BOISE -- Boise Mayor Dave Bieter knows it doesn't hurt to ask.
So when Bieter found himself in Washington D.C. for the national Conference of Mayors on the eve of President Barack Obama's trip to the City of Trees, he approached the White House to see if he could catch a ride back to Boise.
"We had some advance notice through the police department and the fire department that he was coming, so we thought 'all they can say is no,'" Bieter said.
At first, the president's staff said it wasn't going to work. But hours later, the mayor got a call that he had scored a spot aboard the Air Force One with the president.
"As cool as you think it would be, it was that cool," Bieter said. "About half an hour out of Boise, the president comes walking back, and at first you can't get your head around it."
He said he had met the president once before, alongside 250 other mayors from towns across the U.S. But this time, Bieter had a chance to chat with the president one-on-one about politics and his Basque heritage.
Obama referenced the conversation in his Wednesday afternoon speech, after joking that Boise's mayor "didn't break anything" aboard the Air Force One.
"When we were coming back, he was telling me the story about his grandfather, an immigrant from the Basque region coming here," the president told the crowd of 6,600 inside Boise State's Caven-Williams Sports Complex.
Bieter emerged smiling from the presidential plane right behind Obama before hopping into his motorcade for the short trip to campus.
He said he had never expected to find himself aboard the Air Force One or inside a limo with the leader of the U.S.
"Holy cow, you don't even put it on your bucket list, because you think there's no way," he said.
Bieter is headed back to D.C. after the speech for the rest of the mayors' conference, but says he doesn't think anything will top his ride to Boise.
"I got to ride on the USS Boise submarine, and I thought that would be the coolest thing I did as mayor," he said. "This was an amazing day."
