It has been 4 years (!) since I lived in Boise (minus the couple of months I lived there last year before the world’s biggest idiot totaled my car). I miss it a lot. I miss commuting to work by bike or bus (although I can walk to work since leaving Southern Idaho). I miss stopping at a local restaurant on my way home from work and having a micro-brew beer; I miss going to the Boise Co-Op and getting fresh, reasonably priced, delicious food. I miss gay bars and authentic Basque food and Art in the Park and BeerFest and every other event that fills our parks through the summer. I miss almost everything about being in an urban environment.
But the thing I miss the most right now about that urban environment is ANONYMITY.
We did a brief stint in Southern Idaho (which is about as appealing as genital warts- and between you and me if I had the option to move back or contract an STD… well, I’d stay where I am right now), and now we’re in Central Idaho, which is absolutely beautiful and a cozy place to live a few months of the year.
But it’s also really crowded during the Summer and Winter months. My mother-in-law manages a hotel here, so we always have requests from family and friends to visit with a discount (because most working people can’t afford a weekend here without a deep discount) and besides that, it’s just a tourist trap. People come from literally all over the world to stay here for a week or two to either ski (in the Winter) or hike/mountain bike (in the Summer). We get a reprieve from late March/Early April to about July 4th (the locals call it “slack”) and post-Labor Day to pre-Thanksgiving. Other than that, this town of 3,000 suddenly swells to up to 40,000, with all the headaches that influx of people brings.
More on this in a moment but first, a word from our sponsors:
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