My trip to one of the best places ever. A Graphic Novella.

Jack is involved with Academic Pentathlon at his school.  It's kind of a big deal.  There are 2 teams of 9 kids.  One team for each middle school grade (7 and 8).

Jack is in seventh grade.  After a several month long process, he was selected for the team. Isabel was also selected.  Isabel is also in seventh grade.  She lives across the street from us.  So that was cool.

Anyway, there was a big city or state competition several weeks ago.  McMillan (Jack's school) won the trip to Nationals in Boise Idaho.

At first the whole family was going to go, but it ended up just being Jack and me.

Jack's trip was paid for by the generous donations of people who generously donated.  My trip was not, so I booked my own flights and things to save a few bucks.

I got on a plane Wednesday night.  It was a small plane.  My seat was 13B.  Of course we know that "B" is just another "13" scrunched together.  So that was pretty omen-rific.

It was kind of crowded, but the seat next to mine was unoccupied.  So to save the lives of everybody aboard, I slid over to 13A.  But before I did, I took a picture of it ...

Then the plane took off and stuff.

That was just a short flight to Minneapolis.  Then it was straight to the hustling, bustling Boise Airport terminal.

But I kid the Boise terminal.  The next morning, I decided to get some breakfast before I went bumming around to bike shops, looking to rent.  But then I saw this car and decided I didn't want breakfast.

So I rented a bicycle and put it in the trunk of my rented car.

Then I put on my fancy bike pants and went for a ride.  That's when I realized I was in the best place ever. The bike infrastructure was incredible.  Bike lanes everywhere.  The traffic was cognizant of bikes. Riding in heavy traffic was never scary.  Then there was the scenery.  It was like this all day long:

 and this,

and this,

and of course, this.

Yeah - they have a bunch of blue and orange stuff up there,

The thing about Boise was that everybody there was unbelievably nice.  I had never seen it before.  I could only describe it as "Munson" nice.  Why, they even had a colorful happy place for the area freaks.

Freak Alley

If you know me, you know I can only take so much "nice" before I become suspicious.  Sure that something funny is going on.  It's the same reason I'm convinced Munson is pure evil. Nobody could possibly be that nice.

Well on my second day there, I saw something that confirmed my suspicions.

Yep. Figures. At night, Boise is filled with filthy rotten soul sucking vampires.

So that sums up the best place I've ever ridden my bike.  What? Huh?

Oh yeah, sorry. The kids had a good time doing their smart thing or whatever.

And posing for photos

and riding a bus

and I don't remember if I mentioned this, but the scenic bike riding was nice too.