The town of Ririe, Idaho lies eleven miles west of Idaho Falls off Hwy 26, in the last bit of flatland before entering the mountains of the Targhee National Forest. At 4900 feet its elevation is much more than its population of 656. Like most small towns it has one of everything (bank, general store, bakery, etc….) except bars and churches,  Ririe has multiples of both.

On the outskirts of town medium-sized houses in a variety of shapes and states of decline line the country roads, most with 5-20 acres of land sprawling behind them. Some of the land is used for crops, some for grazing, and some solely for distance. A shiny, new, large home pops up here and there, more outlier than trend. It’s the kind of area that while driving through you get chased by a dog or two.

In town a mixture of older, small homes and mobile homes pack together on a few neighborhood streets. The variety of the homes is worth the trip. Some look unlivable and some are incredibly well taken care of. I feel like an uninvited guest every time I stop to gawk at an odd-shaped, clean but cluttered, fifteen hundred square foot home with Christmas tree lights still hanging and a  1970s Dodge Dart on the lawn but I can’t help myself.

For better or worse, the HOA phenomenon hasn’t made it to Ririe. Since over half of the homes have an amazing amount of stuff in their front yard, my guess is it won’t be arriving anytime soon. Some of the homes are dwarfed by the paraphenalia around them: RV trailers, old barns, horse trailers, ATVs, cars- running and not, and junk of every type imaginable. Ririe is the type of town where they use their possessions to their very last breath, especially trucks and mobile homes.

It’s a late Sunday morning and the roads are empty, the driveways emptier. Driving through the grid of the town I see very few cars or people. On the edge of town I find out why, cars are overflowing out of the parking lot at one of the two LDS churches in town. This is a heavily Mormon town, and as a beautiful yet creepy, historic LDS church on the edge of town built in 1885 shows, those roots run long and deep.

As I pull out of the town if you ask me which word better describes Ririe, “quaint” or “strange,” I’d have a hard time deciding.

 

In the seventh grade our family moved into our first, new, stand-alone home. Before then we had lived in the duplex style, military housing or apartments after my Dad left the army. As a family we drove by after the concrete slab was laid and watched the the wooden beams go up, the outline of the house coming more into view with each family drive-by.

Our new, medium sized home was in League City, Texas, a suburb southeast of Houston. The subdivision was miles from town, it had a pool and a 7/11, end of list of amenities. As a kid living there, if you wanted fun, you had to create fun.

Isolated and too young to drive most of the kids in the subdivision knew each other. I became friends with Vietnamese-American kid named Jack and a Puerto-Rican American kid named Tony. I was multi-cultural before it was cool. Both were a year or two older than me in age and having always kept to myself as we moved from place to place, they were more mature socially.

One summer day Jack and Tony knocked on my door and asked if I want to be part of their new club. They were calling the club “The Raccoons” and membership was exclusive. At the age where I didn’t want to be left out, of course I wanted to join.

Jack and Tony explained to join I would have to pass a few tests, tests they had already put themselves through. I don’t remember all the initial tests, one was skipping a rock across the pond and I think I had to recite the Raccoon’s oath. The last test was climbing a very tall tree near the pond.

We had all climbed the tree before but only Jack had climbed to the very top. When they told me the last test was climbing the tree it didn’t feel like a daunting task, although I wondered if their definition of “to the top” would be different from mine.

I scrambled up the first part of the tree before stopping halfway and looking down at Jack and Tony. They yelled “Keep going!” and a fleeting moment of doubt passed through my head. A sort of “Raccoons? Really?” But I swept it away and resumed my climb.

Towards the top I paused, awaiting their instructions and faintly heard Jack yell “A little farther!” At this point any small amount of wind swayed the top of the tree but it didn’t feel dangerous. I climbed until my body weight swayed the limb on its own without any wind and stopped. Below Jack and Tony were small, round faces on dots for bodies. Jack put his hands around his mouth and yelled to the tree top.

