pitch, candles or sage to

burn, or homemade Chai to heat up, the smell is easily transformed. These are also good ways to clean out any residual energy from previous guests and make the space feel more homey. Lastly, the beds are pretty comfortable but if you, like me, are a little weirded out by sleeping on beds slept on by god knows who and how many, bring your own bedding. The trailer does have fabulous windows, allowing you to watch moose traipse past, wild turkeys gobble old apples from the tree just outside the door, and families of swan glide serenely up and down the river as you sip your early morning tea. It also means early morning soaks with no people at all, watching the mist slowly rise off the river).

After soaking and swimming away our morning in relative solitude (Maple Grove’s owners showed up around 10 with their huge, happy dogs to clean off the solar panels and check on the generator), I decide that I am not remotely ready to head back to town and I want/need a little more adventure. I also feel gypped. On the way up, we stopped at a little diner I have been eyeing for the last year, every time I drove up with my dad to go horseback riding. The diner is promisingly called, “Flora’s Little Kitchen” and is located on the corner at the only lit intersection in Franklin; Idaho’s oldest town. Flora herself is freekin’ adorable; short and round and bosomy with a huge smile and chatty, warm presence, lots of positive mama energy. And so, out of respect for Flora, I won’t downright ream her little corner kitchen. I will say that I can only hope she and her family, who run the restaurant with her, are eating something other than the drivel she feeds her customers. The family has amazingly been in business for 14 years, serving enchiladas, burgers, steak and what they claim are the best jumbo shrimp in the valley. Now I ask you, how good can shrimp in a ranch-happy valley, 23 hours drive from the nearest harbor, be? Not that good.

So, after a short consultation with Maple Grove owner’s floppy haired, quiet but super friendly, tie-dye wearing teen-age son, we head up highway 34 to Grace, with the promise of burgers at some place called, “Burgys.”

Highway 34 runs from Preston to Soda Springs, bisecting Idaho’s Gem Valley. Gem Valley is in turn bisected by the Bear River, running in rivulets and narrow canyons at times, then widening to spread out across the plain in marshy shoals. Five hundred miles long, the Bear River has been twisted and shoved aside by volcanic up-thrusts and protruding magma tubes so that despite its fabulous length, its mouth is only 50 miles from its head. On one side of us is the Fish Creek Range, on the other the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. I don’t know these mountains, so any time we pass a sign indicating some specific canyon or fishery, I’m riveted.

The valley begins as a narrow corridor, descending from the rim encircling the northern most point of Cache Valley, and widening to several miles across. This expanse is maintained for upwards of 70 miles, until interrupted by the Blackfoot Mountains. The valley was settled by ranchers in the 1800’s. These were soon displaced by farmers, whose appearance in the valley incited a series of range wars over land. Lately, ranchers have moved back in only to shift their operations to dairy farms; we pass three sizable spreads as we travel North. The population of this valley still takes their relationship to the land and its resources very seriously, and at times, violently. Days before our arrival, a local elk hunter was pulled over by the sheriff for hunting without a permit. When the sheriff moved to reposes the elk tied to the top of this gentlemen’s truck, he was met with a rifle barrel. “You better get your gun sheriff,” the man said, “’cause you’re going to have to shoot me to get that elk.”

We arrive in Grace at the same time as Santa Clause. Getting out of his Dodge Ram, I can see that Santa favors a wine colored, velour suite and black leather belt with a chunky silver belt buckle, inlaid with turquoise. Santa heads into the Sinclair where he picks up a soda and a lottery ticket before heading to the fire department. There, he will board a fire engine that is set to parade through town this afternoon. When we walk into Burgy’s next door, the place is relatively empty except for a few straggling families, kids all dressed up in party dresses and red and white stockings, on their way to see Santa. Our lunch will occasionally be interrupted by more groups of kids, dressed in red and green with Rudolph sweatshirts, mouths cherry red with candy that Santa has tossed to the crowd.

Burgy’s has a white and black checked floor, a pool table, juke box and pin-ball machine. It’s decorated in Elvis and Christmas, with a side room reserved for family parties and get-togethers wall-papered with pink flowers. Burgy’s burgers are good, but not anything special. Their shakes are good; well-blended with lots of fruit and no sicky-sweet syrups. But their real claim to fame is their fries: here you get the luxurious (I prefer luxurious to glutinous) choice of skinny, fat or curly…or you can have them all. A prayer, somewhere has been answered.

From the window of our booth, I can see a little brown sign indicating a “point of interest” is to be found somewhere down Center Street. I feel like I’ve uncovered some exceptional treasure, and, once we head out of town, eyes peeled for whatever “interesting” thing we have been sent to see, it turns out I have.

Crossing the rail road tracks and the towering silos of an abandoned General Mills grist mill, we come to a bridge crossing “Black Canyon Gorge” and the Bear River. Here the river plunges through a lime stone layer of rock, narrow and jagged with improbable black walls. The river has recently frozen over and the area has seen some snow so that sooty boulders push up through variably transparent sheets of ice and white drifts. Temperature fluctuations have displaced the frozen layer so the sides of the river hover over its narrow banks, shelves of ice and trapped debris. The water pulsing along beneath its frozen crust is dark, darkest just below the bridge where the pitch of its color reveals the profundity of its depths. For a minute, I long for summer and swimming, only to study again the height and severity of the walls leading down to this tempting, now glacial pool.
Heading out of town, we stop at another manifestation of this areas intense volcanic history, the Niter Ice Cave. Formed by flowing basalt magma 500 thousand years ago, it was formally discovered by the Dalton family, homesteaders in the late 1800’s who used the cave to store milk and newly invented ice-blocks. Just above the entrance to the caves, a lithograph of Ida Dalton’s face, toothy with hair swept up in two waves on either side of her head and evocative of a space ship, peers up at me. Ida was the youngest daughter of the original Dalton family, and at the time of the sign’s erection,

the oldest living inhabitant of Niter. Sliding down iced-over snow, we make our way into the cave. The cave’s mouth is scarred with spray paint, but the inside is still. Icicles hang from the ceiling like stalactites and an eerie orange moss grows up the walls. I am claustrophobic, so I hang close to the mouth, watching Adam disappear into the dark and reappear again minutes later. I scurry out, feeling only slightly panicked—what if the snow had trapped us in there?—but still pleased with the discovery.

Above ground, fields open out smoothly all around us. Small islands of rock and earth rise up out of the plain, evidence of when this valley was a vast lake. The island hills are covered in thick, short grass, a coarse animal pelt scruffy at the edges where erosion continues to shed rocks. I stop for a minute, smelling the cold air and listening to the silence before reentering the truck. I hear nothing.

A little bit of useful info...

Region: South Eastern Idaho

Contact Info:

Floras Little Kitchen (so you can stop and chat...and NOT eat)

1 S State St

Franklin, ID 83237
(208) 646-2116

Burgy's

Highway 34, North of the Sinclair
Grace, ID

Rating for Burgy's out of  ☼☼☼☼☼:

Burger ☼☼.5    Shake  ☼☼☼     Fries  ☼☼☼.5
You may want to visit Burgy's if your are:

*Going hunting, camping or hiking in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest
*Going fishing in the Bear River or one of the many feeder streams criss-crossing the valley
*Soaking in Maple Grove Hot Springs
*Taking the backroads to or from Lava Hot Springs
*Going to see the geyser in Soda Springs
*Visiting the Niter Ice Cave 
*Visiting the site of the Bear River Massacre
*Kayaking the Bear River or the Oneida Narrows
*Visiting Black Canyon
*Getting the hell out of Salt Lake during inversion!