Motorized Therapy: Reuniting with an old friend in Boise taught me new things
A longtime friend shows me that among these farmlands sits an urban oasis with a pulse for cars.
(Author's Note: 𝘞𝘦𝘭𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 "𝘔𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘺" 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 2,000-𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘱. 𝘐 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘪𝘵.)
My time spent decompressing in the Biggest Little City in the World was just what my therapist would have wanted even if it was imperfect; a bittersweet taste of my home away from home. It's rare that I get to unwind with a good friend there while 𝘯𝘰𝘵 on Air National Guard orders, so I made every mile cruising through the Tahoe woods and Reno suburbia feel like the best antidepressant you couldn't ever get from a doctor, haunting wildfire smoke be damned. For two-and-a-half days, I was set free.
While I hated having to jump ship away from my close friend with whom I spent my time, we acknowledged that we had places to be and that we'd see each other again soon as I begin to prepare for military deployment. We bid farewell to one another promising to keep each other updated with our personal situations over the days to come. After one last breakfast at our favorite little café, she departed for Sacramento to see her girlfriend who was assisting in fighting the wildfires at the time, and I made my way to pay a visit to another old companion eight hours away.
Oh. Remember how I was previously fussing about how the drive to Reno was a depressing tour of desolate wastelands? Yeah, perhaps I was too harsh. All of a sudden, it wouldn't hurt to be at the Area 51 Alien Center at this point.
After hundreds of miles and hours of driving, smoke continued to follow me north as I trek towards Boise, Idaho, a place of... Well... Um. It's a city in Idaho, that one state people forget is there until you mention potatoes or point it out on the map. The unwavering flatness of the plains separating the two cities combined with Grand Theft Auto IV draw distance made for a drearier atmosphere than Las Vegas to Reno. Only my time in northern Texas rivals this landscape for having me experience "true level."
The well-mannered MBRP exhaust channeled the humming of the Cyclone V6 into a sort of ASMR experience as my Mustang wafted along the endless two-lane straights without a sweat. I tuned in to a podcast as Spike Feresten and Cam Ingram came as guests on 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘚𝘮𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘛𝘪𝘳𝘦 to remind me of the existence of car buyers whose registration fees probably cost more than my net worth will ever be. Inside the cabin, I ignored the haze that stalked me and enjoyed the peace as my troubling thoughts have yet to catch up with me at this point. My Mustang may not be a GT, but it's still a hell of a grand tourer for the money.
As the city outskirts drew ever closer, the terrain quickly transformed as the flatlands descended into canyons and then quickly ascended into the hills. The incessant straights began to kink and curve as the tarmac snaked through the various elevation changes. Soon, I was deposited onto farmlands blotted with corn and potato fields.
Yep. I made it to Idaho. Within an hour, the rural towns grew bigger and more modern before eventually giving way to suburbia and urban development. I had made it to the forgotten city that's not Atlantis! And soon, I will have made it to the residence of my old high school friend and fellow DriveTriber, Derek Sanders.
The same as we were riding the bus in 2012, only a little faster.
Having met on the school bus before either of us could even drive, we go back many years, and so it's a shame that we haven't seen each other in well over three. Our only connections have been through online Forza games, the Earth-shattering breakthrough in modern living that is social media, and our beloved (and horridly cursed) Messenger group chat. Remember what I had mentioned before and nourish those friendships, no matter how far away they are. Your inner self will thank you.
It's amazing to see how far we've grown yet how familiar we are. We're taking better care of ourselves and rocking faster metal than we ever could have hoped for riding the bus. We also went from being whimsical, optimistic children to becoming working, taxpaying adults in a society that eats Tide Pods that made "WAP" an award-winning song. Seriously, how did we let that happen? Someone needs to get castrated for that. Hit 'em with ye olde "dick twist."
Meet Scoob, Derek's canyon-carving Subaru Outback
Derek is a simple, easygoing lad who lives, eats, and breathes cars more than me like a junkie on the finest crack. I never troubled him with my woes although he'll surely know when he reads this series. Instead, I kept my worries at bay as they still had not fully manifested again, and relaxed over a good dinner and a binge session on YouTube just in time for Toyota GR 86 content to come off embargo.
Same shit, different year. Normally, I enjoy variety, but this kind of familiarity brought a warmth I haven't felt in quite a while. Seeing an old friend who grew up yet has also been frozen in time was like turning back the clock to a better time as kids. This was further accentuated by the fact that we, two grown-ass men, probably spent a solid 40 minutes on one of these nights hunched over the dinner table listening to childhood bangers and assembling a LEGO Toyota Supra model.
Déjà vu of the highest caliber, there's nothing like the good old days. Over the next couple of days, however, I'd go on to see things I never thought I would, at least not here.
First to reel in my wandering mind is the actual city of Boise which proved to be a bit of a strange place to someone like me. I'm not sure how to fluently paint the same picture I have in my head, and some of you might see Boise as just some regular-ass city while thinking I've gone mad, but I genuinely believe this place is something bizarrely special.
An oasis in the middle of nowhere, the Boise metro area has a 44% higher population than Reno (749,000 compared to 426,000), yet feels smaller. Kudos to wide roadways and vast expanses of land spreading the people out far and wide whereas Reno can feel no less dense than Vegas at times. There's a beautiful downtown that is so unfathomably alien to me in the way it's maintained that I couldn't believe cities as clean as this could exist. For crying out loud, there are public drinking fountains in the middle of the sidewalk! Perhaps that's what you get in a small-ish city seated within a less populous state built on the backs of tradesmen and agriculturalists and bolstered by a growing industrial and technology sectors. Or at least that's what I thought until Derek and I turned our heads to acknowledge a seemingly deranged gentleman screaming at the top of his lungs.
