Boise Trip 2016

Trip to Boise this past weekend to attend my sister's funeral.  I must admit, the weather was much better than a couple years ago when we went for my nephew's funeral.  We really didn't hit snow going.  I think we saw a couple flakes at one point, but that was it.  We made good time and were able to attend the dinner at Krista's, shared memories of my sister and honored Breanna and Devin who had birthdays.

Snow over the Sierras.  There was much more on the return trip, but not on the road.

We didn't do much for fun in Boise.  We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express.  We did eat at the hotel a couple times which served a good free breakfast.  I really enjoyed it as they had biscuits and white gravy and sausage.  Nothing more exciting to me, and I ate this two days in a row.
The ward relief society provided ham and funeral potatoes for dinner, with brownies and whipped topping to go on them for lunch after the funeral.
Sheri and I also went out for one meal; to
the Boise Fry Company.  I had read about this in a article about the best fries in each state, and wanted to try them.  We attempted to go to the restaurant by the capitol building, but there was no parking that I could see.  So we went to another store a few miles away in a shopping center.  They have about eight varieties of fries.  I tried the purple fries, and Sheri ate the golden fries.  Of course I tried both.  They were both great.  They had many fry topping; my favorite was the fry sauce.  Ketchup is OK.  I also tried the sweet mustard, which was too hot.  The fry sauce spicy was also too hot for my taste.  The purple fries were great.  The golden are unusual because they are a very light fry--they actually seem less dense than a regular fry.   As for burgers, I had the bison burger, and Sheri a BLT.  The sauce on the buffalo burger clashed in my mind.  It wanted to dominate rather compliment so it was difficulty to taste the meat and cheese.   Sheri and I also both had root beer floats.  Sheri didn't care for the root beer.  She thought it tasted more like Coke.  It was distinctive.  I enjoyed it however.  The atmosphere was nice.  The menu is a bit pricey.  A football game was on.  I saw the missed field goal as Minnesota's season ended.
Again the trip home was uneventful.  You could tell it had snowed between our trips.  We picked a good day for travel.  As we arrived in Nevada the roads were a bit icy, but it didn't last long and there was always a path with the surface of the road exposed.

Tony and Miranda Loved Visiting Boise, Sara, Clyde and Grandmother

One of our goals this year has been to take Miranda to visit family so she can say goodbye before going on her mission.  In Boise my sister is living and my mother is now staying with her.
Tony loved Boise.  There is a playground and trampoline out back.  More importantly Sara has two pug dogs, Toby and R.J.  Tony had a good time with them, and for a time had taken to his knees and barking as he tried to get closer to them.  Scroll to the bottom for links to Tony's trampoline videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0wBfpxCoHw&list=UUUEd30vKIa3CW6YQDuSxQcQ&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LtIgfZIlIU&list=UUUEd30vKIa3CW6YQDuSxQcQ&index=1

We Got Caught in a Blizzard

I have been to Boise two times over the past couple months and have concluded they have terrible weather.  We went for Buffy's funeral.  We were expecting to his some bad weather over the Sierra's, but luckily someone put on the chains for us, and we made it over the top, losing less than an our.  North of Winnemuca things were going well, however when we hit Oregon, the roads were icey, but not too bad.  I traveled a bit slower, keeping the tires in the dry spot without ice.  We even made it up a steep incline coming out of a river valley.  We made it to Jordan Valley in pretty good time, but between there and the Boise we hit a blizzard.  It was terrible.  The snow was coming at us making it hard to see, and then the wipers got ice on them so they wouldn't clean the windshield like the should.  I would look through the crack they gave me, until I couldn't see anymore and we would have to stop and clean them off.  We had to do this several times.  A couple times Sheri jumped out and did it, and a couple times we both did.  The border was the worse, because the trucks turned around there, and left snow on the road, which I mistook for the snow at the edge of the road.  I decided to put on the chains, but it was too cold for me to get them on, so we slowly went down the hill facing the same conditions.  We were going about 20, and seemed to slowly make our way out of the bad weather.  We finally got out of the storm, but then turned onto the 55 for Boise, which hadn't been cleared at all.  At lease the snow had turned to rain, but it was a terrible last three hours (which should have been one).
I remember thinking, God, we have to get through safe as the kids are home and need their parents.  I wouldn't want to traumatize the kids with our demise before our time.