I enjoyed my stay in Boise. From the moment I got off the plane and saw that the airport was permeated with free wifi (sponsored by MPC Computers) I knew that I had found a hospitable environment. If you login to the wifi network you get to this page first (New Orleans take note).
Boise is a lovely town of about 200,000 people, who enjoy the clean environment and imperviousness to natural disaster (which a guy from New Orleans can appreciate). Boise is the third largest city in the Northwest (after Seattle and Portland) and is home to companies like Micron Technology. Hewlett Packard also has a large presence in Boise. If I asked you where the largest concentration of Basque people living outside of the Basque Country (encompassing parts of Spain and France) was you would never guess Boise. Apparently, there are about 20,000 Basques here.
Here’s another interesting factoid for country music buffs. Roger
Miller was somewhere outside Chicago when he saw a sign that read
"Trailers for Sale or Rent." He wrote the first verse, but got no
further. When he got to Boise, Idaho he saw a hobo in an airport gift
shop and that became the inspiration for the song "King of the Road."
The state of Idaho is interesting as well, with it’s strange shape, nestled between Washington and Montana. It’s is the only state to be named as the result of a hoax. When a name was being selected for new territory, an eccentric lobbyist suggested the name, which supposedly was an Indian term meaning "gem of the mountains". Later people learned that the lobbyist made the name up. Hey, if you can’t trust a lobbyist, who can you trust? Idaho is the first state in U.S. to have a jewish governor, Moses Alexander, who served from 1915-19.
I had a great time in Boise and I hope to return here one day. It was great to hang out with Steve Nipper and his family, and to meet his friends. If you ever get the chance to come to Boise don’t pass it up.
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It’s interesting to note that back during the 2000 censusus, Boise was the 5th largest Pacific Northwest city behind Spokane and Tacoma. Considering they added something like 60,000 people during the 90’s Boise and were just over a 100,000 back in 1980 they’ve seen tremendous growth in the last 20 years.