Recently my camera and I took a week-long trip to southern Idaho to visit the western division of the Strong family; I returned with plenty of photographs … and a much greater appreciation for trees.  If you haven’t already read them, you can see the previous day’s adventures here.

I know I was there, but all I remember is food and a football game

I won’t expend too many words about Sunday, partly because I didn’t take a single picture the entire day and partly because I was only partially joking about actually waking up sometime Monday morning.  We went to church, we spent much of the day around the house, I took a nap because I simply wasn’t capable of staying awake in the afternoon, and we consumed fantastic snacks while we watched the Super Bowl.  So I can’t say much about Idaho on Sunday, but I can say a lot about the value of a good nap … and even more about the value of never intentionally waking up at 3:45 in the morning.  Ever.

Where an adult can be a kid

We were ready to see the sights after that quiet Sunday, so Monday morning we all headed out to Boise.  First on the docket was a diversion for the three kids, that most wonderful place where a rat isn’t a pest, but instead is a friendly mascot: Chuck E. Cheese.  And boy, did the kids ever enjoy playing the games:

Uh … no, really, the kids had a great time:

Well, I thought the kids enjoyed it:

Ah, there we go.  I knew I wasn’t imagining that.

BTGOC: Big Tour Group On Campus

After an outstanding lunch at the Cheesecake Factory — I recommend the orange chicken — Erin and the kids headed back to Mountain Home, while Justin joined the three of us for further exploration of Boise.  We wanted to see the Boise State University campus, and there just so happened to be a tour starting at just the right time, so we joined the group.  Our tour guide turned out to be Keegan, a current BSU student who will be going into special education.

Keegan is an Irish name meaning “descendant of the fiery one”; while he didn’t seem particularly fiery, he also wasn’t afraid to bring the sarcastic humor.  The other people in the group — a prospective student and his parents — didn’t seem impressed with his humor, but I certainly enjoyed it.

BSU has a very pleasant campus along the Boise river near downtown.  Unlike Michigan’s sprawling footprint, BSU’s campus is fairly compressed for a school serving over 19,000 students; from one end of campus to the other, everything is easily within walking distance.  And if you can’t get enough exercise walking from the residence halls to the classroom buildings, you can keep walking (or biking): the campus is the midpoint of a beautiful 25-mile paved trail following the Boise River.

I was struck by one attribute of the campus: the relative youth and architectural modesty of the buildings.  I’m used to universities like Michigan and Notre Dame, schools with long histories and stunning historic buildings; BSU was founded in 1932 and moved to its present location in 1940, which is when the oldest building on campus — the administration building — was built.

The campus does include one exceptionally creative bit of architecture: when viewed from above, the Morris Center for the Performing Arts is shaped like the state of Idaho.

La la la-la la la, la la-la la touchdown

College football fans across the nation know BSU not just for its last-second bowl victory over Oklahoma, but also for its unique blue football field, commonly known as the Smurf Turf.  BSU is proud of its one-of-a-kind turf, so it came as no surprise to us that the campus tour included the football stadium; what made it even better was that instead of just showing off the famous turf from afar, the university was more than happy to let us walk on the field.  I always wondered if the Smurf Turf was as bright as it looked on tv, and now, having had firsthand experience with it, I can say for certain: it’s crazy bright.  It’s not just blue; it’s BLUE!!!

See?!  I really was there!  I’m not making this up!

I spend my fair share of time around football fields, but real or artificial, those fields are always green; it’s a little bit surreal — and, at first, even slightly disorienting — to walk onto a football field without a single hint of green in sight.  I’m sure I’d get used to it, but the initial sensation is strange, to say the least.

While we were in the stadium, Keegan passed along a most interesting tidbit: student tickets for football games are free.  I’m used to that sort of policy from schools where football isn’t much of an attraction — cough cough Eastern Michigan cough — but football is big at BSU, so the free student ticket policy was a little surprising to me.  Of course, I’m used to Michigan, where nothing about revenue sports is even close to free, so that probably explains my surprise.

When they say champions of the west, they really mean west

To get to the football field, we walked through a small athletic hall of fame; when we were on our way out of the stadium, we were stopped short by the thoroughly unexpected sight of very familiar uniforms:

That picture shows BSU playing Michigan in the 1988 NCAA basketball tournament, a game Michigan won, 63-58.  I would say that reminds me of the good old days of Michigan basketball, but I was six when that game was played, and I wasn’t paying much attention to Michigan basketball at that point.  For me there aren’t really good old days of Michigan basketball; there is only the death and destruction of the Chris Webber scandal and the limitless hopelessness of the Brian Ellerbe era.  Apparently I was born a little too late.  Beilein, take me away!

Come back soon for the next installment of the Famous Potato Diaries, which will feature dogs that prefer not to wear seatbelts.