America 2022 – Day Eleven

It echoes through the factories up in Michigan
It bounces off the levees, and rides out on the wind
Clear out to California, and back on up to Maine
Don’t matter if you’re rich or poor, a sinner or a saint
Every night, everybody, everywhere
Is praying their American prayer

– Dustin Lynch

Saturday 27 August

A good amount of beer and food had me sleeping like a baby. Nearly nine hours! Woke up to the very good news – thanks mum and dad – that the Wallabies beat South Africa and that the All Blacks lost to Argentina as well. I could watch Noah Lolesio’s flick pass to Fraser McReight for the Wallabies’ third try over and over again. Ditto, Koroibete’s try-saving tackle.

The weather was a lot cooler today than yesterday, hovering around thirty Celsius, which is about perfect. Went out for another long walk on the Greenbelt. Another beautiful morning. I will miss walking by the Boise River when we leave on Monday. Pretty certain it won’t be another dozen years before I’m back here, though. A pretty quiet morning, catching up on some reading and blogging. We went downtown for lunch. There was a huge festival involving bikes and beer around the capital, which had shut down a lot of roads. Ate at a Mexican joint called The Funky Taco. Had a chicken quesadilla, which proved to be far more than I could eat. I still sometime forget how big American servings are and get caught out.

Just as well Dave messaged me in the afternoon and said dinner was going to be later, because otherwise I wasn’t going to be doing much eating.

After the busy ten days we’ve had, it was nice to have a relaxing day hanging out at the Airbnb, especially considering how hot it has been. Thankfully, there is a cool change expected to sweep through the city tonight, providing some welcome relief from the heat. But that won’t change the fact that this has been Boise’s hottest summer on record, with a few days to spare – and they’ve been keeping records here for more than a century.

Later in the evening, once it had cooled down a little, we headed downtown to The Taphouse, one of Dave’s favourite Boise haunts, for dinner with the Southorn’s. Got to meet Dave’s wife, Lisa, for the first time, and their daughter, Kennedy, who loved the Bluey book we brought her, and because her dad is such a big Collingwood fan – I know, I know, but he’s okay still – she also got a soft, mini Collingwood football, which seemed to be quite popular. The rest of the Southorn clan got Tim Tams, which are probably our best export, after Bluey! Dinner was great. I had a grilled chicken burger and we all had our fair share of beer, whilst watching baseball and pre-season football on the many, big TV screens around. It was cool to see former Boise State quarterback Brett Rypien playing for the Denver Broncos and making some big plays that brought about big rounds of applause from most people in the restaurant. They love their ex-BSU players up here!