9/4- Living the Big Shot Life

We woke and lounged in the house with a strange air of uncertainty among us. Here I was, the hitching friend of long lost wandering Uncle Todd, who showed up unannounced in the dead of night and our uncertainty was over the reception of my stay. Since I'd taken too long deciding whether to stop in Boise or not I didn't call Todd to inform him of my arrival until about 10pm, an hour after everyone had fallen away to sleep. Regardless, we spent the morning and early afternoon in half guarded relaxation on their back porch.

It was all for naught. Dave, Todd's brother-in-law, came home at some point to us reclining and chatting and showed no signs of feeling intruded upon whatsoever. On the contrary, he invited me to eat, have a drink, to stay the weekend, yada, yada, yada. It was a genuine and hearty welcome into his home. I declined the stay, however, because I'd gotten in touch with one of the folks I'd very much wanted to see while here.

Glen is Lex's son and lived right around the corner from Dave and Lynn's, where I was. I had found Lex by finding Glen on Facebook and he had offered to put me up in a hotel he runs here in town. When I let him know I'd arrived he made good on his offer. Dave's kids were also coming up for the weekend so I figured the house would be packed anyway, so it all seemed to work out well. Perfectly one might say.

Dave gave me a lift to the hotel, which was right at the off ramp Victor dropped me at the night before, and Glen was there, as promised, hard at work. He and I sat down and caught up for a bit, then I was debriefed about being a travel writer who was going to be writing a nice review of the place. All true if you think about it.

I checked in and dropped down on the king sized bed in my luxurious suite. It would be about an hour before Glen would be off so I zoned out to TV, shoes off and properly sprawled. When we met up again an hour later I learned of the night to come. Apparently he not only had a room for me in a swank hotel, but a "date" and spare ticket to a baseball game in town.

A quick run to his house and then we were out for drinks waiting for the girls to show up. Nina was a girl who had worked for him and was in some sort of process of trying to hook him up with her friend Peggy. When they called and were told a bit about me before their arrival Glen of course told them he'd met me on my walk cross country. This inspired the now far too familiar "is he like Forest Gump or something?"

When they arrived we had fish and chips and our mugs of beer on the table. As Glen introduced me I slowly, with an odd sense of peculiarity about me spent great time dipping my fry in the tartar sauce. In a slow speeched Southern drawl I looked up and introduced myself. "Hello, my name is Chris." Everyone wants me to be Forest, Goddamn it I'll give it to them. Glen had been prepared for this, but the look on Nina's face, a French Canadian city girl from Quebec looking for wild times at every corner, told me she was suddenly dreading this evening to come. I played my Gump bit off for a good five minutes, slowly dipping each french fry between every sentence until Glen lost it and I was internally debating how long I should play at this. The little act was a good way to kick of a really fun night.

After drinks at Iggy's we made our way to the game. Nina knew the guy seling cups of beer there so we were drinking at a buck a cup. Despite the home team getting slaughtered, Nina and I had a grand time yelling random words of encouragement much to Glen's chagrin. I'm not quite sure he realized what he was putting together that night.

He soon found out when she and I enthusiastically demanded an evening of kareoke after the game. There was a round of fireworks that we watched from the parking lot, then made our way to Sam's to continue our revelry.

Immediately upon entrance I ferreted out a song book and put in 4 requests. Glen backed me up with another. Peggy B-lined it to the shuffle board table and Nina, oddly, disappeared. Even now I have no idea what happened to her, but a nice thing about Boise is that the women are smokin' hot outdoorsy types and they were brimming in that place. Kareoke is also where I shine. Sadly, it was DJ's friends night.

I was able to crank out a rendition of Up Where We Belong to a hollering pixie blonde in the front row. Despite being the only one that I saw to get the bar shouting and a full room round of applause I was not returned to the mic that night. Glen was never called up and he had to work the next day. Alas, I returned to the hotel room alone.

Click here for Todd's story.