Winter in Idaho

Front of the "cabin"

Idaho is next door to Washington.  Technically, it's probably part of my "Northwest Corner."  But winter in Idaho is different from winter in Washington,* even when Washington experiences one of its occasional snows.

Idaho is very cold.  During my three days near Challis, Idaho, the temperature never rose above freezing during the day.  It approached zero (Fahrenheit) at night.  But the frigid air out of doors only emphasized the warmth and coziness of the cabin's interior. 

Our "cabin" (a full-sized house designed to look like a cabin) was heavily insulated.  So well insulated that -- except for electric heat in my bedroom -- it was heated entirely by a wood fire in a large fireplace.  (I say "wood" meaning "wood from trees" -- not Duraflame logs, or natural gas piped over concrete "logs.")  And the cold outside is a dry cold, not the dank, wet cold we sometimes experience in Seattle. 

So you are happily warm inside the cabin, and you can spend an hour traipsing around outside without shivering and without returning home with your boots saturated with water. 

I loved it.  Would I love it for an entire winter?  We'll never know, will we?

A picture's worth a thousand words, so here are several thousand words' worth (no pun intended).
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*Eastern Washington may, in some ways, be similar to Idaho.  But for those of us in Seattle, Eastern Washington might as well be part of Idaho.  We forget it's there.  Forgive my west-of-the-Cascades chauvinism. 

Moose looking balefully across the
living room.  On an opposite wall, was an
even more morose shaggy bison.
 

Strolling toward the cabin,
accompanied by Buddy.



Study in sage brush and snow 



Andy thoughtfully built this bridge
so Kathy could hike her path with dry feet.

Road leading to property exit
in far distance.

Horses who allegedly love the cold.

My last morning in Idaho, gazing out from
the cabin's front porch