Idaho Trip – Part 1: Going to a Party

Darren recently passed his PE exam in civil engineering, and held a get-together in celebration. So John and I drove out there in the van with all three dogs. Afterwards, Darren accompanied us on a backpacking trip in the Sawtooth Wilderness.

The 2-day drive out there was tiring. It’s a long way! We were towing a U-haul trailer behind the van, full of furniture for Darren. Everything is more of a nuisance when dragging a trailer.

Here’s a photo of a multi-vehicle accident involving 2 passenger cars and 5 or 6 pickup trucks with trailers. That ratio seemed fairly representative of what was on the road. There were a lot of trailers out; it seemed like every second vehicle was towing something.

I didn’t see anything that looked very serious (I hope), but what a nuisance; trailers askew, loads shifted or dropped, some truck-body damage. I hope the horses were ok (and people too of course, but I think they were). I was worried about the one little car that seemed to sustain the most damage. We had high headwinds and crosswinds, and I’m guessing someone’s trailer swerved a bit too much and caused a chain reaction.

We were lucky not to be in that ourselves, but by the time we got to our hotel in Utah we were wiped out. First we had to feed and walk the dogs, and we didn’t even get our own dinner ordered until bedtime. Then the hotel restaurant was having some sort of cook-walked-out fiasco and it took over an hour to get our food.

At some point John called down and canceled our order and went to bed, not realizing that I was sitting down in the restaurant waiting for it (I had walked out on him after a fight). What a mess. It’s always a disaster when we drive too long, and in the future we’re going to have to stop earlier, even if we don’t make it as far as planned.

The next day we made it to Boise plenty early. John was anxious to get the trailer unloaded and returned, plus, we weren’t able to park our van and trailer on the street in front of our Airbnb because there wasn’t room. The Airbnb was in one of those cute old neighborhoods with very limited garage and parking space, and the street in front of our Airbnb was parked full.

We parked on the street in front of the neighboring house, but the older couple who lived there were being protective of “their” property and asked us to move. Even though they didn’t OWN the street parking. But meanwhile they had blocked us in. It was actually a bit tricky to try to explain to the very old, old guy that if he would please move his vehicle so we could get out, we would leave immediately.

Since we had nowhere to park, we went straight to Darren’s house to unload. Darren didn’t realize we planned to unload that soon and wasn’t planning on being there, which is how we ended up unloading with the help of my ex-husband, his wife, and one of Darren’s roommates. One big happy family.

That night Laura flew in, and stayed with us at the Airbnb. It was actually a great spot for us (despite the lack of street parking). It had two bedrooms, a nicely remodeled kitchen and two surprisingly large bathrooms, and a great little backyard. Best of all was the doggie door!

I forgot to take pictures, but here’s a photo from the internet of our Airbnb. It’s more than 100 years old.

The party the next day was a challenge. I’m never good in large groups, especially large groups of strangers. Or more accurately, large groups of strangers plus ex-in-laws. And I didn’t feel like I could just go hide in a corner somewhere because I wanted to support Darren. His hosting skills are iffy, so I was trying to help him by playing hostess, but my hostessing skills are iffy too.

I kept trying to make small talk and tell funny stories, but I just wasn’t resonating with the crowd. I did great with his two roommates (whom I like very much), but otherwise I basically bombed. Darren and his dad’s side of the family are all religious. He had some friends from church there, and some (apparently) religious coworkers as well.

I tried to be respectful, but I don’t know the culture. For example, I was telling a dog story (which I thought was funny), but I used the word “shit” a few times (in reference to dog poop), and that did not go over well. In my defense, I wasn’t using the word as an expletive, I just thought that “shit” and “poo” were roughly synonymous, particularly in regards to dogs. Apparently not!

Darren had the party hours scheduled for the entire day, and I didn’t even think to take any pictures the whole day – that’s how stressed I was! I was glad when we eventually got home to our little Airbnb.

But I don’t have any regrets. I really think get-togethers are important. I get stressed at my own parties too, but I still have them. Community and friends are important. We have some old friends in Albuquerque whom we haven’t seen in forever, and we hope to have them over before the summer is out.