Boise, Idaho.

Boise, Idaho is about a two and half hour drive from La Grande, Oregon, but in another time zone. Lynn and Judy obviously go fairly frequently to visit their daughter and grandsons, my visit just happened to give them another excuse to go sooner than expected.The ride was uneventful and we arrived in Boise about 5.30pm, Andrea, Lynn and Judy's daughter had to run out to visit a friend before we went to dinner, Lynn went with her. Judy and I made ourselves comfortable before driving to the restaurant. We were going to have dinner at the restaurant where Mark, Andrea's husband, works, Epi's. When Judy and Lynn had spoken with Dustin and suggested what they might do while I was there, he said we should go to Epi's. Dustin is a food traveller. Epi was Mark's great-grandmother and immigrated from the Basque country in Spain to America. We got the restaurant and I met Andrea properly and some other family members. Everything on the menu looked good, and so it turned out to be. The food was great, but too much for me too eat, so I had to get a doggy bag to take home with me. We went home, sat around on the deck and continued the feast with Huckleberry cheesecake. Don't know if I've mentioned it, but Huckleberries only grow in the Pacific Northwest of America. They are similar to Blueberries in colour and size, different taste. I hadn't been totally unfamiliar with them before I came, Dustin had shared some Huckleberry jam with me, that his Grandmother had made.
We had a lazy Saturday morning, but Lynn couldn't seem to sit still and went off to Costco for a few things. When he came back he beckoned me out to the car, he handed me a three and half pound bag of peanut M & M's. I couldn't believe it, this bag was huge, not to mention that it would add weight to my rucksack. Earlier in the week, I had given Lynn a small bag of M & M's that I just happened to have in my rucksack, he was repaying the favour with interest! With the shopping done, Lynn,Andrea and I went to take a look at Boise. Boise has the largest community of Basque people outside of Spain, I did not know that! We went to the Botanical gardens, which has an English garden, very beautiful, a desert and a prairie garden. We walked around the outside of the old Boise prison, very intimidating. It makes sense, but still surprises me that in times past the local prison was in the centre of town, often right next to the courthouse. And certainly in Corvallis, the modern prison is in the same original location and still in use. Although Mo & Scott explained that it was for the local minor criminals.
After seeing some cultural, it was time for a more popular approach to our sightseeing and we went to the "Taste of Idaho" show at the Qwest arena. We got to taste beer, cheese, cookies and various other things. I however, was disappointed, I wasn't able to taste any Idahoan potatoes, they had run out. Idaho is famous for its potatoes and so I have to eat Idahoan potatoes. This is a hangover from my time in Japan. In Japan, pretty much every town will have it's famous food and if you go to that the place, your trip is not complete unless you eat the local delicacy. My Japanese friends,on my return from any trip, would ask me if I had eaten the squids insides etc. and then I would generally show them the pictures. That's another habit I've picked up in Japan, taking pictures of my food and I am continuing the tradition here in America. Anyway, Andrea promised to get me some potatoes during my stay in Boise and we went home, back to Judy.
Lynn and Judy had to head back to Cove, we said our goodbyes and I got a little emotional, it was sad to see them go. The Kidd's had been so kind to me and I had had a great time staying with them. I know that I could have spent longer in Cove with them and still not run out of things to do. After they left I settled in and played with William, Andrea's oldest son, in his sandbox or shooting hoops. I took the dog, Blue, a beautiful Chocolate Labrador for a walk. He can be a bit of a handful, but is very well trained and a gorgeous dog. We had dinner together and settled down for Mark to come home.
Sunday is Mark and Andrea's one complete day off together. We got all packed up and went into downtown Boise for the "Art in the Park" festival. Every year the art museum runs a festival in the park next door, they attract artists to come and sell their wares. It is really cool, the range of things on sale is wide ranging, from leather ware to paintings and sculptures. I had my first real American Dog, which was good and Mark bought us all Lemonade. We headed home for lunch and a quiet afternoon. Later we got all packed up again, including Blue this time and went across town to Mark's mothers house. Lori lives on a top of a hill, when the house was first built it was just them there with a hilltop scrub land all around them. Now a whole load of new houses have been built, but a little differently then what would happen in England I think. The potential can choose just to buy the land and then design and build their own house or they buy a completed house (they weren't many of those) or lastly they can buy off plan and have the developer build the house to their specifications. There seems to be a trend for large single story homes, but with basements. So in England where we would have a two storey house, with a ground floor and first floor, in America it's a basement floor and then a ground floor. And often because of the contours of the land you often can't see the basement part of the house. Interesting.
Lori was great, she welcomed me with a big, none of that shaking hands nonsense, and offered me a beer. It was Mark's brother's girlfriends birthday that we were celebrating. We sat down to pizza and salad followed by a chocolate birthday cake that Andrea had baked. After dinner we grabbed Blue and Loris dog and went for a walk around the new neighbourhood. We each picked out a house we would like and I laughed at a road called "Hard Rock", complete with a "Hard Rock Cafe" sign. It was a lovely warm night and a good idea to get some exercise after the big dinner we had eaten. I am still worried about being the size of a house when I do eventually return home. I am fairly convinced that I have regained the weight I lost when I was hiking in Japan.