“CONGRATULATIONS YOU PASSED, BUT TONY AND I DON’T WANT TO BE RACCOONS ANYMORE!”  And with that they walked away.

 

The other side of Highway 26 is pure farmland, acres and acres of brown, off-season land patiently waiting for the short, summer growing season. A few older homes with backyard silos dot every mile or two. Dirt roads criss-cross through the land and though a stranger I don’t feel like a trespasser. A wind farm lies not far from here and unlike California, where everything is off limits, they are easily approached. Last week I walked up to one of the giant structures and gave it a hug.

My destination today is the Ririe Reservoir and the campground next to it. It’s too early in the year to camp but not early enough to do some recon. A mile down a winding, deserted road off the highway I find the campground.

No one is manning the entrance so I drive through the empty campground and through the campsites. It’s your typical state campground, the sites are well maintained and close together. I make mental notes of the better sites and continue on towards the reservoir.

I head to the dam creating the reservoir, a sign promising an outlook to see the whole reservoir. Maybe because it’s off season, the road is gated closed. I get a glimpse of a portion of the reservoir and its white surface. I think about leaving but when another sign points to a boat ramp, I turn towards it, giving in to my curiosity.

The reservoir is sunk down into a gorge and well below the the land. The last bit of the road to the boat dock drops steeply into a parking lot and boat ramp. I get my first good look at the reservoir and dam. The dam is made up of more boulders than the mind can comprehend and the reservoir is frozen over, looking ghostly and unfriendly.

It’s not until I park and walk down towards the floating dock do I see the solitary figure on the ice. He is a standing far past the middle of the reservoir with what looks like a large bag or supplies next to him. My guess he is ice fishing but in the distance I don’t see a pole. He stands there, a solitary, black speck on a lake of white.

The past few weeks have seen well-above freezing temperatures in the day although it falls back below the freezing mark overnight. Near the shore there are breaks in the ice where water makes it to the surface and there are large cracks elsewhere. Between the shore and the man is an area about 10 x 10 where the water has broken through to the surface.

Truth be told, I know little about ice fishing or frozen lakes. This is the first time I’ve seen one up close and to my untrained eye, the surface water and cracks can’t be a good sign. And yet a man stands in the middle of the lake. I doubt he hovered out there.

I decide I must walk on this frozen water. From my perch fifty feet above the reservoir I decide to test the ice. I pick up a medium-sized rock and throw it down onto the ice. Laugh if you must (and you probably are) but if the rock broke through the ice, my ice-walking feat would have ended there. After a few rocks bounce on the ice, I head down to the water’s edge.

Walking off the edge of the floating dock is an option but the dock sits a couple feet above the water and a jump down onto the ice, no matter how small, does not sound appealing. Also the dock sticks out thirty feet onto the lake and the thought of deeper water doesn’t sound good either.

Water is at the surface near the ramp and the dock so I walk along the shore to the area I threw the rocks. My guess is the water is a few feet deep at most yet still I hesitate. I know if I fall through, the water will come up to my knees and I can step on the shore but my mind adds implausible levels of danger. As if a fall through the ice, no matter how shallow the water, is an act of irreversible doom. Metallica’s “Trapped Under Ice” blares through my brainpan.

I step out onto the ice. I stop for a second then take another step and stop. There isn’t a sound to be heard but I swear I hear a thousand cracks occurring under my feet. The headline “Idiot Non-local Falls Through Ice” flashes through my head but after thirty seconds I am still standing. A minute passes. Still standing.  My breathing slows and I allow myself to enjoy the view.

That’s it though. I turn around and step on dry land. I exhale deeply although I’m unsure why. In the distance I see the man standing on the ice. I don’t know how he got there or how long he will be there. From down at lake level the frozen reservoir still looks ominous compared to how inviting it probably looks on a warm, summer day. Back near my car, the man on the ice is even smaller, barely noticeable. I smile at the thought of my three step adventure and salute the tiny figure in the distance.