In the 1970’s, when my parents separated and before I was even in high school, my mom and my brother, Jerry and I traveled across the country heading for Baltimore to be with relatives while mom and dad figured themselves out. After one night out on the road in Winnemucca, Nevada, we stopped in Boise, Idaho to spend a few days with my Uncle Ken, mom’s brother, his wife Barb and their infant son, Kevin.
My childhood memory of it still resonates with the little apartment my Uncle and Aunt shared. Its smallness did not detract from the warm familial feeling I had there, and Uncle Ken, as I look back on it, always doted on his nephews. He really did. He took Jerry and me to a minor league baseball game across the road from where he lived (the Boise Buckskins!) and he took us inter-tubing on the Boise river. He wasn’t a wealthy man, but he always made time for us when he could and he smiled away what must have been some of his own demons, perhaps as we all do. Shortly before his death, he was driving trucks across the U.S. and one evening stopped in at my California home. We talked long into the night, and he took my daughter and our then foreign exchange student on a ride in the truck and I felt a closeness to him, though I hadn’t seen him for more than 30 years before that.
I’ve been to other places in the state, most of them in the northern part from Coeur d’Alene to White bird and from Pocatello to Idaho Falls, but I’d not been back to Boise except to drive close to it as I headed further north on various trips.
So when we drove over to Boise last weekend to visit my childhood friend and neighbor, Angela and her husband Dirk, I was excited to see Boise again almost as much as I was excited to see our friends for the first time since Angela’s dad’s funeral more than 4 years ago. I’ve written about Michael and Phyllis previously here.
The drive between Tacoma and Boise is one of the great western road trips worth doing. It’s about 500 miles, give or take depending on where exactly you’re heading in the Boise area, and the roads are mostly smooth and decent. The scenery, especially upon climbing out of the crowded Puget Sound area east on Interstate 90, opens up to some of the most iconic vistas the western U.S. offers. Out over the Cascade mountains and down toward the plain of eastern Washington, and then through Yakima, Ellensburg and southeast down toward Walla Walla and the Oregon border. Agricultural fields of wheat, corn and cattle give way to some vineyards as the hills loll their way down along the Columbia River. This is not the Pacific Northwest as people envision it. In Tacoma, we get on average about 45 inches of rain per year. Here in the eastern part of the state, it’s more like 15 inches per year. That’s less even than parts of southern California.
I’d only been through eastern Oregon as a means of getting somewhere else, and that was no less true on this trip. But eastern Oregon is as gentle and beautiful, if not more so, than Washington’s eastern portion, and those lolling hills are flecked with forests and brush that amble upward over the horizon. The towns of Pendleton, La Grande and Baker City mark Interstate 84 here, after passing through Stanfield, Milton-Freewater and Hermiston, all towns that lay near farms and fields, cattle and crops and scenery so bucolic, I felt like I was in rural Ohio or Pennsylvania again. But with evergreen trees.
What surprised me about crossing the Oregon border at the city of Ontario into Idaho was that Boise is only about 32 miles from that border. I’d no idea that Idaho’s largest and capital city was so close to Oregon. We arrived at Dirk and Angela’s home just after 6:00 pm, but of course Boise is on Mountain time, so an hour ahead of Pacific time. I’ve known Angela since I was 10 years old when my family moved in next to hers where we became fast friends in the San Fernando Valley of California. I’d only met Dirk a couple of times, but I instantly liked him and they welcomed Sue and I in as long lost relatives. We had a warm, comfortable and friendly weekend and they were gracious enough to put us up in their guest rooms where we felt instantly at home.
That feeling added to our exploration of Boise and surrounding areas the next morning. Our friends’ home is in Middleton, Idaho on the outskirts of Boise to the west. Angela took Sue and I into the city on Saturday and while the heat was building (we were quite lucky, though, as temperatures were in the 80’s and weren’t slated to get into the triple digits until later in the week) under a brilliant sunlit blue sky and we walked the streets taking in the sites under Angela’s guidance.
It was that walk that was so inspiring. It’s true, Boise is not a city like Seattle is, nor Chicago or any other large city. It’s population is around 235,000 people as opposed to Seattle’s, which is about 750,000 people. And that’s perhaps one of the reasons why walking downtown is a very safe enterprise. Those days are gone in most major cities around the U.S. One cannot easily walk around cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco—nor their eastern counterparts, without a sense of fear for one’s own safety. That’s sad, and there are plenty of reasons I’m sure, but that’s not the point of all of this. Boise, as it happens — small though it is — will have none of it.
We ate lunch at a nice little cafe on a corner in the heart of downtown, sitting outside enjoying a cool breeze in the shade with absolutely no homeless around, no filth on the street, no visible drug use in doorways or any other place. There were just a lot of people taking in the day, finishing up shopping or tourists gad-flying about, smiling and saying hello. I have to admit that it surprised me somewhat in a good and happy way.
Boise has a lot of proprietary and cool things to see from its Capitol building to the old penitentiary (no longer in use for that purpose) to its large and open parks with rose and flower gardens and frontier western buildings. At times, walking in the heart of it, you can imagine that you're in a much larger city. There are a few larger “skyscrapers,” and even occasionally people in business suits, etc.
There is a larger population now in Idaho since the great migration here in the U.S. between 2020 and now. About 2 million people now call the state home, and some 10 percent of those live in and around Boise. That number was about 1.5 million just 10 years ago and you can feel it in the traffic and the density. It’s not Denver, or Salt Lake or anywhere near those sizes. But it’s also, based on surveys of people, a lot happier in terms of how its residents feel about living there. I can see why.
I fell a little in love with Louisville, KY. To date, it’s unrequited and I’m an adult, so I get it. I can’t necessarily live in a place that doesn’t love me or my loved ones back just a little bit. But Boise? Maybe. Just maybe….
I digress. The trip is worth taking if for no other reason than the scenery alone. On the drive back to Puget Sound, we took the Chinook Pass as we passed back through eastern Washington. The pass is closed between the months of October and April each year, and so seeing it here in early summer is a treat. Following the Yakima and American rivers and their tributaries, the pass climbs up into the Cascades and eventually to the summit at Mt. Rainier National Park. The views are so spectacular that the drive alone is worth doing even without going over to Idaho.
Since I’ve moved to the Pacific Northwest, I’ve had a very different experience coming home from any trip I’ve taken whether driving or flying. I’m always just as happy to return back here as I was to go and see some new place. While I lived in California, that was never really true. I just didn’t have the same feeling of wanting to go back. We could chalk that up to work or over-familiarity, but it is what it is. For the first time in four years, however, leaving our friends after our brilliant weekend together in those gentle warm mountains, rivers and valleys, I felt the tinge of not wanting to come back. Boise was welcoming, kind, gentle and restful and I needed that.
I think I still do.
[walking downtown is a very safe enterprise] I like how you said that about Boise. Thank you for the fun Sunday afternoon read.