Chapter Sixteen
One of Burgdorf’s main drawbacks was that the owners could ask us to leave at any time. Another was the public road over which (depending on the season) cars, campers, snowmobiles, or commercial logging trucks roared past our cabin and the pool. During the winter of 1980–81, we let it be known through our ski-mail system that we were interested in purchasing a place in the backcountry with more privacy. Though not necessary, a natural hot spring on the property would be desirable.
In the spring of 1981 we heard about a ranch for sale in central Idaho. First we arranged for someone to stay with the children; then, with the direct route still closed, we drove the long way round. Turning off the paved highway, we went down a hill, crossed the river on an old-fashioned steel bridge, and continued along the dirt road to the west gate of the property. Above the open gate we saw a sign on a wooden crossbeam with the name of the ranch and smaller posted signs saying “Private Property” and “No Trespassing.”
Good, I thought.
We pulled up to the main building. One of the owners came out to show us around. A visitor from the city might have described the buildings as old and run-down, the kind that realtors euphemistically call “fixer-uppers.” I saw them as rustic and historic.
With water of prime importance in the arid West, this property was unusual in having more than enough to supply the dwellings and irrigate the fields. The Salmon River, though not adjacent, was close by. A sizable creek that ran past the buildings was warmed by hot springs that originated on federal land upstream along a geological fault line. A hot spring on the property flowed from a hillside into an upper pool that emptied into a lower pool. The effluent from the lower pool coursed into the creek, which met the Salmon River with a stunning display of cascading waterfalls at the confluence.
When we had completed our tour of the property I told the seller that private ownership of the road was very important to me. She said the road outside the ranch was public, and because she and her husband had run a business that served the public, they had left the ranch gates open most of the time. However, she assured me that the road within the ranch was private and open to the public by permission only. She and her husband had affirmatively asserted their private ownership by locking the gates at least once a year.
The place seemed perfect for our needs. Due diligence was the next step. After my Boise attorney confirmed that all water and mineral rights were in order and the road within the property was private, I made an offer, the sellers accepted, and I became the owner of a ranch in central Idaho.
We moved out of Burgdorf on Friday, June 26, 1981. I had always known our stay was finite, but as I watched the last dilapidated gray wooden building recede in the rearview mirror, I could almost feel the rush of air as Father Time slammed the door behind me. If only it had been a literal rush of air. Our progress on the winding dirt roads was too slow to generate even a small breeze. Our caravan consisted of Rick’s 1955 Dodge pickup, my Jeep Cherokee, the CJ5 that Sherry had driven on Robie Creek, a one-ton silver truck, and a two-horse trailer. Rick’s brother drove Silver, and a friend of his drove the CJ. Though a crow could have covered the distance in a couple of hours, it took us the better part of a day to arrive at our destination. By the time all the vehicles, people, dogs, cats, goats, horses, and mules had passed through the log portal leading to the residential compound, everyone was hot, dusty, and thirsty.
The compound consisted of the main building, three medium-sized buildings, and eight small cabins. All were constructed of logs and had red shingle roofs. The seller had told us that in addition to serving as her family’s home, the main building had functioned variously as a stagecoach stop, a restaurant, an inn, and a lodge. We parked along the road that curved alongside the main building and turned off our vehicles. As the dust drifted away, I found the complete absence of motor noise a welcome contrast to the relentless racket of the previous ten and a half hours. But the quiet didn’t last long. Rick got out of his truck and began to unload the horses and the goats while the rest of us opened various vehicle doors. Dogs, cats, and children leapt out of confinement and scattered in all directions in search of water. The dogs and cats headed straight for the creek. Rick tied the goats and equines to a conveniently located hitching post, then he, his brother, his friend, the children, and I drank from a garden hose attached to a tall outdoor standpipe with a pump handle that, when lifted, released a flow of water. After we had slaked our thirst Rick led the horses, mules, and goats into a nearby pasture to graze while I filled a metal tub with water for them. After releasing the animals, Rick brought the horses’ lead ropes back to the trailer, pointed to the main building, and directed Levi and Molly to start carrying their things inside.
“There?” I asked, daunted by the building’s immensity.
“That’s where we’re going to live,” he said, and went off to unload the saddles and other tack.
The lodge was approximately seventy-five hundred square feet, with six bedrooms upstairs and as many rooms downstairs. I knew that the previous owners had run a restaurant, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when my first view of the huge commercial kitchen revealed oversized pots and pans, a professional mixer on a stand, a walk-in refrigerator, an ancient wood cookstove with two ovens, an eight-burner gas stove with two more ovens, a large upright freezer, and a pizza oven, all of which the owners were leaving behind. After having lived for three years in a very small cabin, I was intimidated by the magnitude of the kitchen, let alone the entire house.
During our prepurchase visit I had envisioned us living in the two-story cabin 150 feet up the creek from the lodge. It had two good-sized bedrooms upstairs and an open area downstairs that could work as a kitchen, dining area, and living room. A covered porch off the living room overlooked the creek. Large windows in every room would bring every season of the great outdoors inside. While Levi and Molly were exploring the lodge, I asked Rick to walk over to the creek cabin with me. We stood on the porch while I tried to explain why I thought we should live there. My impassioned advocacy for the creek cabin may have been driven in part by my realization that someone would have to clean all twelve rooms in the lodge, and I knew exactly to whom that job would default.
I said, “If we lived here we’d have this wonderful view of the creek.”
But Rick had already made up his mind.
“You’ll want all that room when the rest of your family comes to visit.”
I was not unfamiliar with “good for the children” as an argument in favor of something my husband or boyfriend wanted, but Rick’s point was valid. I watched him stride back to the lodge and lingered for one last look at the creek.
Then I turned, walked quickly through the cabin, and headed toward the Cherokee to unload boxes of food into my humongous new kitchen.