In Boise, the City of Trees

August 8, 2023

Before we delve into how we spent our too-brief time in Boise, let’s clear up a common misconception about the city’s pronunciation: according to the locals, it’s Boy-See, not Boy-Zee. I’ve never heard this before, and I was surprised to learn I’ve been mispronouncing it all my life. I’ll try to adjust, but it’s hard to say whether I’ll succeed in retraining myself. My apologies to all those Boiseans I’ve inadvertently offended. I feel your pain though, after decades of hearing easterners here for a tour of the Willa-met valley.

That’s not the only thing I’ve gotten wrong about Boise. We’ve driven past it a few times over the decades, cutting across southern Idaho on a too long drive on our way to or from Utah, but we’ve never even left the freeway to enter the city itself. To be honest we were a little surprised to learn that Racpat (Rachel and Pat Hugens), who’ve traveled to so many exotic corners of the globe, chose this one as their home. Boise is pretty far afield for us, and I’m not sure that if they hadn’t encouraged us to come we’d have ever made it here.

Now that we’ve arrived though, I see their point. For one thing, it’s quite green - it’s not called the City of Trees for nothin’, with the tree-lined Boise River cutting a long Greenbelt through the heart of the city. And it’s green in more than just one sense, displaying a more open-minded, multicultural atmosphere than we fairly or unfairly associate with our eastern neighbor Idaho. Coming here reminds us once again of the value of getting out and seeing places first-hand to sweep away your preconceptions and biases.

Rachel and Patrick have lived here for over twenty years and have built an exceptional place for themselves, chock full of details that reflect themselves, their interests and their travels. It’s not really our place to write a House Beautiful review of their personal space though, so I’ll just include a few shots and thank them for inviting us into it.

Ocho, Racpat’s eighth cat, and what’s left of one of Patrick’s home brewed IPA’s.

Miles, the newest household member, was named for the 4,927 miles they covered on their Northern Tier ride two years ago.

With fellow CycleBlazer Kim Johnson (and Ocho). Kim’s here fresh from her latest bike tour, prepping for cat-sitting duties when Racpat leave for their next adventure.

Patrick reflects on his extraordinary collection of license plates he’s gleaned from roadsides worldwide.

Rachel’s creation is a highlight of their complex back yard: a snag repurposed as a directional marker for the many points worldwide they’ve visited in their extraordinary lives. Nairobi. Zanzibar. Shanghai-La. Gibraltar. Kochi. Lhasa. Ushuaia. Wow.

I enjoyed sitting on a chair on the back porch after dinner, finishing off one of Patrick’s home brews and keeping an eye on the quail that occasionally ventured into the open along the back property line.

Relaxing with an after-dinner match on Rachel’s grandfather’s billiard table - it must be around a century old. It’s been at least a decade since I’ve chalked up a cue for a game of eight ball with dad, and much longer than that since I’ve leaned over the rail of a billiard table. So I’m beyond rusty, but I think comported myself well enough to earn the right to a rematch someday.

Today’s ride

After driving for about fifteen hours over the last three days without unpacking the bikes from the car even once, we’re beyond ready to spin the cranks. We need it, and my knees really need it. First though, there’s the hike/climb up Table Rock to be completed, first thing before breakfast. A roughly four mile hike that climbs nearly a thousand feet up into the foothills of the Boise Range, it’s a regular part of Racpat’s routine, a walk they take every other morning in preparation for their upcoming excursion in the mountains of northern Pakistan.

Rachael’s of course game to join them, but I beg off for two reasons. First, there are my knees - there’s no way I’d be ble to keep up with them, so at best I could start out with them and then take my time and hook up with them on their way back down. And second there’s my head, which is ultra-groggy when the time comes to wake up. I’ve had a horrible night’s sleep, lying awake for about three hours beginning at around one AM; and after finally getting back to sleep I have no interest in getting up now. Who knows why this episode of insomnia occurred but the prime suspect is that second glass of home brew I indulged in not long before calling a night.

So I wasn’t along, but fortunately Rachael came back with a few photos to share.

This isn’t just a pretty walk in the park. This is a training exercise.

I like the way Rachael’s bandaged knee coordinates with Racpat’s socks.

By the time they’re back I’m finally awake and caffeinated, thanks to the half pot of coffee that’s thoughtfully been left behind. A couple of hours later after we’ve gone out to an outstanding breakfast joint serving up terrific scones big enough to take away for a second breakfast we’re off on the bikes. The ride plan is an introductory view of the Boise River Greenbelt. We’re biking one direction out of town for a ways to give us a taste for it and then doubling back to our starting point - after which Racpat will return home to tend to their own affairs while Rachael and I bike off in the other direction.

The Greenbelt is an outstanding urban resource, providing a close-in outdoor experience for the city’s residents. As I bike, I’m reminded of the legacy of the Olmstead brothers, who left so many American cities priceless resources like this, as well as oddly enough the network of bike paths ringing Taipei.

One thing I’m not doing though is stopping for photographs and holding up the group. The plan is that there will be time for this when Rachael and I continue biking on our own later. Other than the surfing photos, the others came from Rachel’s phone and Rachael’s GoPro.

Crossing the Boise River on the Greenbelt.

Passing through one of the colorful underpasses that allows you an unbroken riding experience away from the cars.

