On a Friday morning I packed all my gear ready for the rocks. After work it was only an hour and a half through the Camas prairie and into the sage brushed Bennet Hills, separating the Prairie from the large depression of the snake river plain stretching east to west across Idaho like a thick smile.
Miles of sometimes rugged, rattling roads gave way to a view down a pillared canyon and then topping a ridge, an expanse of hoodoos and eroded rock, hunched or erect, twisted and broken, awash in sun, dotted the hills as they sloped off toward the river plain.
My plan consisted of backpacking into one of the canyons, but the quiet breeze and the occasional gurgle of a meadowlark left that classic feel of sagebrush desolation and I realized I was far enough out as it was. I used the truck instead as a base camp and tracked off toward the largest canyon I could see, flanked by yellow balsamroot which reached willowed bottoms of water aching to move.
The sun sank in a quiet fury the way it often does in the desert, ushered down with the occasional mourning dove and screech owl. I could sit on a rock perch and watch it for hours, while in the east the dark had taken hold. These are the kind of spots that make the west great. No t-shirts, shot glasses or National Park calendars here. 
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