So, today marks two weeks since my arrival in Boise, and it has went by so fast. I haven't even had a moment to catch up on anything, let alone blog, even though I do want to recount my adventures of the summer.
I arrived here in Boise two weeks ago on a Thursday afternoon in the midst of some cold weather, similar to what I left in Pennsylvania. I flew from Pittsburgh to Phoenix, a five hour flight, and arrived just in enough time to walk off that flight and onto my next one to Boise. The two hour short flight up to Boise was made better by having all three seats in the row to myself :) which meant I finally got some sleep.
Rockies, the 50s diner in Boise, and I were acquainted soon after my arrival in Boise. Good food, good atmosphere, had the hockey game on tv, and a pretty nifty gum-ball machine :)
If anyone really knows me, they know my love of hockey. It's a by-product of growing up in the northeast and in the hockey town of Pittsburgh. So, when the opportunity arose here in Boise to watch their ECHL team in the playoffs on Saturday, of course I was game. The Idaho Steelheads were playing the Cincinnati Cyclones in the first round of the playoffs. They lost and eventually lost the series to Cincinnati 4-1, but it was a good showing of some hockey. Hopefully, this western state will finally gain some fans to the great athletic showing that is ice hockey.
Sunday we planted the garden. We'll see what starts to pop through here. The potatoes that he planted earlier are looking great. Hopefully, the onions, tomatos, peppers, lettuce, zucchini, cumumbers, and sunflowers, will do fabulous.
The next weekend started off great with an adventure that we took on Thursday. The options for His afternoon off were going for a drive or ice skating. Since it was such a nice day, we chose the drive in the mountains. All was going fine, we drove through some beautiful country, windy dirt roads, gorgeous cliffs, isolated areas. We were finally getting back to paved road and heading to the highway when there was this cutoff down to the reservoir. He decided to take it to look over the water. On the way back up to the paved road, the car just shut off. Lovely. No cell service. I just had to laugh. We were in Pine, ID. Try to find it on a map, go ahead, try. Luckily we were actually near a town and not in the middle of nowhere. We walked the half mile back up to the bar/restaraunt in Pine. The two wonderful ladies let us use the phone. He got to call his dad, tell him we were and hour on the OTHER side of Boise and then we waited. However, we waited in style. We ate supper at the restaraunt, had a few drinks at the bar, then he got to teach me shuffleboard. For such a small little town, I swear full-time population is like 75 people and half came through the bar that night, they had a sweet, very nice shuffleboard table. The locals all knew are story within five minutes. Eventually, his dad showed up and we loaded the car on the trailer and finally got home ten hours after our adventure began. I told him we should have gone ice skating :) Fun times.
Friday we got to show off our cooking skills for his mom's birthday. We were frying up some pork loin for sandwiches and making potato salad, lemon cake and vanilla ice cream completed the evening with some long talking sessions that lasted til well after 11pm.
Saturday we got to see his friend's new house, officially being the first house guests! We helped move some stuff over then went to Rockies for some good food.
Soon after, I had my first ever soccer experience! Friends needed some substitutes for their indoor team, so when asked, of course we volunteered. I surprisingly enjoyed myself. Actually, not so surprisingly, it's an athletic event where I get to be aggressive, so of course I enjoyed it. It's a beginning co-rec league, however, our opponents were anything but beginners. We made it through and had fun though, and that's what matters to me. I think there will be some soccer in my future now that I am armed with some cleats and shin guards!
My love of the zoo came through this past week. He had the morning off, so off to Zoo Boise we went. It's no Pittsburgh Zoo, but it's really nice and you can tell a lot of work went into it to make it what it is. There were a lot of school groups there, and it's always funny to hear the world through a child's eyes. However, a cavy is not a baby kangaroo, no matter what the chaperones might say.
My best news of all came yesterday. My journal article was accepted for publication, with only minor revisions! It will be out in July and revisions need to be done quickly so that will be on my plate first and foremost with the everlasting thesis and another research project for my boss coming in a close 2nd and 3rd. It's a busy summer so far and I haven't even started a job! Which by the way the hunt is still continuing....
That's all for now, this is entirely too long. But I will try to post more often so they are smaller and easier to read!
