Jason and I finally took a trip
to Boise this past weekend with Rex, Jessica, and Jessica’s sister - Chelsea.
We left Thursday night after classes and work and drove four hours to the
nearby city of Mountain Home where Jessica’s parents live and where we would be
staying for the next few nights.
Friday morning, we woke up to
the smell of pancakes, sausage, and eggs made by Jessica’s parents. We headed
to Boise early to pick up tickets to the BSU game on Saturday that Jason bought
from Craigslist.
Jason and I had collected some
information about a “Boise Art Walk” earlier in the week. The city is home to a
surprising amount of public and historical art that can be found in the form of
murals, postcards, bus stops, graffiti, statues, and interactive displays. We
printed off the exact locations of 43 sites that could be found in downtown
Boise. After we visited Boise’s’ City Hall, we started out with the
goal of finding them all, but it ended up taking too much time so we only
rushed to our favorites.
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| Hospitality at the Nez Perce (Lewis and Clark) |
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| George Washington |
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| City Hall and Abe Lincoln |
While on our walk, we passed an alley filled with graffiti called “Freak Alley”. There were so many
different paintings on the brick walls and doors and anything else that could
be painted. At the end of the alley, we took a break for a slice of pizza at
Pie Hole and quickly continued on our way. Side Note: We were surprised to see how many people were walking around with Blue and Orange on the day before the BSU game.
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| Entrance to Freak Alley |
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| Kilgore Trout |
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| Penny Postcard: A Hometown Greeting |
One of our favorite art sites
was Patrick Zent’s “Homage to the Pedestrian.” This site is an interactive
display of four lanterns spaced between a walkway in Grove Plaza. As people
move along the walkway each lantern lights up and greets the passerby with
rhythms of drums, bells, cymbals, and chimes. Rex, Jessica, Jason, and I each
took a lantern and tried to dance to the corresponding sounds. We looked
ridiculous to the actual pedestrians, but we had a good time making fools of
ourselves.
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| Homage to the Pedestrian |
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| Alt. 1867 aka The Miner - made out of 2 Miles of barbed wire! |
For dinner, we met up with
Jessica’s parents at Tucano’s. I’ve never eaten at this restaurant and all I
knew of it is that it involved a lot of meat and pineapple. I knew at least the
boys would be happy for the meat. Me – I just wanted the pineapple. Tucano’s is
an all-you-can-eat Brazilian restaurant where you are constantly served
different types of food. At your table you have a wooden cylinder that is green
on one end and red on the other and when you flip it to green, servers will
bring you different kinds of meat that you can simply yay or nay. The meats
vary from sausage, ham, teriyaki chicken, bacon wrapped turkey, steak, and
chicken hearts. If you flip bthe cylinder to red, it means you need a break.
The food was great and almost too filling. I suggest you go for lunch instead
of dinner – the price is about 6 dollars cheaper for lunch.
Saturday was my favorite day!
We woke up and began on our way back to Boise for the Boise State vs. Texas
Christian University football game. Being a cheerleader through high school,
the football stadium felt like a comfort zone. I hadn’t been to a game in a few
years so I was very excited. We were all decked out in our Boise attire and
super pumped. We didn’t have seats by Jessica and Rex because we had only
recently bought our tickets and we were looking for the cheapest ones. Jason’s
seat was actually right in front of mine, but we were still close enough to enjoy
each other’s company. The game was so much fun! The fans were so into the game
and had so much team spirit. I loved it! During time outs we bobbed our heads
to The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army and sang along to Neil Diamond’s
Sweet Caroline. Our side of the stadium chanted “Boi-se!” and the other
side of the stadium responded with “State!” It’s funny how you can go to a game
and sit by complete strangers and end up high fiving them after every touchdown.
Both teams played great throughout the entire game, but sadly TCU came out on top by one point
when BSU failed to kick a 20-yard field goal at the last second – there goes Boise’s undefeated
record. The game was still a blast and totally worth it! As a pick-me-up, the
four of us went to Goodie’s nearby Hyde Park for some ice cream.
Sunday we headed back to
Rexburg and on our way we stopped in Twin Falls. Entering the city, we drove
over Perrine Bridge to see an amazing view of the Snake River Canyon that
reminded me of The Land Before Time. We continued down the road stopping
at a viewpoint to take pictures of the beautiful bridge and drove on to
Shoshone Falls. Shoshone Falls is considered to be the Niagara of the West and
is actually 45 feet higher than Niagara Falls. Of all the waterfalls that Jason
and I have seen thus far together, I think this one is definitely the best. It
was absolutely gorgeous, especially with a constant rainbow that connected the bottom
of the falls to blue sky like a sideways smile. I loved peering over the ledge
at the waterfall you could feel the mist from the falls on your face.
Overall the whole trip to Boise
was a lot of fun and we are grateful for our friends Rex and Jessica for making
it happen. Jason and I are already talking about when we can visit the city again.
