A couple years ago I took a cruise on the Columbia River, and to prepare for it I read a book called 'The Restless Northwest.' A big chunk of Idaho is part of the restless Northwest, and so are parts of British Columbia, though I suppose Canadians would call them the Restless Southwest.

The Northwest has been scorched by volcanoes, crashed into by alien terranes, shaken by earthquakes and ground down by glaciers. My husband wrote his master's thesis on a small bit of Idaho in the 1970's, so I'm interested in the place. Back then nobody really knew what was going on.

Just consider that the uplift and the thrusting that raised all of Idaho's beautiful mountain ranges was always accompanied by earthquakes.