Brinniel & Boise, Part I

Well, I’m back… If you’re wondering where I was, then I guess you didn’t pick up on subtle hint (which Lhuna DID get) a few posts back about going down to Idaho sometime this summer. Indeed, 16 hours of driving from Edmonton and two days of work off, and I had my first meeting with a real, flesh-and-bones Barrow-downer (I’m actually just guessing about the bones… closest that I saw were teeth).

The Barrow-downer resident of Idaho, is Brinniel (her ‘Downs username, that is), where she lives between school years with her parents. That’s perhaps a sufficient enough résumé; despite the obscure corner of the Internet occupied by this blog and the probable prior knowledge of anyone like to read it, it’s not my personal information be sharing. And, in any case, on the same assumption that all readers know who Brinniel is, I can save time on what’s fairly sure to be a rather long tour indeed of thoughts and recollections of what occurred this weekend.

My extra-long weekend started with me booking off Friday, and heading out to Olds from Edmonton after work on Thursday. I had originally hoped to stay the night in more southern Alberta, and so cut more time off my Friday drive, but the former seminarian I had hoped to stay with ended up being out of town.

Anyway, I woke up at 4:00 am on Friday, and was on the road before 5:00. I crossed the border just prior to 9:00—my first trip to the States since I was nine, my first trip outside Canada in three years, and my first solo trip driving outside Alberta. Not particularly scary—as far as the driving went.

It was, indeed, a beautiful day to drive, and a beautiful drive. It was sunny, there was a relatively quiet four-lane highway all the way, and Montana and Idaho have some great scenery—a little alien to one convinced that Alberta is the most beautiful region on earth, but perhaps more appreciable for my being a stranger.

By 6:00 pm I had rounded the curve going west instead of south, and the sun was descending into my eyes, which made for a good hour of rather stressed driving, at its peak (well, actually, it was quite low by then…). By the time the sun had set, I was in the Boise area, and by 10:00 I had pulled up into the driveway and shook hands awkwardly with my first real Barrow-downer.

Then I met her parents, and then Brinn and I proceeded to stay up until past midnight, talking, and then a very tired Formendacil (aka, “me”) went to bed (Brinniel, as is not really to be surprised at, given the habits of Barrow-downers in general, is something of a night owl).

Saturday morning dawned very sunny, and the first of three days of 100+ degrees of Fahrenheit weather. As a Canadian, I should be able to do the conversion… but I can’t, which is sad, because I think in Celsius. However, it was definitely hot. The curious Canadian or European can always look it up, I’m sure.

Due to two sleeping-in Downers, we didn’t get started on Saturday until after lunch. Saturday, as it happened, was Brinn’s birthday, so the plan for the evening was dinner out with her parents, presents, and cake. In the meantime, however, Brinn and I spent Saturday afternoon (and into the evening) at a number of summery sorts of past-times. I beat her score in mini-golf by about 15 strokes (didn’t count how many strokes it actually took, but I did keep an eye on who was ahead), after which she proceeded to beat me on the arcade motorcycles, and we both lost at laser-tag. In like manner did the afternoon pass and the evening, and then it was 9:00 and we were out for supper.

Supper faded into dessert, and dessert faded into late-night grocery shopping, and that faded into near-midnight present opening and cake eating. Having known beforehand of the occasion, I did not come unprepared, but if people want to know what I got Brinn, they’d be better off stalking her blog than mine. Not that there was anything particularly spectacular about it, but it was well picked, nonetheless.

Anyway, sometime after midnight it was bedtime again, and next thing you know, it’s Sunday morning, and we’re going separate ways: Brinn’s family to their church, and myself to St. John’s Cathedral, because… well, because I’m a seminarian and a geeky one at that, so I can’t resist seeing what should be the finest church in any given diocese. Boise didn’t disappoint. St. John’s had an impressive façade and an ornate, neo-Renaissance-like interior. The windows were a trifle purplier than I would have put in, but still beautiful, and they did a good job with the post-Vatican II altar. Best of all, they were still using the pipe organ in the loft, so there was booming organ music for Mass (almost—if possible—too much).

Back to Brinn’s in time for lunch, then on to an afternoon mostly spent at the theatre, watching Prince Caspian, which I had not previously seen (a good choice, because it was again extremely hot). Brinniel had already seen it, but after having seen it myself, I can definitely agree that it would be worth going to a second time. Despite having played more loosely with the story, I really enjoyed it—possible more than LWW, although given that I have a relationship with the books such as has seen me change my favourites constantly throughout the years, I wouldn’t put much long-term money on either being a permanent favourite in my mind.

That evening, with Brinn’s parents, we went to the local Shakespeare festival’s production of the not-a-Shakespeare-play-at-all production of The Crucicble, by Arthur Miller, which was very well done. Thereafter it was back home, and (I think) the earliest night of the weekend, sometime before midnight.

Monday morning was supposed to be an earlier start, with a trip to the zoo (and most notably for ‘downers, the penguins), but I didn’t get up until 9:30, and Brinniel was a full two hours later. Since she had an appointment in mid-afternoon, it was a lazy noontime, during which we fully reminisced Werewolf games, and I basically talked myself into playing the next one. Later, once Brinn was back from her appointment, we were off to the zoo (and especially the penguins).

After that, we were back home, playing a rather odd Trivial Pursuit game (odd more in the sense of the questions we got and our successes thereat than in the actual game play), which I won very narrowly indeed after a shaky start. During this time, supper was slowly started, and it was 10:00 before we started eating. After that was photo shoot time—I’d taken a few pictures over the weekend, and Brinn had her camera out as well, but photo documentary evidence that we had met was still lacking. After that, we watched Hot Fuzz, and so I welcomed Canada Day to the tune of British humour deep in the United States of America. Then I went straight to bed, while Brinniel decided to stay up until I arose, so as to have a greater chance of seeing me off (night owl that she is, it’s not much past her bedtime these weeks of late).

I’m not sure how worth her while it was… I was pretty boring between 5:00 and 5:30, but I certainly appreciated it. Next thing you know, I’m on the road, and Canada Day Tuesday disappears in 3-4 hour increments as I crawl back up the Interstates to my home and native land. What with a detour around Lethbridge to avoid the state of emergency that was declared there, I made it back to Olds around 9:15, so in better time than my trip down had taken, and the adventure was officially over… although I didn’t get back to Edmonton until this morning, when I got up extra early to drive into the city in time for work, adding another couple ours to my mounting sleep debt.

And that’s the basics of the trip… it covers quite well what actually happened, but it barely scratches the surface of the story.