In Boise, we hunkered down for a day to catch up on things – laundry, emails and a first day of schoolwork for the boys. The outside temperature was scheduled to be a wicked 99 degrees, so we were happy to have full electrical services to run both of our AC units from 8:00a until midnight.

I needed to wash the truck, which still carried mud from our Glacier Park off-roading adventure a month prior. Asher joined me for that and to pick up lunch. Despite the heat, we stopped at Sonic and sat with the windows down eating, talking and sweating – although the chocolate shakes helped cool things down a bit. The Sonic was so favorably received that I had to repeat the visit the following day with Ronan.

While in town, I reconnected with Lane, a very good friend of mine from high school who I hadn’t seen in 20 years. The depth of a great friendship can be measured by how quickly you pick up where you left off, and Lane and I didn’t miss a beat. He gave me a proper tour of many of the city’s finer drinking establishments and I got a good feel for Boise’s vibrance. Plus I got to see him playing the role of de facto mayor of Boise … everywhere we went people came up to say hello.

While I was having fun, Angela and the boys studied. They also had to reel in our awnings in the midst of another freakish wind storm that tore across the plain.

Along the road we’ve met several interesting people, and in Boise we met Tom and Teddie. Tom was an older gentleman, perhaps in his late sixties or early seventies; and Teddie was his white poodle, who was shaped quite literally like a brick … like the dog had swallowed a birdhouse. We later learned that a series of steroid shots needed for skin issues had caused his distortion. Anyway, while Timber and Teddie played, we talked to Tom.

He was originally from Lubbock, Texas, son of a farming family who’d become a circulating RN for hire and spent a fair amount of the past twenty years doing 18 to 24 month stints with hospitals across the western U.S. It was in that capacity that he came to Boise. He seemed to enjoy the vagabond life, and his portable skills allow for a perfect work/life balance for him and his wife. Tom was a compendium of stories about his experiences in Jackson, Wyoming and Aspen, Colorado, and seemed to know all the places we should visit on our great adventure.

Angela and I noticed the prominent droop on the left side of Tom’s face as he spoke, and eventually he shared with us that four weeks prior he’d had a medical emergency himself while working in the ER. He was still waiting for final diagnosis, but initial tests indicated that he had a lesion at the base of his brain. All in all, he seemed very matter of fact about this whole crisis. He was a warm and interesting man and we wished him the best in his recovery.