Just before one gets to the Old Idaho Penitentiary and the Botanical Gardens in Boise, there is a strange formation of sandstone fragments in an otherwise vacant and untended lot to the right side of the road. There's no indication of who put them there and why.

Partial view of the stones with Table Rock in the background.

A phone call to the Old Penitentiary revealed that these stones are part of a proposed Chinese Garden that the Idaho Botanical Gardens wants to put here. Sandstone isn't really important to Chinese gardens as far as I know, but the Old Pen is made out of sandstone from a local quarry (by the inmates, no less), and so there's the local connection.

A favorite local institution at dusk. Photo taken on the way home from the strange stones, chasing the daylight on my bicycle.