Box office face: $141–$149. Resale floor: up to $606. Call before you click.
Today's Edition
This weekend hands Boise exactly the kind of Saturday that looks perfect on paper: 88 degrees, clear sky, river glittering through the Greenbelt. The catch is that one of those elements is actively dangerous, and the rest of the issue exists to help you navigate around it.
Start with The Forecast first. Pete has the number that overrules everything else on the weekend calendar — and once you have it, the rest of your planning snaps into place. From there, The Table has a dessert-run worth building a route around, and the arts coverage tells you honestly what Mamma Mia! at the Morrison Center is worth — and at what price.
The sky is turned up. The water is not the plan this weekend.
One number changes the whole weekend — read The Forecast first.
— The Boise Pulse
THE TABLE
Soft Landing's clean-label soft serve earns the drive
The Fourcins built a dessert shop without seed oils or HFCS — and now they're taking it to Eagle.
The warm caramel on the Molten Brownie Sundae hits the housemade lava brownie cup while both are still hot, and the sweet cream soft serve starts melting the moment they hand it to you. That is the point. Soft Landing at 1220 W State Street — a restored 1937 building at State and 13th — is not trying to be a lingering experience. It is trying to be the best possible thing that happens after dinner.
Katie and Dominique Fourcin started this after family ice cream outings with their two daughters, and the sourcing choices they made read like a parent's ingredient checklist: no artificial colors, no synthetic flavors, no high-fructose corn syrup, no seed oils. The brand language calls it "the nostalgia of the past with a fresh take on classic soft serve," which is accurate but undersells the kitchen work. The Molten Brownie Sundae is housemade all the way through — the lava brownie cup, the caramel, the cone if you want one. The Affogato — sweet cream soft serve, two shots of locally roasted espresso — is the move if sundaes run too sweet for you. The cold cream against the hot espresso does something simple and correct.
The cone program is more serious than it needs to be: cups, cake cones, sugar cones, and housemade gluten-free and vegan waffle cones. Base flavors are Sweet Cream and Chocolate, with two rotating dairy options and up to two dairy-free at any given time. Reviewers keep pulling out the potato chip brittle as the topping that earns the column — the sweet-and-salty contrast on top of sweet cream is the kind of thing that makes you wish every soft serve shop had a kitchen in the back. Soft Landing does. The rotating specialty sundaes (Dubai Chocolate, Strawberry Lemon Bar, Cookie Butter) change the case for repeat visits.
The Eagle expansion — 55 E State St, Suite 120 — is reportedly opening June 2026. Clean-label premium dessert concepts have followed Eagle's commercial buildout for years, and 55 E State drops Soft Landing inside the downtown Eagle walking pattern. The original State Street crowd already treats the restored 1937 storefront as the post-dinner destination. Eagle's going to do the same thing. One reviewer called it "def retro vibes" and noted "fast, friendly service," which about covers it: the shop is exactly what it looks like from the sidewalk, and it delivers.
WHAT TO ORDER • If you're undecided: the Molten Brownie Sundae. Housemade lava brownie cup, sweet cream soft serve, warm caramel — it tastes like someone actually baked something back there, because they did. • If you want the full experience: any base flavor on a housemade waffle cone with potato chip brittle on top. The salty crunch against cold sweet cream is the thing reviewers keep coming back to. • If you already know what you want: the Affogato — sweet cream soft serve, two shots of locally roasted espresso. The temperature contrast is perfect, and it skews the experience away from dessert and toward something more useful.
BRING: Date night or the whole family — the 1937 State Street storefront does both, and the post-dinner walk from the neighborhood lands here naturally.
📍 1220 W State St., Boise (State and 13th — the 1937 building) 🕒 Monday–Sunday, 12:00 PM – 10:00 PM 💰 Soft serve; sundaes in the range typical for a premium soft serve concept ★ Best value: Affogato — the most kitchen-forward item on the menu at a soft serve price
— Nina's Table: this is the dessert run that survives the drive home — and soon, the drive to Eagle.
The Affogato is cold cream against hot espresso — simple, correct, and the best reason to skip dessert at dinner and come here instead.
Source · softlandingboise.com; wanderlog.com reviews; Reddit r/Boise
THE FORECAST
2,010 cfs
88°F, UV-9, and a river that says no
MOOD OF THE SKY: TURNED UP.
