Gregory Scruggs | (TNS) The Seattle Times If you’re visiting Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in its centennial year — as I was recently — or making a road trip that extends as far as Wyoming or Utah, it’s easy to consider breezing through southern Idaho en route to your destination. Instead, take the scenic route through this corner of the Gem State, which offers some real diamonds in the rough. There are immaculate hot springs, delightfully odd museums, occasional good eats, hikes with uninterrupted summit views and a breathtaking canyon to explore.
Along the way, you’ll never be too far from the Snake River, which defines this part of Idaho as it winds a whopping 1,080 miles from its headwaters in Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks until it merges with the Columbia River in the Tri-Cities. The Snake carves canyons through a swath of southern Idaho that offers big sky vistas of mountain peaks towering over plains and deserts. Dotting the rural landscape of small towns and farmland, meanwhile, are some decidedly quirky roadside attractions befitting the region that served as the setting for 2004 cult comedy “Napoleon Dynamite.
” Among southern Idaho’s small cities, I made a detour to Pocatello, curious to check out the college town home to Idaho State University which also claims to be the “U.S. Smile Capital.
” I didn’t stick around long enough to vet the friendliness of the locals, but two attractions made me smile. First was a.