Boise, 10.14.2020
Pure Americana! Much of residential Boise has tree-lined streets bordering sidewalks flanked by modest, well-kept homes. In the 50's, 60's and 70's these streets must have been bustling with neighbors chatting with neighbors, kids on bicycles racing up and down the sidewalks and kids walking home from school for lunch. Boise city council enacted a law that now requires developers to include trees in all new landscapes that contribute to fall color. And wow, has that paid off! The residential streets merely glimmer in shades of yellow, orange, red and green. While Sandy Springs already has a strict tree preservation policy and is part of a tree-planting initiative, I plan to send a message to the mayor of our small town suggesting the same type ordinance in our city.
Yesterday, the big sign above the street side diner read, "Best Biscuits And Gravy." As we drove past, Jeff added matter-of-factly, "that place has the best biscuits and gravy in town!"
We headed there first thing this morning. As we parked, Stan asked Jeff, "so . . .we can get some really good biscuits and gravy here?" Jeff replied, "I don't know. I've never been here."
We ate biscuits and gravy! Oh Lord! Actually, I had eggs and sausage on grilled sour dough bread, but Stan and Jeff had huge plates of biscuits and sausage gravy. Our server could not believe we eat biscuits and gravy down south!!! Heck, we said, we invented them! She asked, are yours like the biscuits and gravy served at Cracker Barrel - I had to say, I have no Idea! I've never had them!! But Jeff and Stan assured her that Cracker Barrel's gravy is something terrible, no Southern thing at all. Theirs are poured from a can most likely.
Boise is geographically small. It sits in the wide flat Payette River valley at the foot of the Boise Mountains to the northeast and the Soldier Mountains nearly due east. Although Idaho has 144 mountain ranges, seven of them are considered major ones.
After just two days, Stan is getting the lay of the land and can get us around will little help from Navigation or Waze. Only 16 miles from City Center is the Bogus Basin Recreational Area. Stan read about it and put it on our agenda for the day. Get this, Bogus is a city-owned, non-profit ski resort just 16 zig-zagging miles up the mountain. A person can drive it or just hop a shuttle to ride up the mountain. In the winter the resort offers skiing, snowboarding and snow-tubing. In summer there is a mile-long rail mountain toboggan coaster that flies 25 self-propelled miles an hour down the hill!!! Wow! All profits from the resort are poured back into equipment, upkeep, improvements and scholarships. Charitable contributions to the park help provide the scholarships awarded to students from Title 1 schools to enable them to try skiing for the first time.
The view there was broad and very pretty and here and there along the road to the resort were sprawling homes where owners must sit on their decks or before huge glass walls in the evening, sipping their wine and looking from thousands of feet above the lighted valley below or taking in the star spangled theater above. Wow! I wonder if they feel like gods or if they thank God for their earth-time blessings.
Back in the city we spent several interesting hours at the Idaho State Museum. It showcased the three vastly different geographies of Idaho; the deserts in the south, the mountains and streams of the central region and the great forest land of the northern "stovepipe" region of Idaho. Outside in the Julia Davis Park, we walked through and sniffed fragrances in the largest, most beautiful, varied rose garden, we have ever seen.
We knew Jeff likes Chinese food, but we hoped to introduce him to something new. We suggested Pho. Jeff said he didn't like the name and it did not sound appetizing to him. We ordered fresh spring rolls (these are not fried) some with pork and some with shrimp as appetizers and bowls of Chicken Pho. He loved it. We loved it!