Saturday peaks at 88°F under a UV Index 9 sky — that is "Very High" in the National Weather Service Boise classification, and it means the peak burn window runs from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM with no cloud cover to soften it. Sunday backs off one tick to 87°F and UV Index 8. The overnight lows are 65°F Saturday and 60°F Sunday. There is no weather excuse to stay inside. The excuse to change your plans is in the river.
The Boise River at Glenwood Bridge is running 2,010 cfs — that is the U.S. Geological Survey gauge reading at USGS site 13206000, gauge height 6.07 feet. The safe recreational float window is 500 to 1,500 cfs. The river is not in that window. It is not close. The flow is downstream of a calculated U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Middle Snake Field Office release managing downstream flood risk from seasonal snowpack runoff. This is not a freak reading — it is a managed level, and it is not moving down this weekend. The float crowd is going to look at 88°F and reach for the tube. The cfs number says don't. At 2,010 cfs, the kinetic velocity carries subsurface hydraulics and woody debris that beat experienced kayakers. The river will be ready in about two weeks. It is not ready this weekend.
The other quiet hazard: the foothills hold 85°F past 9:00 PM. The air thermometer at the Boise Air Terminal (KBOI) does not show what the dark soil is radiating after a full UV-9 day. If you are running Table Rock, run it at 6:30 AM — the sunrise is early, the UV is low, and the surface temperatures have not locked in yet. Do not run it at 11. On the air-quality side, the Treasure Valley AQI sits at 44 for PM10, which is Good. The Blue Ridge Fire — 14,317 acres, roughly 16 miles west of Buhl in Owyhee County — has its forward spread effectively stopped, and smoke is not the story this weekend.
The planning summary: go outside, go early, stay out of the river, and wear sunscreen before 11. Dottie has been pacing since Thursday — she knows something is building — but the models say the weekend itself is clean. What's building is Monday at 92°F and Tuesday at 98°F. That is next week's problem. This weekend, just mind the cfs and the clock.
TODAY
2,010 cfs
TURNED UP.
TONIGHT
—
Cooler
TOMORROW
—
Shifting
Source · USGS site 13206000; NWS Boise zone forecast; KBOI METAR; U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Middle Snake Field Office; Filterbuy / IDEQ AQI data; Cornea Idaho fires map
LOCAL INSIDER · ARTS & CULTURE
LOCAL INSIDER · ARTS & CULTURE
Mamma Mia! is at the Morrison Center — here is the honest price math
Two showtimes Saturday, two Sunday, box-office face at $141–$149, secondary market at $476–$606. Only one of those numbers makes sense.
The phone call to the box office is worth six minutes — the gap between $149 and $606 is the only drama that matters before curtain.
The Morrison Center lobby on a Mamma Mia! weekend smells like a bachelorette party and a grandparent reunion happening at the same time, which — honestly — is exactly the correct energy for this show. You have been meaning to catch a Zions Bank Broadway in Boise production since you moved here, and the flagship of their 2025-26 season is the one that fills the parking structures on the BSU campus an hour before curtain.
Enter the national tour of Mamma Mia! at the Velma V. Morrison Center for the Performing Arts.
What It Actually Is
The Morrison Center's own promotional copy describes it as "A mother. A daughter. 3 possible dads. And a trip down the aisle you'll never forget!" — which is an accurate description of the premise and also the entire pitch. This is an ABBA discography concert that happens to have a plot about a Greek island wedding, and it has never pretended to be otherwise. The show is not trying to be challenging. It is trying to be a singalong, and at a matinee with three generations in the same row, that is a completely legitimate weekend choice.
Showtimes: Saturday June 13 at 1:00 PM and 7:00 PM, Sunday June 14 at 1:00 PM and 6:30 PM. Venue age recommendation is 6 and older; the Morrison Center advises parents to independently review the thematic content.
The Ticket Math Nobody Puts in the Marketing
Box-office face value starts at $141–$149, depending on the performance and seating tier. Secondary market prime-floor inventory is running $476–$606 with vendor processing fees included — that is a three-to-four times markup driven by the same algorithmic resale market that broke concert ticketing everywhere. There is a workaround: call the Morrison Center box office directly on day-of before you pay secondary prices. Unsold primary inventory does get released, and at $149 versus $600, the phone call is worth six minutes of your Saturday morning.
Getting There and Getting In
University Drive backs up meaningfully in the 45-minute window before curtain — the matinee crowds and the evening crowds both do it. Main lobby doors open 90 minutes before curtain (concessions, merch), and theater doors open 30 minutes before curtain. Build the parking window into your plan, not just the drive time.
