Made it into Boise Idaho yesterday right around noon. I had only a 100 miles or so to go, so it was a pretty easy drive in the morning, and I wasn't in a big hurry to get anywhere anyway. I had called up a local RV park on the way in and found that they had a spot for me if I got there in time. The park is just north of the Boise airport and south of I-84, but even with that, it isn't very noisy right here.
   Got the trailer set up in no time at all. Did have to work a little on my water hook up, having to wrap some new Teflon tape on all the threads in order to get the leaks around the connections to stop. Once all set up, I turned the hot water heater on in preparation to taking a much needed and desired shower. It was very satisfying to hear the heater kick right on this time as it sometimes takes 2-3 tries to get it to start up. Unfortunately, my elation was short lived as I proceeded to run out of propane before even one tank full of water was sufficiently heated up for me to shower.
   I called my nephew up at that point and told him I would be a bit later than expected, as I didn't think anyone wanted to entertain me looking and smelling as I did. It was not too difficult to find some place to get my tanks filled up. One was just down the road from the RV park here, but when I checked in at that place their pump was on the fritz until at least Monday. So I went on down the road to a 'Flying J' that sold propane. Got one of my 30 lb. bottles filled there for just a bit more than $22. Will need to get the other one filled up on Monday so I'll be ready to go for the next several months.
   One interesting thing about my propane bottles. When I got ready to pull one of the bottles off it's cradle to go and fill it, I found a birds nest right at the base between both bottles. I at first thought it might be a mouse nest, but a closer look proved it to be a birds nest complete with 3 little speckled white eggs in it. I assume it was built sometime back in May while it was parked at Rima's place. I feel bad that I took off with out knowing about it. But I would imagine they parent birds were likely to have built another one after I left.
   Once the propane chore was done it was time to go and meet up with my nephew and his family. They live less than 5 miles away from where the trailer is parked so it was an easy drive over to their house. They live in a section of old town Boise that reminds me of the areas in Denver where I grew up. A nice big two story bungalow styled house, it is just big enough for Matt and Alyssa and their 4 young boys.
   Everyone in the family is doing well and the boys are all of an age where they just go non-stop right up to the point where they fall asleep. There were two new additions to the family since the last time I had seen everyone. About a year or so ago Alyssa and Matt went over to Uganda and adopted two of their young sons. Both boys are just a joy to see and be around, and the interaction between them and their other two brothers are wonderful to see. There is certainly a lot of laughter and joy amongst the four of them.
   We all packed ourselves into their SUV and drove out to a farmers field just north and west of town. The farmer had grown, and then harvested potatoes in that field this year, and after picking up all of the crop that he could with his mechanical means, he opened up the field for people to come out and glean all the ones the machines didn't get.
    Most all of the remaining spuds where pretty small, but aren't those the ones they charge extra for in the supermarket these days. Between all of us we likely picked up a 100 pounds or so. More than just being a way to gather some cheap food it was nice that the boys had a chance to see and understand where food actually comes from. Of course I'm not sure that really sunk in that well as they seemed to spend as much time throwing potatoes at each other as they did putting them into the buckets.
    We went over to friends of Matt and Alyssa after picking up all the potatoes that they wanted. Matt had spent some time as the medical person in a Native village in Alaska a few years back, and this couple had been there at the same time as part of the school system. Very nice people and they had a few of their other friends over at the same time. They had a pot luck barbeque for us all and we sat around and listened to stories from Alaska and other places they had been. All in all it was a very pleasant evening.
    I slept in late this morning, which seemed natural since it was raining pretty hard earlier on. It was nice to finally catch up on some of the sleep I had missed on my drive out here. Right now though I need to get out and about. There are things to see and do, just haven't figured out what yet.


brk*