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The flight from Boise - the top picture shows Boise with the Sawtooth Mountains in the background - to Chicago was on time, even early. It's been a beautiful flight over the Rockies (2nd pic), no clouds and no turbulences. We even saw The Tetons and Devil's Tower!


Anxious, originally, about having only one hour transfer time in Chicago, we, fortunately, arrived early and had no problems to catch our direct flight to Munich. Chicago was cold, but there was not much snow. Flew on a new B777 and - yeah! - got upgraded to Polaris' BusinessFirst Class, where we not only could stretch out on a flat "bed", but also had the royal treatment and were wined and dined nicely. Flight was only (considering upgrade)eight hours, but despite of all the unexpected luxury we didn't sleep much. Arrived on time, 9:30 am to MUC, and were picked up by a friend there. Gray skies, clouds, about 5 deg C. (40 F). Welcome home!

Farewell to Boise - back home we go,,,

On Wednesday evening the Go West Farewell Party took place in a new event venue by name "JUMP" in downtown Boise. A big buffet was set up, no lack of drinks and good conversation. On the last evening people are usually more laid-back and glad that the conference is over.

Thursday was "Adventure Day" with a choice of different tours for congress participants. We choose the brewery tour, which was mostly about "tasting" and not so much about "touring" and gathering information about some of the 25 (!) breweries in town. We only went to two: Barbarian (a brewery which is experimenting quite a bit with over 20 beers on tap, see pic above) and Payette. Breweries here seem to not serve food in the majority, therefore we got lunch delivered into the brewery from a great Mexican food truck in front of the building and indulged in delicious Empanadas, Tacos and Burritoss. Last stop was a bottle shop, which had a great selection of beers from all over the world.

After the tour we explored downtown, the State Capitol and a view of Downtown:

Also, there are many murals in downtown, one even with a Bavarian theme:

In the evening the circle became complete: We met with a gentleman who we had met in Elko, at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering. He has a second home in Boise and though we already had doubts that he'll get in contact with us again, as promised, he did and we had a wonderful last evening with dinner at Bardenay Restaurant & Distillery. We found out that he is a retired FBI investigator and - being a big mystery fan myself! - it was fascinating to talk to him.

Another short night. My cold got worse in the last couple of days and my nose was clogged, couldn't breathe and therefore was awake quite a bit. Fortunately, we were not in a hurry this morning. Took a hot bath, packed and got ready for the hotel shuttle to the airport around 10 am. Boise has a clean little airport, very convenient, short lines, friendly employees.


Well, almost five weeks on the road now, and still not really happy to go home. It's been three (or even four) trips in one this time: Nevada's Cowboy Country, tropical Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest and Boise/Idaho for the conference. It's been a smooth trip, very interesting, though, also exhausting in the end. Ten flights in total on this trip - don't need that, but it was not to avoid.