Last Week in Boise / The Very Last Boise Road Trip / Back Home
Welp, as the title of this entry suggests, I'm back home now after spending just over four whole weeks with Jaci in Boise. That's a long time to be gone! I'm trying to really let that sink in and it's hard to believe that much time has gone by. It's amazing.
I was going to return a week sooner, but several factors intervened. At the time, Jaci and I were house-sitting on a farm for one of her Boise friends. The feeding and checkup schedule had us out there nearly every six hours. Our final day of dealing with the farm was Sunday the 20th, and I realized that leaving immediately after we got done with the farm would have seemed like a sad way to end our final stay together in Boise. Our first day of freedom to sleep in and relax would be the 21st so I decided to tack on a couple days.
Right at the same time, Jaci got some crappy news. In early June, she signed up to cash out her retirement so that she'd have money to live on in South Dakota while she looked for a new job and lived with her family. The process would have had a check mailed to her in three weeks, so she made a call to see how things were going. It appears they were missing one document from Jaci's old employer but no one in the preceding three weeks bothered to call her and let her know that no processing was taking place. It ruined her day but she made some calls and got the form faxed in. Now, she has to sit in Boise for a further two to three weeks waiting on this money. This check is the only thing keeping her in Boise and once she has it she's leaving as soon as possible. She could have it forwarded to South Dakota, but what if it gets lost or someone else mucks it up? May as well wait it out and get it for sure. Once she got that news and I saw how bummed out it made her, I decided to stay the extra week and leave on the 25th. This extra time and finally being free of the farm gave us permission to be couch potatoes and to do our favorite things in Boise one last time. We visited the cheap theaters one last time, rented more silly movies, gorged ourselves at the all-you-can-eat pizza joint, visited some parks, had breakfast with her father and basically took the week off. It was the send-off I needed.
We even found a little time to toss Jaci's two cats, Toby and Tallulah, in her car and go for a ride as a test run for how they'll react during the move to South Dakota. They didn't do too bad. They meowed a lot and looked out the windows but they didn't vomit or panic or go crazy. Toby, the larger of the two cats, did seem a little distressed at certain moments, but once Jaci properly prepares the car for the trip with blankets and food and chemical sprays designed to calm them down, it'll be an even better experience. I think they'll be just fine. Check out this horribly adorable photo of the two of them sitting on my lap and looking at the camera:
So that was about it for my very last trip to Boise! Midday Friday, I loaded up my Geo and hit the road. All along the 450-mile road trip, I wondered if I'd ever be coming back this way again. Once Jaci moves in the next couple weeks, I truly will have no reason to drive east of Portland again unless I'm off to visit family in the midwest but such a route wouldn't take me past La Grande or Boise. I knew this would be the last drive home. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful and the hills were all covered with green grass. Traffic was light and the wind was at my back. The car cooperated too, and I didn't have any problems with it.
One last time, I stopped in La Grande to visit EOU and let the car cool off for a bit. I aimlessly floated around the campus and stuck my nose in at certain places. I found some of my old professors but realized it was Summer term and the campus was nearly shut down. No one was really around except at the bookstore. Knowing full well this would be my last visit to the campus for years if not forever, I grabbed a few items and proceeded to soak up the visit as best I could by taking time to walk around. A lot is still the same but the most interesting change in the campus has been how Dorian Hall, the underclassman dorm I spent two years of my life living in, is not only gone but has been replaced with a nearly perfect grassy field. You wouldn't even have known there was such a building there. Here's a panoramic photo I stitched together showing what now remains of Dorian Hall:
Click here or on the image to see it in a larger size in a new window!
To those of you reading this who also have a history with that building, it's bittersweet. I'll agree that the building was crappy and it's probably a good thing it's gone but it was still home. A lot of fond memories there. And now it's a sleepy, quiet grassy field with absolutely no landmarks to signify any proud history. Just beyond the trees in the right side of the photo near the sidewalk delineate where West Dorian was. Those trees are about the only things left of the dorm. Ohh, if they could talk.
And so, just as quickly as I had arrived in Boise to see Jaci off on her trip back home to the midwest, I'm back in Portland already missing her and her cats and wondering when and how I'll see her again. Things won't be the same again and I'm filled with a certain sadness knowing Jaci isn't a simple and inexpensive seven-hour drive away. No more road trips for me. I'm gonna miss escaping to Boise. I'll always be able to call and get ahold of Jaci, but from now on, a visit will require some heavy circumstances. I'd no doubt have to fly and by the time I could afford it, we'd both have jobs that wouldn't allow for much vacation time. It could be years. I've had a wonderful time being able to visit Jaci and I only hope that opportunities will continue presenting themselves for future visits. Who knows. I can already see myself five or ten years from now being nostalgic about the dozens of trips I've taken to Boise or even through La Grande. I'm really truly going to miss this.
It's funny adjusting to being back here again. I claimed a bunch of things Jaci wasn't taking with her so I've got quite a bit to unpack. Plus, I need to finally figure out what exactly is wrong with my car, so I'll be busy for a while. As always my parents have a wealth of home improvement projects setup for us. I hate to say it, but I'm a little excited to get back to my old routine. The weather here has been absolutely perfect, too. The future suddenly seems open and vast. I wonder what's next...
