Back to Boise

Friday, May 23, 2014--Baker City, OR to Boise, ID

Today was mostly a re-positioning day to get us back to Boise for our flight home tomorrow.  We did, however, do a few things after arriving here.

We went immediately to the Old Idaho Penitentiary which is one of the most popular museums in the city.  It is one of only 4 old federal territorial prisons that is open as a museum in the country.  The prison, which operated for 101 years (up to 1973) had a number of buildings representing various periods in its history.  We saw the visitation room, the various cell block buildings, the solitary confinement building, the women's compound, the hanging room, the workshop, the laundry, etc.  We also toured the next-door Idaho Museum of Mining and Geology.

From there, we went to Costco to buy gas for the car, and it was "happy hour."  They had some of the best samples ever--quarter slices of ground Angus beef, small chunks of roast beef, chunks of garlic chicken, breaded chicken with salad dressing, Irish cheese, Asiago cheese, thin bread with melted cheese, garlic bread, stir-fried vegetables, chips with hummus, fruit-flavored waters, trail mix, frozen Greek yogurt....  I may have missed something, but it was a LOT of samples!

While there, we got a drink and just watched the shoppers as they left.  Boise is mostly a city of white people.  And most people seem to be healthier (as indicated by body size) than people in Texas.  They were buying all kinds of things for the Memorial Day holiday weekend--picnic supplies, flowering plants to put in their lawns, supplies for working on their grass lawns, kayaks, summer clothing, etc.

In the evening we went downtown stopping first at the Boise Train Station which is a beautiful Spanish-style building.  In front of the station building is a nice, small park.  People were there taking photos, picnicking, etc.  In the center of downtown, we walked the streets to watch people enjoying the warm weather at sidewalk cafes.  Everyone seemed happy and to be especially enjoying being able to wear shorts, sandals, etc.  Boise has a couple of streets (Main and 8th) which seem to be the center for most of such places.  We also saw a moving outdoor bar--the Boise Bike Bar, a cart that seated maybe 10 people who used petal power to move the bar along while a non-drinker served as the driver in the front.