"I lied," Derek said nonchalantly. "We have 𝘰𝘯𝘦 crackhead."
Still. Boise ain't a bad place at all. Probably a little too small for me, but I cherished the experience nonetheless. The only other downtown area I can think of that was less of a fuss was Wichita Falls, Texas... Probably because almost no one lived there.
Here's one for the FoodTribers (No, I don't remember what's in these tacos aside from Tuna.).
"Amazing what a city can be like when it's built on respectable establishments," Derek continued.
"Yeah, not gambling and whorehouses," I quipped back.
Who would've guessed this place would also have a rich and peculiar car culture.
Interestingly, car culture has taken heavy root in this place. Casual muscle car cruises flow through downtown Boise on a weekly basis like a perfectly organized ant colony. Tuners are commonplace including your typical BRZs and Lancer Evolutions, but it's Subarus that reign supreme in a city that sees its fair share of winter snowfall. My enthused tour guide also explained how shows and meets occasionally dot the map with vehicles of all sorts from kids in their modified imports to wealthier individuals with top-dollar supercars. And it's not just Gallardos or 911s but hardcore, new-age toys like Huracan Performantes and 488 Pistas.
"You have to know that some people simply come from old families that have just 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 here a long-ass time," Derek explains as he walks me through over all the supercars that run wild in Boise. I guess all those potatoes have really been raking in the dough for some people.
There's even a touge group in the region which make frequent runs up the local twisties in cars which probably shouldn't be going as fast as they allegedly go. I'll give them credit for the charming, zero-fucks-given AE86 Corolla I saw boogying down the neck-breaking, nauseating road north of downtown.
Ain't this the most mid-2000s magazine cover-esque photo I've ever taken.
Bogus Basin Road is that fabled crucible for local Fujiwara wannabes, and it's a violently technical road with decreasing radius corners guaranteed to make you eat a dick if you're not careful. Oh, and during the day, there are cows awfully close to the tarmac. So watch out for that. It's exhausting. It's a hillclimb that rewards a well-tuned car and a precise driver.
Get it right, and it's the rollercoaster ride of a lifetime. Get it wrong, and all of a sudden, that Clarkson line about many poos coming out won't be that funny of a joke anymore. Running up the hill will let you live out your Pikes Peak fantasies but also remind you of any power deficit your car may have while downhill runs will set ill-prepared brakes ablaze making for perfect caution lights on the nighttime touge runs that are popular with the locals.
It certainly challenged both my car on its new setup as well as myself as a driver, and although I was sketched the hell out at first, the next couple sprints certainly built my confidence and taught me that I'm just a little bit better than I originally thought I was. Only a little bit. Staying humble keeps you out of the weeds, right? It was still a revelation to see how much capability both the car and I had in us, but man, does it burn you out to even go at a seven-tenths pace.
I was fortunate to make multiple runs behind the wheel of both the Mustang and Derek's heavily modified, autocross-built Subaru Outback which, aside from a mostly-stock boxer and usable rear seats, shares little in common with the soccer mom wagon it started life as. Lovingly christened "Scoob," it had the potential to outgrip the Mustang, but I had the clear power and braking advantage. Both cars easily dispatched the roughly 14-mile climb and made for a wildly fun comparison of both of our platforms and directions we took them in. The cars remained perfectly intact for an impromptu, amateur-hour phone photography session at the top which also taught me that I definitely need to invest in a 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 camera. I'll take recommendations, by the way.
Over those three days, I had learned to better appreciate smaller cities and the unique cultures they can bring to the American melting pot. I didn't know what to expect when I first arrived, but all I can say know is that I'm glad I took the chance to visit. Because of it, I got to reunite with a long-gone friend and, thanks to his hospitality, experience both the coddling familiarity of better days as well as the learning curve of exploring somewhere totally alien. As the cherry on top, the smoke even began to clear revealing the first blue skies I had seen all week. Now that's a welcome change of pace.
Thanks to Derek for the hospitality. Until next time, old friend.
Go out there and explore somewhere new. Infuse some variety in your life even if it's somewhere small a few miles outside your hometown. Perhaps there's something there you never thought you'd see but will be glad you did. Or maybe you'll just run into some screaming lunatic. You'll never know until you try, so take the chance and explore a world beyond your own. Like driving different cars, whether it proves to be a good experience or a bad one, the memory will surely make for a fun story to tell.
That public sidewalk drinking fountain will surely live in my head rent-free until the end of time.
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Comments (14)
Now we just gotta get @Bunga Bunga Stig and film the shittiest episode of The Top Grand Car Trek you’ve ever seen
Yessss!!! Buy the cheapest V8 powered vehicles we can find and do some crazy shit!
Aye if you're ever down for a roadtrip and your in Wyoming lmk
I thought you lived in northern Texas or something 👀
Moving very soon for college
I enjoyed this article, and even though it was a bit long and folksy for the subject matter, I did read the whole thing.
Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I don’t understand why modern journalists throw the “s**t” and “f**k” words into serious articles. They don’t add anything to clarity or emphasis, and any of the well known glossy car magazines would edit them out.
Just my two cents worth.