Videos on YouTube...
In the one day, within an hour of the most remote urban area in the continental United States, it's possible to go downhill and cross-country skiing, whitewater rafting, horse riding, zip-lining, fishing, mountain biking, golfing, to have buzzards swooping around your head, and more.
We know all this because we've done much of it ourselves, much in the one day. Including the swooping buzzards.
But if you need proof, go to youtube.com and find Mitch's Magnificent Seven, a four-minute video posted by Boise local Mitch Knothe, who works for the Idaho tourism office.
Since we met Knothe in Idaho, we know that he made the video as a personal effort, not as part of a subtle "push-polling" campaign on behalf of his employers.
Indeed, with Knothe's help, we did much of the adventure stuff that it's possible to do within an hour of Boise, and plenty more, as well.
We also know that Knothe, deliberately or unwittingly, has found a powerful and evocative way of showcasing what remote Boise, usually the butt of jokes of people "back East" or on the US western seaboard, has to offer.
"What I love about Boise is that it surprises people," says another Boise resident, Lisa Edens, who works for the Boise visitors bureau.
Edens is referring to the way Boise creeps up on the visitor: expecting the hick, good ol' boy western town -- of which there is an element: the governor of Idaho is a chap called Butch Otter -- they find rather a sophisticated, vibrant and cosmopolitan city that's large enough to offer life, but small enough to offer warmth, much like Newcastle, or Auckland.
A popular way of expressing disdain for remote locations is to describe them as "way out west, where the buffalo roam".
Actually, Boise (pronounced locally, Boysie) is even more remote than this, since even the buffalo stop at its eastern border.
"There are no buffalo in Idaho," says Knothe, chaperoning a group of visitors around the state's highlights.
Some buffalo may stray into Idaho by virtue of their habitat in Yellowstone, the world's first national park, on Idaho's north-eastern border with Wyoming, but they are not common.
"Boise could be considered by be the most remote urban area in the United States," says the Boise Convention and Visitors Bureau in a fact sheet, citing its nearest neighbours: Salt Lake City (542km away), Spokane (610km), Reno (684km), and Portland (692km).
Boise's name derives from French fur trappers, schlepping northwards from the plains of Colorado and Utah, who mounted a rise and found a fertile plain along a river lined with trees.
"Le bois!" they exclaimed, reportedly, referring to the trees, such a relief after the dry monotony of the plains, so many cottonwoods that they looked like a forest along the river that now bears the city's name, along which the city has developed a 43km ribbon park.
This appears to have been corrupted to Boise, which appears to have no literal translation, thanks to the ultimate "e".
The real surprise about Boise, however, is the multitude of activities that the tourist seeking adventure can find, all within easy striking distance of the city.
Boise nestles in the base of the Boise Hills, at the top of which sits Bogus Basin, touted as a downhill and aerial ski venue should Boise ever bid for the Winter Olympics.
An hour north of town, you can shoot the rapids on rafts or kayak along the Payette River, you can fish, and you can trek on horseback through the hills.
Not far away, closer to Boise at Horseshoe Bend, you can zip-line over the forest canopy with Zip Idaho.
Zip-line?
Relatively new, it's a novel way that Horseshoe Bend local Eric Faull, and his brother, Jim, found to employ the land that's been in their family since the late 1800s, but which has lain idle for years, apart from some agistment, and local bears, elk and wild turkeys.
Faull's zipline is seven legs of cable strung above the hills, valleys and forest, which the adventure-crazed tourist rides strapped into a harness, much as a flying fox.
Hurtling at up to 60km per hour and 35 metres above the ground, between you and oblivion are two metal clips, a wire line and a harness around your backside.
A couple of years ago, Faull was in Costa Rica, where zip-lining is a bit of a craze, and thought it probably would work at Horseshoe Bend.
It took the brothers 18 months to get going, with regulatory approvals, financing, course design and construction. But since June 2008, they've dropped 4500 riders across the seven zip-line legs 600 metres up in the mountains above Horseshoe Bend.
The ride starts relatively tamely, easing you into the concept of stepping into nothing off a platform high in the pines. The first leg is around 30 metres long, just seven or eight metres above ground.
Each succeeding platform is higher, and each leg longer. There's a rest after four legs, where they serve cordial, before you launch into the two highlights, Wild Turkey, a 520-metre screamer across a valley, above the pines, to a target that's a speck in the distance when you hurl yourself off the mountainside, and Double Trouble, a pair of lines over 550 metres along which you can race a cobber to the finish, just the thing for impressing that Swedish backpacker you met on the first platform.
The golden rule up here is, you don't touch your own safety clips. Only Mike and Dave, your ride controllers, touch your clips.
"Every now and again, we hear a `Click, click', and we see some little kid peering over the edge (20 metres up), saying, `Can I go next?'" says Mike.
After zip-lining, after whitewater rafting, having vultures swooping on you seems tame.
But you can experience that at the World Center for Birds of Prey, about 20 minutes outside of Boise, on the hill from where the French trappers may first have seen the cottonwoods.
The centre is a research facility and a hospital, where volunteers provide regular talks on the wildlife in their care.
First is a turkey vulture, who flies back and forth across the room, enticed by her handler, and attracted by people's bare feet. We're advised to keep them hidden.
"Do you know why the turkey vulture has a smooth head," asks her handler, walking back and forth across the room, providing a moving incentive for the vulture.
"It's so she can get her head in and out of a carcass."
Then there's Daka, a crow who circulates the room collecting donations and depositing them into a collection box, after winding up a long string to get at some food.
Yes, Boise is a surprising place.
IF YOU GO:
* The writer was a guest of United Airlines Australia and Idaho Tourism.
