There's More to Baseball Than Baseball

Our first minor league game, the Boise Hawks vs Eugene Emeralds. Not like a major league team (usually), hits were at a minimum. Therefore, inbetween sips of beer and nudging Don to a state of wakefullness, I focused my attention on the "entertainment." The highlight of the evening was Kohl, the bat dog. The audience soon began hoping for hits, not to score, but to watch Kohl retrieve bats. Good dog!

Another highlight was the potato race, for those of us with ultra-short attention spans who enjoy campy things. (pic from MiLB.com)

If you enjoy sentimentality, silly fun, and a small town atmosphere, you would enjoy a Boise Hawks game. The net was a bit of a distraction (which can be seen when enlarging the pics), but my head has a history of attracting balls so I was grateful for it. 

  

It's a House!

Moving to Boise, perhaps due to being over 60, perhaps because we'd lived in the Denver area since 1981, proved more difficult than we'd anticpated. However, if we wanted a house in a Denver-like area in the west, it had to be done. It wasn't our fault! Colorado had betrayed us with not providing affordable housing.

When we arrived and started looking at houses, we became anxious. Should we stay here? The city of Boise has many main streets with a considerable amount of traffic. Yes, I-25 in Denver is much, much worse. However, it's other major streets seemed somehow less congested than Boise. These Boise streets feel more commercial, more cluttered. Although I don't think they really are more cluttered; maybe it's just less "attractive" clutter. Maybe we're not familiar enough with Boise clutter.

Searching for an affordable house away from these thoroughfares felt almost impossible. Then we found this.

Goodbye anxiety! We're staying. 

Cultural Boise

Boise is not a cultural wasteland. 

Inspiration is Everywhere

Find and fuel your passion for the arts.

Catch a trout in the afternoon...and a ballet at night. Boise, the capital of Idaho and largest metropolitan center between Portland and Salt Lake City, offers beauty and adventure both outdoors and within our thriving arts scene. You’ll find installations, murals and public art around the city, and can tour the Boise Art Museum, Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial, Zoo Boise, Discovery Center of Idaho, historical museums and other cultural hotspots within a few blocks of one another.

Nationally-renowned theater and performing arts companies also call Boise home, including the Boise Contemporary Theater,Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Ballet Idaho, Idaho Dance Theatre, LED and Idaho's premier performing arts center the Velma V. Morrison Center.

From http://www.boise.org/visit/arts-culture

Boise Diversity

Is all of Boise made up of right wing conservatives? Does Boise lack cultural diversity? NO!

These posters were in the Basque Market.

  

Saturday Downtown

"The Basque Block includes a Basque Heritage Museum, Basque restaurants, and a Basque specialty food merchent, Basque Center, a presered 19the centruer Basque boarding house, a large mural, and several other historic and cultural sites..."(copied from Wikilocal). 

                                                   

 I'm eating tapas! 

Downtown Boise has two farmers markets on Saturdays. This is the biggest one I've ever experienced. Chilly today. Great weather for this. 

There's Don on the right. Hey Don! 

Scorching or Toasty?

I have to admire the Boise weather forecasters on the local news channels. They have introduced two new weather words I've not seen on the Denver news, "toasty" and "scorching." Today was scorching.

                                                     


Yesterday there was a huge "sunbow." I've never seen even a little one. They never mentioned the sunbow on the weather. Maybe they don't know that word.

                                                     

This is what I do when the weather is "scorching."

                                                   
                                                     

When did I get my mother's foot? 

It's All Bogus...House Hunting and Skiing in Boise

House for sale. This little gem, 204,000. Bogus. (The inside was nice). There's my mom. Wait, that's me! 

Skiing 16 miles from Boise, 38 minute drive on winding road. 

Bogus Basin

Exploring Boise Area-The Good, Bad, and The Not So Appealing.

In the spirit of Lewis and Clark, Ponce de Leon (fountain of youth, why or why couldn't he have found that!), and Daniel Boone, we got our poor, confused, disoriented selves out of the apartment and into the world of Boise!

First, the Lucky Peak Dam Rooster Tail. It's job is to control the water flow from Lucky Peak Lake into the Boise river. It is an impressive site.

Due to the amount of runoff expected from this year's unusual amount of snow, more water has been released into the Boise river, to make room for that runoff into the reservoir. This has caused flooding of the Boise river, as a result, tubing activities downstream are delayed. Oh no!

I will get pics later of the Lucky Peak State Park beach, which looks really nice, when I go up there on a "toasty" day (as they say here), for a swim.

On to our first Boise hike. Camelback Park.

 This is MUCH steeper than it looks. I'd wished we'd brought a defibrillator.

Downtown Boise from the top of the trail. There are distant mountains to the right, which are not visible here.

The Next Six Exits

We have arrived at the promised land! Don in Budget truck, Boise.


     Once upon a time, or as much as Don and I have moved since married in 2005, once, twice, thrice, fourth, and now fifth upon a time, we headed to Boise, Idaho to become "tubers!" Why? Because upon retiring a tad early, we discovered condo living was not for us. Usually it's the other way around, live in a house, retire, house is too much work, move to a condo. However, sometimes life needs to be done out of order, according to, in my case, the directives of ADD-ism.
     Puttering is essential to retirement, and it's hard to putter in a condo. I must putter in a garden and a yard, Don must putter in a garage. However, finding a house in the Denver area under 200,000. is no longer possible. After a year or two of research, mostly our faces buried in our Ipads, and a few exploratory trips, we discovered the Boise metro area; it is affordable, has a similar climate to the Denver area, but is appealingly smaller, population 620,000 vs Denver metro area, 2.8 million. It was very hard that first day on the road, we were tired from packing and closing on the condo. We were sad to drive away from friends, family, and a place we'd lived for 36 years, but excited at the looking forward to a new adventure!

Kit finally settled in. Hey! We didnt' name her. It's the one she came with. Unoriginal but fitting.