Boise---crazy town

Usually the Hampton Inn and Suites is not the grand hotel of a city, but in Boise, the scale works out to make it so.

It certainly has a nice view. From the window of my room, I can see down into the nexus of the architecture of downtown.  It's the seedling of great city, fascinating to see from this angle.

It's a little clump of proto skyscrapers, dominated by the Zionsbank tower, beautiful in  glass, with step-like neon along the tiered floors culminating in a temple-like steeple that looms above the entertainment district like prow of a ship.

That's where the trendy steakhouses are, and a two-story complex open late, about five blocks down from the hotel.

On Friday night the restaurants and bars are full of visiting couples, families, and lots of young people---locals who have gravitated to this city as a haven, from even smaller towns.

Young women go out in groups of two and larger, many aleady drunk and boisterous by 8 pm. They seem ravenous for fun. 

Within view of the hotel are also several new glass residential towers in the style of Vancouver. They rise above parts of the newer entertainment distict, with parking structures built into the lower floors. The Hampton, eleven stories tall, anchors the south end of the downtowndistrict, and is exactly in this style with the municipal parking garage built into it.  Other buidings shield the state capitol, which is two blocks further down Eight Street.

Down here the distict becomes a contemporary lifestyle center, but with the new construction in faux-period brick, integrated into some old existing brick buildings that were renovated.  Ample use of neon to give a lively feeling in the evening. A few nice contemporary restaurants and bars with menus posted on the sidewalk, and big television screens visible from the street.

Could be a lot worse. A textbook on how to do this kind of thing, extending the extant downtown, on the cheap.

On the street is a big national chain multiplex theater with a towering vertical sign. Next to it an outlet for the local college sports team, a football powerhouse that has marketed itself well in recent years. Within one block of the hotel are dozen outlets for food and drink---a coffeeshop, a pizzeria, several bars, a fish restaurant, and of course---a P.F. Chang's.