Page 8:  Idaho, Oregon, Washington

Played the Modern Hotel in Boise last night. A delightful experience from beginning to end. Sweet hospitality, great sound and a backed house. The whole thing took place in a small outdoor courtyard of the vintage Travelodge-turned-turned boutique hotel, and the audience count was well over 100. People were standing on the upstairs balcony, kids were dancing, food and wine poured forth freely and we played until the weather drove us indoors.. Then went to dinner at the Cottonwood Grill with an old friend from high school and her family and talked about little progressive Boise huddled in the middle of an extremely conservative Idaho. Heard a fairly well substantiated rumor that Idaho’s handpicked upper crust flunky governor has Alzheimer’s disease. Nobody was celebrating, to their credit, but the mood was that in terms of effectiveness, it may take people a while to notice.

Folks at the Modern warmly invited us to come back soon, and we slept well in the elegantly spare rooms. They’ll be well up in the running for best of tour.

Headed out to cross a corner of Oregon and on through Washington to the coast. So far, on the way we’d passed through more high lonesome Idaho prairie, into the lush forests, high green mountains, intermittent rain and about an hour of steep up hills and down in a snowstorm as we crossed the Blue Mountains and Mount Emily in Oregon. Much greener here, and we’ve dropped about 2,000 feet in altitude so we can all breathe better. Stopped in Pendleton at a place called “Rooster’s” for a hot lunch. Since we started at 7 and gained an hour when we passed into the Pacific time zone, we had our brunch at 10:3- a.m. local time. Great food, good service and on our way. Just crossed the Columbia River into the high desert of eastern Washington, where I haven’t been since we left in February of 1955, headed for Montana. Another high flight down memory lane for me. Dennis and Bo got some wonderful shots of a nesting Bullock’s Oriole just before we hit the snow belt, but haven’t seen any other new birds for a while. We expect things to pick up as we near the inland farming areas and then the coast.