Goodbye Boise, we'll miss you

Thursday Night Mountain Biking
For 7 years we’ve been mountain biking on Thursday nights with a fun group of friends, usually followed by pizza and beer.  Thursday night will never be the same again…

HP Lunch Volleyball
Summer at HP means volleyball! During lunch I ducked out of work to play sand and grass volleyball.  Any volleyball skills I may have, I owe to these guys.  They’re awesome players and friends, and I will never forget them.

Friends and Coworkers
Ben and I have gotten to know a lot of really great people here in Boise.  The hardest part of saying goodbye is knowing that we’re losing the potential of spending more time with them.  To all of our friends and coworkers – we will miss you!

Alonna’s Soccer Team
I’ve had a blast playing on a women’s soccer team in Boise.  Anything we lack in skills we’ve more than made up for by running our butts off and never giving up. Go Bombers!

Ridges to Rivers trail system
They just keep getting better – the hiking and biking trails in the Boise foothills are awesome.  I don’t think we’ll have any trouble finding great mountain biking in Colorado, but having nice trails within biking distance of our house is a huge benefit of living here.

Beautiful Stanley

Stanley, Idaho
Idaho has it’s share of gorgeous scenery, and our favorite by far is the Sawtooth Mountains.  Stanley is a small quiet town with beautiful views and home of the famous Fisher-Williams epic bike trail.

Boise Greenbelt
Our house is within walking distance of a 25-mile long paved path along the Boise River, called the greenbelt.  It’s perfect for jogging, walking, or biking through town.

Society of Women Engineers – Southwest Idaho Section
I’ve been lucky to work with a group of women engineers dedicated to encouraging girls to pursue math and science careers.  I’ve learned a lot by being a part of this group and made some great friends along the way.  Keep it up ladies!

Living 5 Minutes from the Airport
I don’t think this concept exists in Colorado.

Clear skies and long summer days
Boise weather is perfect – it’s almost always sunny and clear, with dry desert heat.  Also, being situated on the edge of Mountain Time Zone, Boise gets sunlight well past 9pm in the summer.

Off to our Next Adventure

Mountain Biking

The first bunch of photos is from our annual camping trip to Stanley, Idaho with our HP biking group. The rest are of me and Ben biking around the Boise foothills. We’ve been biking A TON this summer – it’s so nice to have great trails so close to home.

Since the forest fire, shade is limited

Mountain biking in Stanley

Part of the biking group

Ben - conquering another mountain

Alonna

Ben, waiting for dinner

Maybe the joke is related to the GIANT marshmallows?

Boise foothills

Ben, notice his shirt?

Watchman trail in Boise

Alonna - biking in Boise

Sidewinder trail with bikers on the ridge

Beautiful flowers up at Bogus Basin

 

Giving Back to the Couchsurfing Community

While traveling, Ben and I took advantage of couchsurfing.org to stay with some really nice people around the world who offered us a free place to stay. Now that we’re home, we’ve been hosting travelers passing through.

Ben with couchsurfers Derek and Alex

We met Alex (right) at a hostel in Chile when he was returning from a research assignment in Antarctica. Later we saw him in NYC when we had a long layover en route to Istanbul. Now he’s traveling a bit before heading to D.C. and was able to spend a few days in Idaho.

Derek (middle) was our very first couchsurfer, and a memorable one at that! On his way to Boise he was in a bad motorcycle accident, and crashed into the river off of HWY-21 north of Boise. Luckily his injuries were relatively minor – a punctured lung, broken foot, lots of bruises, and a totaled motorcycle. Derek stayed with us for a week before flying back to New Hampshire where his parents live.

Our home in Boise

Re-Discovering our House

Something I never anticipated was how nice it would be to return to our house and belongings after living out of a backpack and in hostels for 5 months. In some ways it’s liberating to have only a few sets of clothes and just the essentials with you at all times. While backpacking, you can’t help but wonder why you need that house full of “stuff” anyway – you’re doing fine with just these 30lbs. But, you forget about all the little things that make life so much easier and more comfortable. No – I didn’t miss the lawnmower or vacuum cleaner – but I was surprised to remember that I love wearing high heels and jewelry, and I now have the choice between at least 5 pairs of jeans and hundreds of tops. In addition to clothing, we have a kitchen full of nice dishes and appliances. We cooked a lot while traveling to save money, but the kitchens in hostels are nothing like your own kitchen back home. Dull knives, missing utensils, tiny fridges packed full of people’s food, and no cupboard with of your favorite spices and cooking supplies. Like I said, it’s really nice to be home.
 

What’s Next?

Now that we’re back, you might be curious about our plans for the future. We are too! We don’t have any solid plans yet, but I promise I’ll let you know when we do.

As for the blog – it will live on! We still have a lot to say about our past year of traveling, and we’ll continue to share photos of any interesting adventures that come our way. Some topics in the works include the cost of our trip, things we’ve learned, and more photo collages. Is there anything you’d like to know about? Please leave a comment and we’ll try to address it.

Thank you for following us on this incredible journey!

We’ll probably keep updating the website now and then, with some general observations from Europe, maybe some details on what we packed and how our budget turned out, and of course, stay tuned as we plan the next stage of our adventure.