Take a Train

For those of you who might be looking to make a trip to the great Northwest, and our wonderful little city Boise, into a full vacation -like a whole week, why not take the train?
It does take more time, but you do get to see much more of the USofA, and it could be only about $100 more (not including food), but you get almost a week of vacation.
The only problem is that Amtrak doesn't go to Boise, so you would have to stop in Salt Lake City and take a Greyhound or rent a car (this would especially work if you were planning on renting one anyway when you got to Boise)
Here are some options I've found...

From Chicago to Boise by train and car:
$260 Chi to SLC -round trip
AAA would save you $30ish on Amtrak
$120ish for car rental (depending upon the car you pick)
$75-$100 gas (depending upon the gas milage the car has)
SLC to Boi- 5 hours, 340mi
Leave Chi Oct 1 (Thurs) afternoon
Arrive SLC Oct 2 (Fri) late evening
Drive to Boi arrive early morning of Oct 3rd (Sat)
Wedding is at 4:30, Oct 3rd
If this is cutting it too close for your liking, start a day earlier, and mosey up to Boise.
Drive to SLC Oct 4 (Sun) late evening
Leave SLC Oct 5 (Mon) early morning
Arrive Chi Oct 6 (Tues) afternoon
6 DAYS approx. $750/couple

If there are more than 2 in your party you could split the cost of the car rental and gas and therefore the total/person would be less
For Example: The above per person would be $375, but with 2 more people added it would be $315 (plus you could split a room cost 4 ways too)

From Chicago to Boise by train and bus:
$368 Chi to SLC -round trip
AAA would save you $30ish on Amtrak
Leave -train- Chi Sept 30 (Wed) afternoon
Arrive SLC Oct 1 (Thurs) late evening, change to bus
Arrive Boi Oct 2 (Fri) evening
Wedding is at 4:30, Oct 3rd, Sat
Stay downtown and you may not have to worry about transportation too much
Leave Boi Oct 4 (Sun) morning
Arrive SLC Oct 4 (Sun) late afternoon
this may pose a problem here, you'd have approx. 10 hours to kill before the bus...
Leave SLC Oct 5 (Mon) early morning
Arrive Chi Oct 6 (Tues) afternoon
7 DAYS approx. $735/couple

There are other options to take the train to Spokane or Portland (both 7hrs away), spend the day and then take the bus to Boise, and then go back through SLC to Chi. This option added around $20. Just go to www.amtrak.com and play around with the schedules. Or let me know if you need something specific and you need some help with it.

Notes:
With these options you would only need to rent a hotel room for 1-2 nights
I've only checked Alamo for car rental, there may be cheaper companies
I tried to round up on $$ so I hope I'm somewhat accurate

This is compared to flight info found on www.Orbitz.com
Oct 2 (Thurs) -Oct 5 (Mon) $554/couple or $277/person
Oct 2 (Thurs) -Oct 4 (Sun) $594/couple or $297/person

I will be looking for better pricing by Plane, Train and Car.
I know this is just from Chicago right now, but I'll look it up for other places too (Tennessee especially) Just let me know if this interests you in the slightest, and I'll get to work.