It turns out that Danielle is one of my all time favorite people. She comes from a close-knit family, like my own, is a teacher, like me, has a dry sense of humor, like me, is enamored by traveling (which hadn't been a discovered trait of hers yet, back in 2005), like me, and loves to read... in coffee shops... like me. We are basically the same person, each married to a Richert brother. Who are the best guys around.
Dave is the complete opposite of Jon, in personality and physical appearance. He's a good five or six inches shorter than his baby brother and has blond hair and lighter eyes than Jon. He's also one of the friendliest people I've ever met. While Jon is very sweet and polite, he is more of an introvert, like myself. Seeing the boys together is always fun because they laugh about the same things and get along wonderfully well for being so different, and for living in different states and countries for all of their adult lives.
I was incredibly excited to spend a week with the "Senior Richerts" as we came to call them a few years later. (We are the Juniors.) Jon and I had only been dating for a little over six months, but we knew where we were headed and I couldn't wait to further bond with my future family members. I was also anxious to spend an entire week with Jon. Something we've always been good at is spending time together. We just don't really get tired of each other's company. Taking a 14-hour-straight road trip was something we knew we'd actually enjoy, and we did.
Taking in "scenic points", stopping at Arby's for lunch, driving up a straightaway of a seemingly endless stretch of road in Nevada, playing question games, listening to countless mixed CDs, stopping to pee every few hours, and passing through three different states were all part of our journey to Boise.
Before this trip I'd never even thought twice about Idaho. Other than the fact that I knew Jon's brother lived there, the only other thing I'd ever associated with the state was potatoes. Who goes to Idaho for fun? As it turned out, Boise was one of the coolest places I'd ever seen. Being a college town, it's a youthful place, with hip hangouts on every corner and streets constantly occupied by citizens on bicycles. The streets are lined with trees and beautiful homes that look like they were plucked from the deep South and deposited directly onto the quaint, numbered streets. We could ride our bikes everywhere, whether it be through town to the grocery store, on the gorgeous greenbelt, or the numerous mountain biking trails were mere minutes-rides from Dave and Danielle's front door. (Amusing side note: on this first trip, I was the only bicycling Richert girl... Danielle stayed home to read her books and relax while we went on rides. Nowadays you can't get Danielle off her bike and she'd kick my butt on any ride we could possibly go on.)
We cruised the weekly Boise City Market, hung out at coffee shops every morning, ate dinner at several of the best local restaurants, and simply explored the city. Since it was June in a much higher latitude than SLO County, the sun didn't set until about ten o'clock at night. This contributed to our much-too-late bedtimes every night as we watched movies, played cards, and spent time in the backyard cooking up "Slugs" (canned biscuit dough wrapped around a dowel, cooked over a fire like a s'more, then filled with honey... no words).
One of my favorite nights of our visit was when Dave and Danielle brought us along to a party their friends had been planning. A White Trash Bash. I had never been to one, or heard of one. The idea is to dress like the nastiest, tackiest, hill-billiest people you can possibly imagine. Danielle and I spent the afternoon shopping at Wal-Mart for inspiration. We brought home fake nails, temporary tattoos, and ugly makeup. Since they had informed us of this party before we came, we'd brought the perfect combination of midwestern and skanky clothes. I wore short men's boxer shorts, a wife beater, and a flannel shirt tied, not buttoned, right under my chest. Jon had torn the sleeves off a KISS ARMY shirt, and paired it with tattered, holy jeans. He even allowed me to shave his hair into a quasi-mullet (not quite long enough to be a true mullet, but close).
These particular friends of the Seniors had gone all out. Even the food was white trashy. Fried chicken in buckets everywhere, pigs in blankets, and a washing machine full of beer. On the front lawn! There were "pregnant" ladies "smoking", Joe Dirt clones, and kids running around in droopy diapers or splashing around in kiddie pools. It was fantastic. The highlight of this particular party was when I won the burping contest, beating out several giant men, and won myself a fancy little garden gnome (as much as I loved my garden gnome I was slightly jealous of the guy who won some other game and got to take home a framed poster of Jon Bon Jovi). I like to keep it classy.
This trip also showed me that whatever my preconceived notions about a place may be, exploring new cities, states, and countries is always enlightening. Boise is a truly beautiful place.
