A Weekend in Boise...

Friday, I dropped Lola pup off at a new boarding place right up the street from us called, The Academy of Canine Behavior. I was a little worried at first since she's never been boarded by herself but I called to check on her right before we left and learned they matched her up with a roommate named Ellie. We then hopped on the bus to make it to the airport for dinner and drinks before catching our plane to Boise. We arrived a little before 11 pm and couldn't wait to see our kitties....ahem, I mean Krissy. She has been so kind to watch our two kitties for us during our transition to WA but we have sure missed them. The night was spent watching funny you tube videos, playing with the cats and catching up before it was off to bed.

Saturday morning, Krissy and I were off to  "Boot camp" at Idaho Athletic Club where Krissy's trainer, Chaya Dugall Martini, proceeded to kick our booties for the next hour. Did I mention she got a "Best of Boise - Local Trainer" award?!? When we began by running laps around the outside of the building (in my t-shirt), we both knew we were in for a treat. Then came the stairs, lunges, sprints, backward runs, dead lifts, burpees, push ups, mountain climbers, wall squats, plank poses, rotating plank poses and plenty more. Woooohhooo! We were excited after the hour was up and didn't hesitate making up for those lost calories. For lunch we made a green salad topped with salmon and a ginger dressing along with a bulgur and chickpea salad with lemon vinaigrette from the Mayo Clinic cookbook.

After a quick stop at the mall, we headed downtown to the 'Flying M' for a little caffeine and some sweets.

We devoured our no-bake cookie before I could get a picture but it was good!

Homemade chai tea

We headed back to the apartment to get ready while jamming out to a little Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. You may have heard their song "Paris" on tv lately. Check it out!

The cab arrived around 5:15 and we were off to the Bardenday Restaurant and Distillery. They have two other locations located in Eagle and Coeur d'Alene but downtown Boise houses the original location in an old warehouse on the historic Basque block. We got too caught up in the mojitos to take a tour but we should have. They were the nation's first restaurant distillery, check out their distilling process here.

Mojito

Hummus, olive tapenade and baba ganoush with veggies and soft  pitas

Taking advantage of the distillery

Next stop was the Knitting Factory. Krissy and I picked up our souvenir t-shirts and then it was off to the bar to get drinks before the opening band started at 8:00. The Chamberlin Band opened for GPN and I adored them. Sadly, their debut album 'Bitter Blood' doesn't come out until March 1, 2011 and I didn't buy their cd at the concert.  The video below is the first song they played but their song 'Turn Around' was probably my favorite.

 

Here's a clip from their blog about the Boise show and their performance in Bozeman (shout out):

"We definitely dig Boise, especially after last night’s amazing show at the Knitting Factory!  We had a blast – certainly up there with our best audience responses of the tour – and met a bunch of great fans after the show.  A definite highlight was joining Grace Potter and crew on stage for an encore rendition of Josh Ritter’s “Idaho”.  As you can imagine (given our previous, gushing statements about these guys), this was f*$#ing cool!

That makes two awesome shows in a row, as a matter of fact, the first being Thursday in Bozeman, Montana.  Thursday’s show was a splendid, rockin’ experience at an awesome venue in front of a great crowd.  It didn’t hurt that we had some friends in the crowd (thanks to an odd/awesome Vermont – Bozeman connection).  We also made our first live radio appearance on 95.1 The Moose, for which Mark performed a beautiful acoustic rendition of “Maryland” (despite waking up at 7AM to make the interview).

With down-time consisting of pickup truck mountain exploring, rifle shooting, heady craft brew-drinking and a personal tour of the Gibson Acoustic guitar factory, it was actually pretty hard for us to leave Bozeman.  A beautiful drive through Yellowstone National Park helped us escape Montana’s spell, but we still can’t wait to come back"

After a quick break, Grace and her band stormed the stage. Grace, in a short dress with thigh high boots, put on a captivating performance with her soulful voice, hip shaking and multiple jam sessions. The music has a blues-rock swagger with a hint of funky folk. After an encore, both bands came back on stage and performed Josh Ritter's 'Idaho.'  If you get a chance to see them live, do it! You won't be disappointed. I've seen them twice now and have fallen more in love with them after each show.  Hmm, the ol' bloggy wog doesn't want to download my video of GPN's performance so I guess I'll use this one from you tube:

'Big White Gate'  is one of my favorite songs but I have yet to see it performed live.

After the show we finished the night off with some drinks at The Front Door - Northwest Pizza & Tap House, followed by some speed quarters and dancing upstairs at The Reef. After an eventful cab ride home, we delighted ourselves in some freshly popped popcorn and SNL before calling it a night.



Brown Sugga & Black IPA

 The next morning we headed to The Lift for bar food, football (for me, this means whining about how sore I was from boot camp, being tired, chatting and a few glances at the tv) and lots of H2O to help us recover from the night before. Krissy was so excited that her Packers won but she was quickly devastated when reality sunk in that we would be flying back to Washington in a few short hours. For dinner, we ordered in pizza from Flying Pie Pizzaria before we had to pack our bags and head to the airport.

It was fun and I'm stoked to be heading back to Boise in May for our birthday get together! Thanks to Groupon, we will be touring six of Boise's best breweries and brew pubs on the Boise Party Bus. I can't wait!

Peace, veggies and positive vibes....