canyonwalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
canyonwalker) wrote2021-08-01 05:14 pm
canyonwalker) wrote2021-08-01 05:14 pm
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Dinner in Moscow, Idaho
Northwest Return Travelog #7
Moscow, ID - Fri, 30 Jul 2021. 5:30pm.
This afternoon we took a slight detour on the way back from hiking Elk Creek. Instead of retracting our route directly back to Clarkston we angled due west for a while to the town of Moscow, Idaho. There was a gem shop Hawk wanted to visit there, and it seemed like a good place to find dinner sooner than getting back to Lewiston/Clarkston.
Moscow has a still-active old time-y downtown. It's a college town, so a constant stream of fresh energy— and especially, fresh money— has kept the town from rusting out the way most of Small Town America has.
Moscow reminds me of Chapel Hill, NC, where I was a graduate student. The town is part old time-y holdout, part arty bohemian cheap-chic, and part yuppie. Though last time I visited Chapel Hill (a few years ago) the yuppie stuff had overgrown the main street like kudzu in North Carolina's pine forests.
For dinner we picked a Mexican restaurant with sidewalk dining. That was important to us as Idahoans have largely stopped wearing masks. "It's optional," everyone says, pointing to the CDC guidance that says masks should be worn by everyone not fully vaccinated. The Idaho Panhandle is an area with less than a 40% full vaccination rate, yet the region's no-mask rate is over 90%. As one comedian recently quipped, "Somebody up in that bitch lyin'!"
Food at the restaurant was good, especially for being a) so far from the Mexican border and b) in a small town. Though that's kind of what we expected from a college small town, as opposed to a dying small town.
Moscow, ID - Fri, 30 Jul 2021. 5:30pm.
This afternoon we took a slight detour on the way back from hiking Elk Creek. Instead of retracting our route directly back to Clarkston we angled due west for a while to the town of Moscow, Idaho. There was a gem shop Hawk wanted to visit there, and it seemed like a good place to find dinner sooner than getting back to Lewiston/Clarkston.
Moscow has a still-active old time-y downtown. It's a college town, so a constant stream of fresh energy— and especially, fresh money— has kept the town from rusting out the way most of Small Town America has.
Moscow reminds me of Chapel Hill, NC, where I was a graduate student. The town is part old time-y holdout, part arty bohemian cheap-chic, and part yuppie. Though last time I visited Chapel Hill (a few years ago) the yuppie stuff had overgrown the main street like kudzu in North Carolina's pine forests.
For dinner we picked a Mexican restaurant with sidewalk dining. That was important to us as Idahoans have largely stopped wearing masks. "It's optional," everyone says, pointing to the CDC guidance that says masks should be worn by everyone not fully vaccinated. The Idaho Panhandle is an area with less than a 40% full vaccination rate, yet the region's no-mask rate is over 90%. As one comedian recently quipped, "Somebody up in that bitch lyin'!"
Food at the restaurant was good, especially for being a) so far from the Mexican border and b) in a small town. Though that's kind of what we expected from a college small town, as opposed to a dying small town.