Having A Great Time in Pocatello

GONG XI FA CAI ! and all best wishes to all our danzbuddies and friends back home.

All too soon we had to end our 5-day stay in Pocatello, Idaho and what a great time we had.

Although it is a small town, Pocatello (with only 55,000 residents) is well-served by many good hotels, shopping malls, and nice restaurants. The TownePlace Suite was comfortable with good daily breakfast, a nice in-door swimming pool with hot-pool (jacuzzi) and in-room internet connection - a great help as we were able to maintain link with the stock market in Singapore and not missed out on the action at SGX.

The only thing that bothered us was the snow - it was great to see snow falling outside in the morning, but it meant having to dress up in multi-layers complete with hats and gloves every time we go outdoors. And it meant having to scrape snow off the car every morning before we can drive off

The people we met in Pocatello were all very nice and friendly - everyone we encountered would say 'hi' and smile at us. We were invited to dinner with Kelvin's boss, Tim Flagstad and colleague Kellis Cobinett at the Texas Roadhouse, a real cowboy type of restaurant serving buffalo wings, steaks, hamburgers, hot dogs and all other typical American dishes. And, surprise - throughout the evening, the waiters and waitresses will gather together and do a line dance!

We went to the home of Kelvin's colleague and wife, John O'Connell and Nancy Goodman and their menagerie (2 dogs - Osa and Trevor and two cats ) and had a nice dinner cooked by John himself ( a great vegetable broth and pasta) - also enjoyed 'home brewed' beer and stout, all produced by John in his backyard garage.....

The big news for the week was all about President Obama's inauguration and it seems to be the only thing being talked about on all TV channels on Monday and Tuesday January 19th and 20th. We were invited by John and Nancy to join them at the Pocatello 'Obama Inauguration Celebration' party at the Stephens Performing Arts Center. And so we went and had a whale of a time, meeting more nice people, eating, drinking and dancing the night away.

We enjoyed dancing with the crowd and was able to share a bit of line dancing on the dance floor. It was a nice surprise for us to see a picture of our dancing at the inauguration party in the next morning's edition of The Idaho State Journal, the state's daily newspapers.

Other places of interest we visited included the Poatato Museum in nearby Blackfoot (where 90% of USA-consumed potatoes are produced, the Lava Spring Hot Pools (where we had a nice two hours soaking in the natural hot pools) and the ISU Museum of Natural History (where we learned lots about the red indians, cowboys and the great migration of the white men to the wild west among other things.

Most of all we enjoyed the time spent with Kelvin - and we are happy to see him doing well in his job as a sports journalist at the Idaho State Journal. He gets to cover all sorts of sports all over Idaho as well as in many other American cities. He has a good office, lives in a nice duplex on 6th Avenue, a good neighbourhood in centre of town and enjoys what he doses - we were able to join and see him at work covering a basketball game at the Idaho State University Stadium

And so on a snowy morning on Friday 23rd January we bade farewell to Kelvin with a promise to come again, next time in summer for better weather and for a visit to the Yellowstone National Park which we missed out visiting because of the cold winter weather.We left Pocatello at 11.45 am for the long drive back to Salt Lake City, shivering all the way in sub-zero temperature and arrived at the Marriot Downtown Hotel in Salt Lake City at 3.30 pm.