“Russell,” I woke up to my dad telling me to wake up, “Wake up.  We’re about to land in Boise.”  My dad, me, and brother Owen were flying to Boise, Idaho to see a Boise State Broncos game.  Owen had planned the trip and my dad asked if Robert and I wanted to go.  I was all in for it, but Robert said no.  Later, he was begging that either Owen or I wouldn’t go.

I thought, here we go again.  I hope I won’t puke today or Sunday.  When I could see out the window, I saw a whole lot of hills and mountains.

    “So this is Boise,” I said, “Looks more like Phoenix.”

    “Shut Up,” Owen retaliated, “Dad, why did he have to go?”

    “Because I wanted to,” I replied.

    “You just wanted to annoy me, right?”

    “No I didn’t.”

“Stop fighting you guys.  Besides, we came here to have fun. Not to spend all of our time fighting.”  That was dad; always getting in between our fights (which is a good thing so we don’t get physical).  Now we had to get our rental car.

    “Who knew Boise was called the City of Trees,” I said.

    “Shut Up and wait for dad to get the rental car,” Owen retorted.

The car was a Ford escape.  While we were looking for any damage to the exterior; we could see several jets taking off from Gowen Field next to BOI (Boise Air Terminal).

“Looks like a F-15 (F=Fighter) Eagle and some A-10 (A=Attack) Thunderbolts or Warthogs.  Out here in the mountains,” I said to myself.  I was hoping that 5 ¼ hours or flying that Friday would be worth the game on Saturday.

The 18th passed by with us walking through downtown near our hotel.  We also went to the Idaho Capitol building, checked out our room (you could see Bronco Stadium from our room (the top of it or the lights)).  We also went to Grove Plaza and ate at Papa Joe’s Italian Restaurant.

“Who do you think Corso is going to pick?” I asked Owen.

“Probably FSU (Florida State),” he replied.

“Well, we’ll find out later.”

   It was 0850 hours MT (Mountain Time). We had been watching College Gameday since 0700 hours MT.  At the end, Lee Corso always had headgear which he put on for whichever team he thought would win the big game on Saturday.

    One time when the game was LSU (Louisiana State) vs. Alabama, Corso said, “Let me hear it!”  “Roll Tide (Fans are in italics)!”  “Again!”  “Roll Tide!”  “One more time!”  “Roll Tide!”  “Alright! Roll Tigers!” This week the game was the Clemson Tigers vs. the Florida State Seminoles.  Corso picked FSU over Clemson.

    “Say, why don’t we go down to the fitness center while we’re waiting,” said dad.

    “Good idea.  Let’s go,” I replied.

    “Okay, let me finish my coffee first,” he said.

   We stayed down there until 0945 hours.  By then it was around ten minutes until Corso made his pick and we decided to go upstairs.  After Corso made his pick, we decided what to do and the decision was made to go to the Idaho State History museum until around 1130 hours.  We had lunch going by Bronco Stadium to Big Jud’s.  There they have giant one pound and two pound burgers.  The Big Jud and the Double Big Jud.  I got a smaller burger while Owen and dad got a Big Jud burger and split it.

    “Are you going to send the picture of the regular burger and the Big Jud side by side to mom and Robert?” I asked Owen.

    “What do you think idiot. Of course,” Owen snapped.

    “Okay. Okay. You don’t need to be a wackadoo about it.,” I replied.

    “Hey dad, did you know that we actually parked illegally,” Owen said.

    “Really? Why didn’t the car get impounded?” Dad asked.

    “Because we had Arizona licence Plates,” Owen replied.

    “Oh. Who knew?” Dad said.

    “Mr. Know-it-All right there,” I said.

    “Shut Up,” Owen snarled.

At 1720 hours, we went to the game.  After witnessing the tailgating and taking a kick on replica field goal posts; we checked out our seats.  We were in the upper deck, Section 101, Row CC, Seats 16-18.

“Dad, I know you like the Upper Deck, but this is too far.  It takes over a minute to get up here,” I stated, “I’ll probably lose a pound or two climbing up and down,” I thought.

The first half was unfortunate for the Broncos with the score being 17-7, Nevada.  The Broncos senior QB (Quarterback), Joe Southwick, broke his ankle on the first play.

Backup junior QB Grant Hedricks had a controversial play when he ran for 49 yds.  Everyone wanted the flag to be thrown, including us.

    Dad said, “He tackled him when he was out of bounds.  That’s a personal foul.”

They didn’t call Nevada on it, but Boise Scored a touchdown.  The Broncos rebounded in the 2nd Half winning by a score of 17-37. In the third Quarter, HB (halfback) Jay Ajayi ran for a 79 yard Touchdown with a second in the 4th Quarter.

Led by Grant Hedricks and Jay Ajayi; Boise won the game.  Ajayi had around 300 rushing yds. and 3 TDs (Touchdowns).  Hedricks was 18-21 with 1 INT (Interception), 150 passing yds. and 1 rushing TD.

The next day was when we left.  The trip out to Boise was one of the most un trips I ever had behind those to see Grandma and Grandpa out in Freeland, WA (Washington).

I said at Reagan National Airport, “11 ½ hours of flying and running through SLC (Salt Lake City) to make our next flight home, was worth it.”

We were in Boise on the 18th, 19th, 20th and had a lot of fun and the best restaurant (in my opinion) or Boise and the one you have to go to is Fresh off the Hook.   It is a street north and a couple streets over to the west from the Hampton Inn in downtown Boise on Capital Blvd.