Idaho Beckons

As I drove towards Twin Falls Idaho, I was excited, about what lay ahead for me, especially considering the spiritual prompting I had received in the Temple. My only recollection of the area from my visit back in 1996 was the Miracle Hot Springs, as that’s where my two day visit to Idaho took me. And that was a blast, as a freak snow storm had hit the area, and the Olsen kids (Josh' brothers and cousins) had a snowball fight while jumping from one hot spring pool to another.

As I drove over the Perrine Bridge and looked down at the Snake River Canyon I was awestruck. I stopped at the Visitor Center there, and noticed a couple of guys packing parachutes on the lawn, and soon learned they were Base Jumpers. I was told that this bridge was the only one in the US where it was legal to jump from at any time, thus attracting people from around the world to parachute into the canyon.

It is pretty cool watching people walk to the middle of the bridge and hurl themselves off, before pulling their rip cords and floating down to the banks of the Snake River, where a flag stands as a target. And you can imagine the reaction from the drivers of the vehicles on the bridge too.. I heard from the Chamber Secretary that just about daily, the police get panicked calls from passersby, who call shouting "someone just jumped off the bridge!" But to the natives of Twin, its a regular occurrence, and they treat it like its no big deal... but I LOVED IT!

My creative juices began to flow, as I asked around about this phenomenon, and discovered that a Twin Falls Visitor Bureau did not exist, just a simple visitor center managed by the local Chamber of Commerce. And, although the Southern Idaho Tourism Department has an office at nearby College of Southern Idaho (CSI Twin!), it did not have the resources to focus on Twin Falls. So it appeared to me that there was an opportunity here for someone who knew how to bring together various entities for tourism promotion… ME!