Mmm...vacation

It cannot be the first of September already. We will not speak of it.

After sleeping in today, we had a light breakfast (split a Mediterranean scramble with a side of fruit)—but then Ernie and Pauline finished the talk they attended and wanted breakfast. So I went to the dealer room and ordered a present for my niece’s wedding, continued to ponder something for myself (wafflewafflewaffle), and then relaxed in our suite for a bit before they and Ken returned.

We caught the hotel shuttle to the Old Idaho Penitentiary and spent a few hours wandering around. I expected it to be a big building with a courtyard in the center; instead, it was a walled enclave with a variety of buildings, the first of which were built in the late 1800s. (It closed as a prison nearly 100 years later, in the 1970s.) It’s unclear whether the place is haunted, but I felt distinctly unwell in one section (death row—but not the hanging chamber), so who knows?

We also got some utterly fantastic mug shots of each other. I went for mean, and ended up with insane. Fear me. Pictures to come once Ernie sends ‘em to me.

After that we caught a taxi downtown, where we ate appetizers at a Basque bar, sitting outside and sipping wine and enjoying the mellow weather. Idaho had a big Basque settlement, so there’s a whole district in the city. Ernie and Pauline went to the Basque museum while Ken and I went to a women’s running store so I could try on workout bras. I did indeed buy one, because they were having a First Thursday sale. We wandered back and ended up chatting with the Scottish lady running the Basque Museum about Scotland and Britain and the US and differences and traveling and…well, she liked to chat. And we like to chat about eloping in Gretna Green and riding the bike to Orkney and all that.

Back at the hotel, we went to the group dinner, billed as a luau. The food was mediocre, plus we were still full of Basque appetizers, so we nibbled a bit and then put our bids in at the silent auction. Pauline and I came back to our suite to kick back for a bit, then wandered back down in time to see our friend John propose onstage to his girlfriend. She said yes. Sniffle.

Relaxing with Ken was a perfect way to end the day. Tomorrow, we’re thinking tapas in the Basque district for lunch, a wander through the Morrison Knudsen Nature Center, maybe a walk along the river or a workout, and the CCR final banquet.

Mmmm…vacation.