📌 THE PLAYBOOK • If you're on the fence: the 1:00 PM Sunday matinee is the lowest-pressure version — families, a brighter room energy, easier parking than Saturday evening. Call the box office day-of for primary inventory before committing to secondary prices. • If you're going all in: the 7:00 PM Saturday evening show is the bachelorette-and-date-night crowd at full volume. Get there 90 minutes early for the lobby, budget for concessions, and do not pay $600 for a floor seat from a resale vendor when the phone call might save you $450. • If you just want one drink and out: the Morrison Center lobby is open 90 minutes before curtain — if you decide the ticket price math doesn't work, the BoDo and 8th Street restaurant corridor picks up the pre-theater dinner crowd anyway. Plenty of reason to be on that end of downtown without the ticket.
🧭 THE LOCAL BOTTOM LINE • Where to find it: Velma V. Morrison Center for the Performing Arts, Boise State University campus. • When to go: Saturday June 13 (1:00 PM or 7:00 PM) or Sunday June 14 (1:00 PM or 6:30 PM). • The ticket: $141–$149 box-office face; secondary market $476–$606 with fees. Call the box office. • The Verdict: Mamma Mia! is exactly the show it advertises — bring someone who will sing along, buy the face-value ticket, and leave the $600 resale seats to whoever didn't read this far.
Source · morrisoncenter.com; boise.broadway.com; Ticketmaster Mamma Mia! Boise listing; AXS event listing; eventticketscenter.com
LOCAL INSIDER · LOCAL HUSTLE
Boise Airport crossed 5 million passengers
— and it just turned 100
A new Alaska Airlines nonstop to Anchorage, a centennial, and a growth number that is quietly rewriting the Treasure Valley economy.
5.2 million passengers walked through Boise Airport in 2025. That is the first time the airport has cleared 5 million in a single year — a roughly 5 percent year-over-year increase, an absolute gain of more than 238,000 additional passengers over 2024. Most of us who drove past the construction on Airport Way and muttered about the parking situation were already feeling this number. Now we have it on paper.
And this month, Alaska Airlines adds a twice-weekly seasonal nonstop to Anchorage, running through mid-August.
What Got Us Here
The 5.2 million figure is not a rounding-up story. It is a trajectory story. Boise Airport moved from a mid-market regional terminal to something that functions more like a small hub — direct flight access to more destinations, shorter connection chains, a route network that now includes a Pacific Northwest-to-Alaska pipeline that did not exist before. The Anchorage route, launching mid-June 2026, runs twice weekly and covers a corridor that has historically mattered to Idaho labor flows: commercial fishing, timber, oil extraction. In the other direction, it pulls Alaska leisure travelers into the Treasure Valley's outdoor recreation and hospitality economy. Both directions are real economic volume.
April 2026 also marked the start of Boise Airport's Centennial celebrations — 100 years of operation. We tend to notice airports when they are inconvenient. The centennial is a reasonable moment to notice what the infrastructure actually does.
What the Number Costs Us Right Now
5% year-over-year growth at 5.2 million passengers means TSA waits are longer in the peak morning windows. The Vista Avenue and Airport Way ingress routes are congested in ways that were not true three years ago. Downtown hotels and Garden City short-term rentals are pricing weekend stays the way a mid-tier hub does, not a mid-market city — because they are one now. The airport is not a neutral fact. It is a price signal for every sector that touches travel.
The infrastructure math reads as the next chapter. At this growth rate, the terminal and parking structure will need a bond issuance inside the next few years. That conversation is not happening loudly yet. It probably should be.
📌 THE PLAYBOOK • If you fly out of Boise regularly: the Anchorage launch is the route worth knowing. Twice weekly through mid-August covers the Idaho-to-Bristol Bay travel chain — for fishing season, that is a full travel day saved over a connecting itinerary. • If you work in Boise's hospitality or tourism sector: 238,000 additional passengers year-over-year is not an abstraction. That is the number behind the pricing shift you have already been navigating on bookings. • If you just want to know what this means for your commute: plan an extra buffer on Airport Way during peak morning windows, especially on weekends. The parking situation is not getting easier before a bond vote addresses it.
🧭 THE LOCAL BOTTOM LINE • The Entity: Boise Airport and Alaska Airlines. • The Investment: 5.2 million passengers in 2025; a new twice-weekly Anchorage nonstop through mid-August; 100 years of operation. • The Verdict: Boise stopped being a "big small city" on the aviation map sometime in 2025 — the 5 million threshold is the receipt — and the Anchorage route is the first new corridor that signals where the next chapter of that growth is pointing.
