"The rich," writes University of Maryland professor Michael Olmert, "great impact on history." Where they live and what they themselves "control what we know the past because they know the good things in the vernacular and ephermal survive," he writes in his book "Milton's Teeth and Ovid's Umbrella."
"Graffiti for a shock defeat," he adds, "hitchhiking on the walls of a good thing to bring to light an alternative past."
Nowhere is that Eastern Idahodemocratic spirit clearly buried as a cool, dusty, graffiti-filled lava tube in a box with pieces of burning brown of broken beer bottles littered. In recent decades, graffiti walls of basalt 17-Mile Cave with names, dates, images, notes of love on many levels.
And monsters. My favorite son.
Colloquially enough, 17 miles of cave just 400 yards south of U.S. Highway 20 about 17 miles west of downtown Idaho Falls, ID, located at a point marked by aIdaho historical marker "Elephant Hunters." Park is in the deduction or markers along the dirt road that a dimple in the landscape in the southern districts. This dimple is in the cave.
The location of the cave, the size and make-up, make it an excellent place to pique the interest of potential cavers, no matter how young. Michelle and I have our three children - Liam, age 7, Lexie, 5, and Isaac, 2 ½, the cave for their first adventure caving.
Of course, given theNature of children (especially literal mindset of five years, their mothers to leave when dad go in the cave, breathing cold air like a giant refrigerator, think to say to check for bears) their first adventure do not come without tears. Within about ten meters from the cave entrance, our two little ones they want out. (My wife, Michelle, took off, we were waiting for half an hour in the van and was on his way home, our daughter literally mind-set with this story .. "I said to Lexieput the torch on the ground so that they are able to walk on the rocks as we were, "he said. Instead of the light out on the floor, put the torch down and walked away from him. Mom was quick to also.)
Liam, however, is game to continue. He and I go, the way, his flashlight sending a circle of light in motion on the floor when the walls and ceiling.
The cave is an easy hike of experience with the entry ofdifficult aspect. Adults and older children need to duck and get on a short series of natural lava rock steps - a distance of no more than 12 feet - before the cave opens up enough. From there is a walk of only about half a mile into the cave at the end of ducking required in only two short paragraphs. As the branch did not cave, there is no chance of getting lost, even if it is completely dark inside when out of sight of the entrance.
A natural stone chipfollowed by a large cavity single turn quickly hides the entrance and the light that enters the cave. For the most part, the cave is about ten feet wide and easily ten feet tall, although there is a room where the cave extended for at least twenty feet wide and easily a hundred feet high - space enough for an impromptu game of football when I brought enough light.
A cave in a seven year old boy teaches quiet. Halfway in, I shushed Liam talking, told him to sayme what he heard:
Far away, on a drip. . . Drops. . . Drops. . .
"Someone has to run the tap, Dad."
Of course, my son.
A little 'more detailed' Errrrr, rerrrr, rerrrr, rerrrrrrrr.
"It 's a monster?"
"I do not think my son." Someone else in the cave has a flashlight as we do. "I crank the handle to light up our batteries, and makes the same sound." Feel your echo? "
"Hello!" crying in the darkness, the torch around everything looks as iftries to write its sequel as echoes.
Then we see the lights.
"Hello Who is this, what is your name?" You have no monster, "he cries, echoes destroying each other like bumper cars.
No monsters. Only a family shadowed by their curiosity, the friendly black lab.
It continues, with the understanding that can teach in a cave in a quiet get this lesson is not necessarily to be heard on her young typical flood of questions.
There areLava cave, Dad? (On the way to the cave, I talked about it, ran like thousands of years ago, the cave like a river of lava has formed underground, then ebbed, so that the cave again.)
No, no lava, my son.
How long is it?
Long enough, my son.
It is the cave going to fall on us?
There is no better. Your mother would be angry with me when it's done.
What if we turned off our flashlights?
Try it.
He does. For about two seconds, we are enveloped in darkness,express a tent made of blankets and pieces of wood to build hope for seven years to adapt to sleeping under the stars ever.
He turns his light again, I think. "I just lost my father," he said. "But there you are."
There are monsters, Dad? Than to support the joke that is the seat of wookalar cave, my favorite movie monster.
"Let's find out," I say.
Just behind the Echo Chamber - my name for the largest cave room, I'm not sure, in 25Years of visiting this cave, when one of the functions have an official name - the roof on the left side appeared again within three feet of earth. Long ago, saw some lively imagination a monster mouth and eyes - a bit 'like a brontosaurus - open from that training. So they painted the rock, a little definition to add to their imagination.
"Face monster!" my son whispered message, as I shine the light on the characteristics of Monster neon-painted. (Some dedicated souls touch againColor, every year, ensuring the monster to life is empty cave-goers.)
He holds his own light, blinding the monster, in the case decided to take life. The fog from his breath caught in the beam. "Big Smoke!" Whispers. (The smoke monster, at least this time, it is quite thick, puffing clouds into the ground, if we are breathing or not. It appears in the images that rock flashlit crisp, bright colors, faces and even more sinisterFeeling like we saw on the subway with us showing up with yellow eyes.)
The monster is the least graffiti cave, all surprisingly G-rated, at least for the uninitiated. Scrawled on the walls are messages from former cave dwellers, and secular - "Stop Graffiti", "EXIT", "fix Dyslexicz of Idaho" (with arrows pointing in opposite directions) - The funny - "Abandon hope you who enter here" - l 'clever cryptic - "WhenThe Adventures of One Uther Smith, "a drawing of a light, dark, young goatee accompanied Uther is, of course, up-to-date, it comes with its own URL: ... It 'just printed Biminicomics.com heroes comics world in the spring of 2007, presented at the San Francisco Center for the Book.
"The story is deeply rooted in this region of Idaho," said Brandon Mise, a former resident, Idaho Falls with the cartoonist and colorist John Murphy Nye Wright wrote. "I wanted peopleknow that soon there may be a local hero root for "Comic although in Pocatello September -. relies heavily on well-recognized local Idaho Falls.
While searching for locations for comics - set in part to his uncle's farm potato Mise room, the trio discovered the cave and returned the next day, armed with a backpack full of spray paint, "mise said.
It has no 17-Mile Cave. Except for my youngest son and daughter, of course, but they are youngyet. This place is the attention - even by some in North Carolina established authors a bit 'underground advertising literally freaking cold to indulge in a cave on the edge of the desert Lost River. What future historians can make of it remains to be seen.
A note to aspiring graffiti artists:
I would note, we do not endorse graffiti, at least not in this cave. Travellers should be aware that in this cave on private property and the owner was very friendly over theYears, allow people to climb in its natural basement paint cans in hand or not. But because the walls are covered with graffiti, I write about it. In penance, if I go there I take a trash bag and clean some of the inhabitants of the caves and other debris left behind.
