September 7th - Idaho and Washington (not to mention Oregon)

We spent Thursday night at a Montana rest stop on the border of Idaho.  "I wonder if there is a geocache here?) is the functional question.  There was.  We found it.  A great way to start the day.  It was early and we soon headed west into Idaho.

Rest 1 geocache GC1PAEA

This trip and our last one home are routes we haven't been through before.  Instead of catching I-15 out of Butte, which takes us through the toe of the Idaho boot, we continued on I-94/90 crossing the top east to west.

As we were crossing the final part of the Rockies up there, we became aware of a number of small towns stuffed between the highway and the mountains.  These towns are pretty old.  They are logging or mining towns.  Every town has a local volunteer fire dept.  You often see the constructed opening of a mine shaft that may or may not still be in use.  We got off at one of these towns and drove around a bit before heading on.  We hope to stop for a longer visit when we return this way.

We crossed into Washington state at Spokane and Coeur D'Alene.  The Coeur D'Alene lake is huge and we stopped for gas and fought rush-hour traffic and road contruction. Nice.

No stops in Spokane this time.  We traveled south west to the tri-cities of  Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland.  There are also three rivers here, Yakima, Snake, and the huge Columbia.  We stopped at a place called Ice River in Kennewick.  Trendy, but weak brews.  The building was an old railroad warehouse.

The drive down along the Columbia seems interminable.  The interstate never seems wide enough and winds and turns around the bends of the great river as well as going past a number of ancient bridges that never expected an interstate needing room there.

Eventually, we made it to Portland and stayed the night in Vancouver on the north side of the river.  There is a great craft brewer there called Ghost Runner.  They put spent valves and parts on the tables to fidget with while you imbibe.  They make for great still life compositions.

Tomorrow, we'll head south through Oregon and maybe make it to California.  Humm, it looks like rain....

And thank you to all you who read my postings.

geocache at this little rest stop

Ta-daa!!

Idaho. Finally.  

Mining town. Osborne, ID

Lake Coeur D'Alene

Spokane

Sprague Lake

Dust devil.  there were many playing in the fields

The columbia river curls up off the Oregon border and embraces the Tri-cities

Kennewick, WA

Later that day, we finally made it to Vancouver, Washington

still art

Amazing sky.  Rain coming.

September 6th - Montana, again

When we first moved to North Dakota, we were taken by the beauty of Montana.  We said that if we didn't like North Dakota and didn't want to go to New Hampshire, we would try Montana.  Since we've been traveling, we are almost always traveling the same highway seeing the same sights.  Last trip home and this trip, thankfully, the route has changed enough to offer some new sights even though it means more actual miles in Montana.  Instead of taking a left at Butte and going south on I-15, we continued on I-94/90.  This takes us through Missoula.  We'll have to come through here again because there a lot of cool little towns worth seeing.  We stopped for dinner just past Missoula in a little town called Deer Lodge.  There a lot of buildings from the mining and logging heydays of the  1880s.  The town shows a lot of pride in it's history by trying to refurbish and preserve them.

Amazing hand-carved counter

September 5th - The Journey Begins

On the road again

Goin' places that I've never been

Seein' things that I may never see again

And I can't wait to get on the road again

On the road again

Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway

We're the best of friends

Insisting that the world keep turning our way

And our way, is on the road again

It's a new season of travel and a new season of surprises good and bad.  Laurie's next assignment was to be a few weeks in Eureka, California, so our trip out was a reverse of how we had come home in the spring.  I-94/90 west, down from Spokane, Wa to I-84 in Oregon and west along the Columbia River to Portland.  Then south down Hwy 101 to Eureka, Ca.

We got the camper all loaded up and attached.  When we parked it last spring, the ground was a bit muddy.  We had an issue getting the camper high enough to get the truck under it, but not too big a problem.  

We started on the road.  We found out at the last minute that needed some paperwork and intended on going through Devils Lake to get that on the way.  We found out on the way that the agency we had to go to wasn't open in Devils Lake on that day, so we had to turn around and go to Grand Forks.  The paperwork was collected and after finding out there was an issue with the charging connection on the camper, we finally got on the road west.  

The rest of North Dakota was uneventful though it takes a long time to get all the way across the state.  We stopped for the night in Dickinson.  I didn't want to traverse the mountains of Montana at night this time.

Guest driver

April 21st - Into Billings, Mt

The night of the 20th, we were driving along.  I was driving through mountains and forests and it was drizzling.  Never fun, but at least it wasn't snowing like last time.  There was a semi following me pretty close and we were in a construction site with one of the two lanes closed off with those big orange trashcan sized pylons.  Apparently, someone before me had gotten too close to the pylons and had clipped a couple.  The pylons were standing right in the middle of my lane as I came to them.  Maneuvering with a fifth wheel in tow is not something you can do quickly. I managed to miss one of them and hit the other with my driver side corner.  Stupid thing went under me, but thankfully, out the back.  All was well, but it was enough for one night.  That was why we stopped in a crowded rest area in the mountains. It was, I think, the only time on this trip where we didn't stay at a campground.

The next morning, we got going and made it out of the mountains and cruised into Billings.  The campground we stayed at was KOA's Holiday Campground.  It is touted as the first national KOA campground.  It was pretty nice.  The sites had everything but sewer, but it had a great dump station.  I had a couple of complaints, though.  The fresh water faucets at the dump stations leaked causing sprays I had to avoid while working.  The other issue came as we got there after hours and no one was around to show us our site and no notes were left.  A gentleman who works there did come by and help, but it seemed the KOA national booking office had not communicated with the camp or something.  But the guy was nice and guided us into a spot well enough.  It was overall, a good experience.

https://koa.com/campgrounds/billings/

That night, we caught an Uber into downtown.  On the Billings city website, it mentions the walkable brewing district.  A number of things to see in downtown Billings while you walk a path visiting any number of local craft breweries.

http://www.visitbillings.com/brew-tour.php

We took the path backwards and only went to a few places.  The first was Montana Brewing, and after we got there, we realized we'd been there before.  Just down the street, were two places that shared a parking lot.  There were a couple of nice bikes parked in the lot.  We went into Angry Hank's first.  The beer weren't very impressive.  We had one each and sat and talked a small group that were the owners of the bikes.  After that we went next door to Thirsty City.  Hank's was busy but the people didn't seem to have a great knowledge of their products.  Thirsty City was quieter, but the two behind the counter were knowledgeable and friendly.  We sat to an ex-marine with family in North Dakota. They had some good tasting brews.  We left there and went to another place by Uber called, The Garage at Yellowstone Brewing Company.  The people and beers were not very impressive, but the guy at the door and another who was just helping out were nice.  A band was playing and sounded pretty good.

We went home from there by Uber, and had a good night's sleep.