5.2 million passengers is the receipt. Boise stopped being a big small city on the aviation map sometime last year.
Source · visitboise.com 2026 events and openings roundup
boise.term — zsh — 120×40
$ boise --today --topic=local insider · family budget
> Giant backyard bubbles: the recipe works, Boise's air is the catch
The giant bubble your kid just watched on a screen lasted about forty-five seconds and stretched the length of a school bus. Your backyard version, mixed at noon on a Saturday in June, will last approximately three seconds before Boise's bone-dry air eats it alive. That is not a recipe failure. That is a timing problem, and the fix is cheaper than the solution.
Enter the giant bubble wand — two wooden dowels, a cotton string loop, a metal washer, and a mixing bowl full of something called "Mike's Gooey Mix."
The Recipe Is Real
The chemistry here is not a TikTok simplification. The optimized mix — 4 cups of Dawn Platinum, 4.25 gallons of hot tap water, 14 grams (about a tablespoon) of baking powder, and 8 grams of either Guar Gum or J-Lube polymer — is doing actual work. The baking powder buffers your tap water and detergent toward a pH of 7 to 7.5, which stabilizes the soap film. The Guar Gum or J-Lube provides polymer scaffolding so the stretched film does not snap the moment it has to hold any surface area. The target is a tubular bubble reaching 15 to 20 feet before atmospheric pressure pops it. That is achievable. Just not at 1:00 PM in June.
What Boise Does to Your Bubble
The forecast this weekend: 14 percent relative humidity and an 88°F high. At that combination, the water in your soap film evaporates faster than the polymer can hold the structure. The bubble wall thins and snaps before it ever gets long enough for the kids to chase. This is the same diagnostic that Boise parents have been hitting every summer — the recipe works at the coast, it half-works here. The fix is not to adjust the recipe. It is to run the activity before 9:00 AM or near sunset, well outside the 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM peak burn window. A shaded yard zone helps. The kids do not care about relative humidity; they care about the giant soap tube that lasted long enough to run under.
Finding the Ingredients
Dawn Platinum, wooden dowels, and baking powder are available at any Treasure Valley grocery or hardware store — Meridian Target, Nampa Lowe's, the Boise Co-op, wherever you already go. The specialty ingredient is Guar Gum or J-Lube. Guar Gum is a natural polysaccharide and may be at the Boise Co-op in the baking section. J-Lube is a veterinary obstetrical lubricant — occasionally at rural farm-supply stores, but most reliably via Amazon. Yes, a veterinary product is doing the structural work in your kids' Saturday craft project. That is the detail that earns the column.
📌 THE SATURDAY PLAYBOOK • If you've got a quiet hour: mix the solution the night before so it hydrates fully, set up in a shaded corner of the yard at 7:00 AM Saturday before UV climbs. Watch: WhatsUpMoms — DIY Giant Bubble Wand tutorial for the wand build. • If you're going all in: source the J-Lube or Guar Gum before Saturday (Amazon is the reliable path), mix "Mike's Gooey Mix" to spec, and plan the activity for early morning or after 7:00 PM. The full 15-to-20-foot tube is real if the humidity cooperates. Also worth watching: NightHawkInLight — Strawberries make surprisingly GIANT Bubbles for the chemistry breakdown. • If you just want a clean win: Guar Gum from the Boise Co-op baking aisle (roughly $6–$8), Dawn and dowels from any hardware store, and a 7:00 AM start in the backyard. The kids will be impressed before they've had breakfast, and cleanup is a garden hose.
🧭 THE LOCAL BOTTOM LINE • What it costs: Dawn Platinum and dowels at Meridian Target or Nampa Lowe's (under $15 total); Guar Gum at the Boise Co-op or via Amazon. • How long: 20 minutes of mixing and wand assembly, then as long as the kids stay interested — which is longer than you expect if the bubbles are actually stretching. • The kid verdict: genuinely goes over well, with the caveat that the Boise summer window is narrow. Time it right and it works. • The Verdict: mix it Saturday night, run it Sunday morning before 9:00 AM — the humidity is marginally better, the UV is low, and a 15-foot soap tube before breakfast is the kind of thing kids talk about for the rest of the weekend.
/* The recipe is real. Boise's air is the catch. Run it at 7:00 AM, not 1:00 PM. */
Source · kitchencents.com DIY Giant Bubble recipe; ourbestbites.com Ginormous Bubbles; YouTube — WhatsUpMoms tutorial; YouTube — NightHawkInLight tutorial; KBOI METAR humidity data