Posts Tagged With: Boise State University Blue football field

Boise, ID Sept. 22

The blue turf at Boise state university football stadium

Thursday we traveled down the Payette River scenic byway, southerly this time as we are going to spend three days in Boise, Idaho. Our first priority was the Basque museum, as we have frequently read about the culture and influence of the Basque minority in Idaho, particularly in sheepherding.

Our first surprise was that the Basque did not arrive in the US with any history of being sheepherders. At that time, most Basque were into shipping and sailing. Raising sheep was a solitary, less desirable job that did not need English speaking workers. The Basque were used to hard work, did not speak English, and were able to step into that job without experience. Like the practice in many other European countries, the family farm or land was given to the oldest son. When there were more than one son, the others had to look for work, and went into shipping, sailing, or emigrating to other countries. America fit the bill at that time. 

Basque women followed the men, either as spouses, potential spouses, or siblings. They also were important economic components in running boardinghouses where the single males would live when the sheep had been slaughtered, or the sheep were housed at lower elevations during the winter.

We also learned that the Basque language is unique, and it does not have the standard Indo European heritage that other European languages have. In fact, it precedes them.

As time progressed, changes in sheepherding reduced the need for that job. The Basque who were here and new Basque immigrants have progressed into general, American culture and jobs, while still maintaining a vibrant Basque culture and neighborliness.

The Basque community is now dispersed, but there is still a city block that emphasizes the Basque history. The museum is on that block. We had lunch at one of the restaurants, but I will admit, we were not terribly adventurous.

After lunch, we walked a few blocks up to the Idaho State Capitol. The capitol building is composed of several types of marble, has a very nice dome, and you explore it through a video presented there, educational displays located on the lowest level, and a self guided tour booklet. Overall, the building is not pretentious, that may be the working and functional image that they wish to present. However, there were also almost no people walking around, so we’re not sure where all the state workers are.

When you are on a seven week trip, estimated to reach 8000 miles, a mid trip oil change is always a good idea. We took time out in the latter half of the afternoon to get that accomplished here in Boise. The dealer did find two of the turn signals lights had been burnt out, so we had those replaced also.

Today, Friday, we made a particular stop that might be considered out of our usual style. We made a stop at Boise State University. For those of you who watch football, you may immediately understand. This is the home of the blue colored football field. Yes, you read that right. Their field is not green, but the artificial turf is blue. The blue color goes back to 1986, and has since been trademarked to remain the only non-green football field in United States for D1 teams.

The Athletic Director recognized that a town with a unique, overriding impression would gain a home-field advantage. A blue field was chosen, as our guide said: “Why not blue?” Of course, some people call it the Smurf turf. Boise State started out as a very successful junior college but it does extremely well now as a regular Division I team. The current student population is about 26,000. In USA Today, in a readers choice survey done this summer, this field was voted the number one sports fan attraction. It beat out such attractions as Cooperstown and the Kentucky Derby museum. One complaint, they could use a better visitor parking arrangement. We could not find any so Chris went in and talked to a staff member who came out and had us park in a donor parking space, for free.

After the blue field, we visited the Idaho Botanical Garden. It is located in part of the old penitentiary, which is also a tourist attraction. We skipped the penitentiary, but enjoyed the botanical garden. While not huge, it was well done with several different areas and colorful flower arrangements. There was one smart section delineating how Idaho residents could make their homes wild fire safe in this heavily forested state. We also had our picnic lunch there.

Next stop, the Idaho Mining and Geology museum. Another small museum, it’s run by volunteers and has an excellent selection of gems from the State of Idaho. This too is located within a portion of the old penitentiary. There are several mining areas of the state we had already seen. I was not aware that Idaho has a large phosphate mining area that we will come across in the south east corner of the state.

This museum is about gems and mining; there was a another section devoted strictly to the gem collection of Henry Fujii. He immigrated after high school from Japan in 1906 and made his money from the growing of onions. He was a pioneer in large scale farming of onions. In retirement, he took up rock hounding. Fujii amassed one of the largest gem and mineral collections in the northwest United States. During his lifetime, he played in important role in the moderation of anti-Japanese laws in this area. Due to his efforts, Japanese, while still not able to own land, could lease land for five years.

Another interesting display discussed the Chinese miners who were miners in Idaho. Many of them came from the same area of China, Guangzhou, a province of south coastal China. They were used to mining and frequently had smarter techniques so that they would buy up mines that American miners thought were worthless, and make a profit off of them.

Our final stop of the day was a popcorn hunting endeavor. We chose to get some popcorn at Cracklin Gourmet Popcorn. The store is a locally owned endeavor of a husband and wife couple. Unfortunately, they were heavily hit by a local football weekend and were not carrying my preferred cheddar popcorn. They did have scads of popcorn in a wide variety of flavors. We spent a while talking to them about the popcorn store, how it’s run, and how they got into the business. The wife has a relative in Hastings Minnesota. We told them to check out Candyland popcorn in Saint Paul if they visiting in the future. We ended up buying a small bag of white cheddar popcorn, and they gave us a gratis large bag of their regular, classic theater popcorn. We enjoyed both when we got back to the hotel before we went into the hot tub.

As I was finishing the text portion of the blog post, the front desk of the Homewood Suites called. There was a package for us at the front desk. I went down and it was a boxed package of the large size of Cracklin Gourmet cheddar cheese popcorn. They had made some this afternoon, and they dropped it off for us to have, free of charge. Isn’t that the epitome of a quality small business?

Ed and Chris, Boise ID, Sept. 22