I bought a great book about a month ago that has 100 hikes around Boise. It has a great map and what age kids it is appropriate for.  I decided it was time to try out one. We have found we really like hiking together-it's good exercise, gets us outside and we live in a really wonderful area for hiking.  Did you know Outside magazine rated Boise the #1 city to move to?
So we loaded up, stopped at Stan's in Boise for lunch-he has a hot dog restaurant by BSU and is from New york.  He flies the hot dogs in daily-they were pretty good.  So once properly fueled up, we went to the hills around the Old Idaho Penitentiary. We picked a semi-easy trail-Hannah is still a little iffy on the steeper parts.  The day was beautiful, clear blue skies, a nice breeze.  We hiked around lots of rocks, such a pretty view. 

No wonder they call Boise the "City of Trees".

We could all see the Old penn from that high and thought it would be fun to take a tour.  It was built by stone in the 1800's and is one of only 4 territorial prisons in the nation.  We had a great time, it was a great learning experience for the kids.  Tons of history everywhere.  It was a good day :-)

The buildings are made of all stone and have lots of detail.

Where the women went, it was pretty small.  It housed one of the first women serial killers in the late 1860's.

Taylor is one of the main 3 story prisons.

This block was small, but next to it was the hanging room with a chute.  Creepy.

Solitary confinement, AKA "Siberia".  Mike nicely locked Taylor in one to give him a "realistic" feel.

I decided to see how the bed was.  What you can't see in this pic is this is one of the older buildings with no indoor plumbing.  The honey bucket was on the right side of picture in a little hole in the wall.

A cell in the Women's Ward-it had a homier feel than the others.