Boise Oise

Welcome to Idaho! 

  

In every state I have driven through the scenery changes! Idaho was drier in spots but the mountains started to flatten at the top, while Utah was full of folded mountains.

8th street was the main attraction in downtown. A street full of shopping, great restaurants and of course local boise folk!

      

this is just some great art on the corner of a street. It looks like an earthquake dividing and then just underneath it the water is flowing into the ground. 

    Shana was able to house me for a few days in an adorable house right near Hyde park.  Like most cities, Boise is formed by neighborhoods.  Hyde Park is a small cluster of your bare essentials in Idaho: a coffee shop, an ice cream/candy store,  a place to drink beer, a place to eat burgers, a place to eat shotty mexican, a place to buy outdoor clothes, a bicycle store, and 'A Thousand Villages' a store that sells art and such from people in developing countries.  See like I said everything you would need! 

   We grabbed burgers the first night, thank god I didnt stick with that vegan diet! We reminisced about family vacations, practical jokes, and that one whitewater rafting trip no one could forget, how could you forget a trip with no guide, two father daughter teams, and men who live and breath competing with each other? Short of spinning in circles down the river, there was the everlasting "Man overboard!" to be called as each "accidently" fell out of the raft. Meanwhile Shana and I just sat puzzled, wondering how our mothers would have permitted such a thing. :) 

After a few days of exploring Shana and I decided some outdoor activities were in order. It was Boise for heaven's sake, its just what you do! So before the cold set in too much we planned a raft down the river.  What better a way to enjoy the country and bring two former rafters back together?? So we borrowed a nice small inflatable raft from a friend and headed out when Shana got off of work. We arrived around 6 to inflate the boat and launch it in.  Shana explained the float would be 2 hours, and i assured her the dark was no problem because we would paddle in parts to increase our speed and thus our arrival time.  So we inflated the raft...

       

We each took turns, no not by mouth, that orange thing is a pump that plugs into the car. The raft had three different compartments, but it took no time at all. So then we set it in the water to test it out.

Aaaaa...comfy! "But Shana doesnt it feel a little squishy?" I asked.

"Yeah Nikki it kinda does, lets add more air."

"ok then"

So we returned to pump more air.  Once satisfied we headed out on our now only semi-squishy raft. Class one rapids here we come!!! 

    Now if you know me and you know how my vacations run of course you can forsee the rest...Yup thats right the raft began to deflate, ever so slowly of course, but deflate none the less. It was gradual, first I noticed it when I would go to move in the back of the raft Shana, sitting on the side in the front, would kinda bouce up. Now at first we laughed it off, Im the bigger of the two, hahaha. Then it became clearer as we entered the second rapid and I was sitting on the back again, steering us through, and as we came out water was pooled under my legs.  Funny, how did that get in there? It seems that the more I sat on the back bumper the more creases and folds would begin to form as the raft lost air.  The more creases and folds meant the more valleys for water to seep into from the river beneath me. So I had to resort to sitting in the bottom of the raft.  There it became more clear that the raft was  losing it.  Shana meanwhile laughed it off with "Wouldn't it be funny if...." and "Don't worry we can always pull over on the side and just walk the last mile or so." 

 "No" I said. "We will do this Blumenthal/Freedman style and we will make it down this river even if we are lying on raft skin to do it!" 

   And by God that is what we did. Raft skin and all. 

     Now its too bad there are no pictures of this great adventure, but we couldn't sacrifice either digital camera to the raging rapids nor to the rocky river bottom we trudged through on foot and with our own bottoms (through raft skin of course:).

   A super special thank you to Shana for taking us out even when it was getting too cold, too dark and the raft wasn't filling right! I had a GREAT time:)