Our Boise morning was sunny and clear, and we had plans to see some sights before leaving the city. After our Best Western free breakfast, we packed up the car and drove to downtown Boise. Several streets around the capitol building were blocked off for some event, but we still got a feel for the downtown by driving around. We also stopped at the green and peaceful Julia Davis park in the downtown area.
Then we drove to the Idaho Botanical Garden, not far from downtown and immediately next to the old state penitentiary. It was a beautiful 15-acre garden with many different parts, including a walk showing the plants that Lewis and Clark documented in their journals in the Idaho area. The garden was a great place for bird watching too, and Linda and I were glad we brought our binoculars. We spent 3 hours there, until about noon.
After that, we went a few miles out of town to the Peregrine Fund’s World Raptor Center, which has played an important role in the captive breeding, release and recovery of the California condor and peregrine falcons. They had many docents showing and talking about the birds, and the grounds were very pleasantly green and shady. We looked at the birds, listened to a couple of talks about the birds, and then brought our picnic lunch and ate on the grounds.
We finally left Boise about 3 p.m. and then drove 4.5 boring hours on I-84 through Idaho and Oregon to Kennewick. The only highlight was going over the Blue Mountains, which neither of us had been through before. Thank goodness for our Ivan Doig novel on CD, which entertained us on the trip.
We reached our Super 8 motel about 6:30 Pacific Time (after leaving Mountain Time in eastern Oregon), unloaded our stuff, and Linda fixed our final dinner of the trip.
Lori's Travels 