don't all rush over here at once now

***WELCOME BATW TRAVELERS!***









Really? You want to know about Idaho? REALLY?!?!









I guess I can be your guide then! Except for those three wild and crazy years of being just over the border in Oregon, I have lived in Idaho all my life. Well, let me clarify that--I have lived in WESTERN Idaho all my life. Idaho is a very diverse state. Up north they're really more like an extension of Washington--very environmentally conscious and all "woodsy" (and, I hear, now cleansed of that nasty white supremacy problem they had going on a few years back...). Eastern Idaho is full of a lot of farms. And central Idaho is all mountains and wilderness. SO, all I really know about is my little piece of Gem State heaven: our capital city and my home sweet home, BOISE! ( presented with pictures taken out the window of my van during the drive to class Tuesday evening--I'm not a procrastinator at all :) ....).

When French explorers first came to this valley, they exclaimed "Les Bois!" meaning "the trees", and gave us our city name, Boise. We are known as "the city of trees", and even though we are technically a desert--we take the whole tree thing pretty seriously. There's lots of them:

trees, trees, trees!!!

There's a certain gray-brown that just permeates all of this area. I guess it's pretty. Homey anyway:
We have fancy shoe stores:

and exotic eateries:
and great values! (do any of YOU have one of these in your city?! :) ):
Boiseans like to show that we are "sophisticated" and "cultured" by flooding the city with lots and lots of artsy-fartsy sculpture:

Here's a meaningful metal circle.


This creative "goof" is a running joke:

See that blue thing on the side of the building? It's meant to represent a river with gemstones surrounding it. At night, it lights up with neon and smoke wafts out of it. It's dubbed "the steaming crack"! Lovely, eh?

Now if I've intrigued you with my description of this fair city and you decide to visit. You must eat here. It will ruin you for all other pizza:

and float the river , right through the middle of downtown (everybody does this!):
Watch a game on our infamous "smurf turf":

(when they first installed this, ducks and geese use to crash land on it--but the lettering seemed to deter that problem....)

and don't forget to leave with some of these:

They really are the best!

Thanks for taking the tour! Tips are always appreciated! ;)