"Thrift Store Contingent." Name of my New Band.

Not really. The next morning we woke to the greatest reason to leave Boise -- escape the blasted inversion! THE SUN! THE SUN! Glorious, after not seeing it for weeks on end. As a waitress told us last weekend, "its been like living in Seattle."

There was a skiing contingent, and a thrift store contingent. While I love a nice outdoor adventure, I am not a skier. Unless cross country. So off to the thrift stores! And other assorted stores, including the book/drug store the featured this polite sign.

I snagged this little gem (copyright 1966), and also a gold pretzel brooch that I promptly lost between McCall and Boise on Sunday morning. It's probably embedded in someone's tire as we speak. I didn't need more reasons to cook with cheese, but they didn't have a "cooking with Brussels sprouts" cookbook for 75 cents." There's a recipe in here that basically amounts to baked celery and cheese casserole. Eww! You know that's a mushy oily mess. Recipes as easy as they are delicious.

As many of you know, we had the strangest Chinese-food restaurant experience ever. That looks less like the weird free plate of orange sherbet ice cream it is, and more like a plate of raw chicken breasts. Mmm.

What? You want Valentine's decorations? HERE'S YOUR STUPID VALENTINE'S DECORATIONS. What? We hung them up.

We did have fun reading our Chinese zodiac horoscopes, discovering three "year of the dogs" at the table. I was born in the year of the dog, and would make an EXCELLENT secret agent. I would make a terrible Garth Brooks.

Back at the..."cabin"... the skiers returned and the thrift store shoppers were done. My husband has long joked about our "4-man tent," that it "would sleep four men, if two of those men were wiener dogs." Just for the record, similarly, an 8-man hot tub isn't that different. We were able to squeeze in 7 women, a couple of them nearly child-sized. But eight? No. Not happening. The view, however, was lovely.

On the way out of town, a stop at Stacey Cakes. And the ice sculpture in front of this business - a big ice cupcake. My mom would have loved this, I think.

And that the cuppie cake didn't look so pastry-like with all of us in front of it. Hmmm. So Fun!