Surf’s up! A weir on the river has been engineered to produce standing waves that surfers can hone their skills on, 400 miles from the nearest ocean.

Video sound track: End of the Road, by Kim Waters

So after a very enjoyable but shortish ride with our friends, we unexpectedly come to the end of the road sooner than planned. We’re stopped near the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial chatting before Racpat head back to the house when Rachael is approached by Shelby, a young woman in distress. Shelby has a flat tire that she needs help with, so we of course volunteer to help. It turns out that Shelby doesn’t just need a pump - she needs the tube repaired, and has no repair equipment of her own. I have a repair kit and a pump, so we assure Patrick that I’ve got the situation under control and they head on home.

I spoke too soon though, as I proceed to encounter multiple issues trying to help poor Shelby out of her fix. First, it takes me awhile just figuring out how to remove the wheel. It doesn’t use a skewer, but some sort of tube through the hub loosened with an Allen wrench. That puzzles me at first, but I have the right sized Allen wrench and eventually figure it out.

Then though, I can’t figure out how to get the tire off the rim. It’s a wide mountain bike tire that fits very tightly onto the rim so I can’t get the levers between it and the rim. In fact I’m puzzled by the tire, because the fit is so tight that it looks like it’s a one with the black rim strip. I’m not sure if this is some new type of tire I’m not familiar with or maybe even a tubeless, so Shelby gets her father on the phone to talk us through the situation.

In the meantime though, another guy stops by and offers to help out. He takes the levers and wheel, and before long has the tire off the rim - so maybe it’s just a matter of technique and thumb strength.

Sometimes it takes a village to fix a flat.

So we move on to finding the hole and repairing it while Rachael and Shelby look on, minding this guy’s dog and Rachael comforting and calming Shelby, who has started breaking down from the stress and anxiety of her situation - she’s out here alone, her husband is fifteen miles away at work at his office, she’s new to Boise so she doesn’t really have any local contacts yet - and on top of it all she’s legally blind, with a degenerative eye condition. She’s strong and has a positive attitude, but she’s obviously a person who could use some help.

Patching the flat doesn’t go well. It takes awhile to find the small puncture, and then once we move on to patching it we find that my tube of glue has gone dry. I turn to that problem, and it looks like if I squeeze hard enough there just might be enough glue for the job, but in the meantime I’ve stupidly lost where the puncture is and have to find it again.

Rachael starts trying to flag someone down that might have a repair kit, but in the meantime I remember I’m just a half mile from the car and decide this approach isn’t working. Even if we do manage to repair her flat I’ll worry about letting her bike off for home and wonder if the patch really held for the whole distance. Much better to just leave Rachael with Shelby while I bike home to get the car.

When I get there, Patrick insists that the best plan is to go back with his car and the bike rack he fishes out of the garage. And he’s right - he knows the city and is able to find the way to Shelby’s home through her broken, vague instructions. She hasn’t been in town long enough to have internalized navigation, and she steers us in the right direction by describing the few major landmarks she knows - larger objects that she can make out with her limited vision, as I interpret it.

So we find her home, unload her bike, and give her some parting advice since biking is her main way to get around. She should carry the right tools and a spare tube, and maybe take a class at the local bike coop to learn how to repair her own tire in an emergency. She’s very sweet, gives us both a hug and another for Rachael who left us at the scene of the crime to bike home.

By this time though it’s gotten late enough in the day that hopping on the bikes again doesn’t have much appeal. Testing out another of Patrick’s home brew concoctions while we wait for the Thai restaurant to open sounds like a better plan for the rest of the afternoon. We’ll get a more leisurely look at the Greenbelt next time we pass through.

Today's ride: 13 miles (21 km)
Total: 1,167 miles (1,878 km)

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Keith AdamsI have a longtime friend whose situation is akin to Shelby's: he's legally blind and heavily dependent on others for navigational assistance. He's got only a vague (and weirdly associative) sense of geography and distance, often suggesting that we could go visit X because it's more-or-less in the direction that we're heading but not realizing that it's dozens- or in some cases hundreds- of miles out of the way.

On our most recent ride he too had a flat tire, and we had a similar experience in getting it fixed. In the end we resorted to putting in his spare tube rather than continue hunting for what must've been a pinhole leak. Happily for us, though, not only was he carrying all of the necessaries, we discovered the problem right at the ride start as we were unloading the car.

Yet for all that he takes amazingly good photographs. They enable him to examine and experience in detail events and scenes that would otherwise have passed fleetingly and without is full appreciation.
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9 months ago

Rachel and Patrick HugensA fantastic visit and a great write up about Boise! Love the video Rachael! This could be a great advertisement for Boise. Until we meet again!
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9 months ago

Rachael AndersonTo Rachel and Patrick HugensIt was a great visit! I’m glad you liked the video.
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9 months ago

Ron SuchanekI have known the correct pronunciation for some time, but always forget to use it. Thanks for the reminder!
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9 months ago

Gregory GarceauAlso Freaky is that the second I saw "In Boise" at the top of today's post, I knew it would involve Racpat. Another freaky thing is that I've seen a number of Boise State football games on TV and the announcers always pronounce it "Boyzee." In fact, everybody I've ever known called it "Boyzee." At this point in my life, I don't think I could ever adapt to "Boysee."
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9 months ago