I was going to return a week sooner, but several factors intervened. At the time, Jaci and I were house-sitting on a farm for one of her Boise friends. The feeding and checkup schedule had us out there nearly every six hours. Our final day of dealing with the farm was Sunday the 20th, and I realized that leaving immediately after we got done with the farm would have seemed like a sad way to end our final stay together in Boise. Our first day of freedom to sleep in and relax would be the 21st so I decided to tack on a couple days.
Right at the same time, Jaci got some crappy news. In early June, she signed up to cash out her retirement so that she'd have money to live on in South Dakota while she looked for a new job and lived with her family. The process would have had a check mailed to her in three weeks, so she made a call to see how things were going. It appears they were missing one document from Jaci's old employer but no one in the preceding three weeks bothered to call her and let her know that no processing was taking place. It ruined her day but she made some calls and got the form faxed in. Now, she has to sit in Boise for a further two to three weeks waiting on this money. This check is the only thing keeping her in Boise and once she has it she's leaving as soon as possible. She could have it forwarded to South Dakota, but what if it gets lost or someone else mucks it up? May as well wait it out and get it for sure. Once she got that news and I saw how bummed out it made her, I decided to stay the extra week and leave on the 25th. This extra time and finally being free of the farm gave us permission to be couch potatoes and to do our favorite things in Boise one last time. We visited the cheap theaters one last time, rented more silly movies, gorged ourselves at the all-you-can-eat pizza joint, visited some parks, had breakfast with her father and basically took the week off. It was the send-off I needed.
We even found a little time to toss Jaci's two cats, Toby and Tallulah, in her car and go for a ride as a test run for how they'll react during the move to South Dakota. They didn't do too bad. They meowed a lot and looked out the windows but they didn't vomit or panic or go crazy. Toby, the larger of the two cats, did seem a little distressed at certain moments, but once Jaci properly prepares the car for the trip with blankets and food and chemical sprays designed to calm them down, it'll be an even better experience. I think they'll be just fine. Check out this horribly adorable photo of the two of them sitting on my lap and looking at the camera:
So that was about it for my very last trip to Boise! Midday Friday, I loaded up my Geo and hit the road. All along the 450-mile road trip, I wondered if I'd ever be coming back this way again. Once Jaci moves in the next couple weeks, I truly will have no reason to drive east of Portland again unless I'm off to visit family in the midwest but such a route wouldn't take me past La Grande or Boise. I knew this would be the last drive home. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful and the hills were all covered with green grass. Traffic was light and the wind was at my back. The car cooperated too, and I didn't have any problems with it.
One last time, I stopped in La Grande to visit EOU and let the car cool off for a bit. I aimlessly floated around the campus and stuck my nose in at certain places. I found some of my old professors but realized it was Summer term and the campus was nearly shut down. No one was really around except at the bookstore. Knowing full well this would be my last visit to the campus for years if not forever, I grabbed a few items and proceeded to soak up the visit as best I could by taking time to walk around. A lot is still the same but the most interesting change in the campus has been how Dorian Hall, the underclassman dorm I spent two years of my life living in, is not only gone but has been replaced with a nearly perfect grassy field. You wouldn't even have known there was such a building there. Here's a panoramic photo I stitched together showing what now remains of Dorian Hall:
Click here or on the image to see it in a larger size in a new window!
To those of you reading this who also have a history with that building, it's bittersweet. I'll agree that the building was crappy and it's probably a good thing it's gone but it was still home. A lot of fond memories there. And now it's a sleepy, quiet grassy field with absolutely no landmarks to signify any proud history. Just beyond the trees in the right side of the photo near the sidewalk delineate where West Dorian was. Those trees are about the only things left of the dorm. Ohh, if they could talk.
And so, just as quickly as I had arrived in Boise to see Jaci off on her trip back home to the midwest, I'm back in Portland already missing her and her cats and wondering when and how I'll see her again. Things won't be the same again and I'm filled with a certain sadness knowing Jaci isn't a simple and inexpensive seven-hour drive away. No more road trips for me. I'm gonna miss escaping to Boise. I'll always be able to call and get ahold of Jaci, but from now on, a visit will require some heavy circumstances. I'd no doubt have to fly and by the time I could afford it, we'd both have jobs that wouldn't allow for much vacation time. It could be years. I've had a wonderful time being able to visit Jaci and I only hope that opportunities will continue presenting themselves for future visits. Who knows. I can already see myself five or ten years from now being nostalgic about the dozens of trips I've taken to Boise or even through La Grande. I'm really truly going to miss this.
It's funny adjusting to being back here again. I claimed a bunch of things Jaci wasn't taking with her so I've got quite a bit to unpack. Plus, I need to finally figure out what exactly is wrong with my car, so I'll be busy for a while. As always my parents have a wealth of home improvement projects setup for us. I hate to say it, but I'm a little excited to get back to my old routine. The weather here has been absolutely perfect, too. The future suddenly seems open and vast. I wonder what's next...