05.09.2014 Day 13: Bozeman to Spokane

A day not worthy of much to say considering how we were both very tired. But towards the end we perked up with some interesting sights. One was the city of Butte spread across a hillside, but even more lovely was the beautiful town of Coeur D'Alene. Sitting on a twinkling lake this pretty town charmed us totally, and we tossed up staying the night. But with plans in the morning to get into Tacoma (Seattle)at a decent time to go shopping, we decided just to carry onto Spokane, a town on the border of Washington State and Idaho. However we took a drive around Spokane in the evening. It has a gorgeous river flowing through the middle at the bottom of a steep gorge. At the top houses teeter on the edge, hopefully people without kids or pets! There is a vast woodland park surrounding the gorge and we drove down the road to as close to the bottom as we could. To get there, the GPS who we have become very fond of, took us as usual, the most convoluted route which means through sleepy suburbs and odd little streets. We have decided she decides where to direct us to ensure we never make a u-turn. But we get to see lots of amazing unexpected areas. At the bottom of the forested windy road it was idyllic and peaceful and was a nice end to our driving for the day. We have a nice room, ate a delicious dinner and have been here long enough to have a decent rest from driving. Tomorrow.. onto Tacoma (Seattle).

06.09.2014 Day 14: We arrive in Seattle

This day was a surprise for us as we expected a 5 hour trip on the Interstate without much excitement. (But everyday has been a surprise)

I DIGRESS:

For those who do not know, the Interstates are vast 3-4 lane highways usually filled with traffic that take you directly across states from major city to major city.

I think there have been some photos in the photo tab of us on different interstates. Anthony our GPS lender said to me "try and get off the Interstates, you will find some gems in the other roads". Never a truer word was spoken, and we have tried to do that when possible. But our GPS listened to Anthony too, and she (she has a woman's voice) often has taken us on longer convoluted routes to get to somewhere we could arrive at in 10 minutes on the Interstate. We have loved her for that. Ken says the only problem is if you are finding somewhere in a big city and the GPS takes you into dodgy neighbourhoods. But that didn't happen for us.

I DIGRESS AGAIN:

I thought I would tell you about hotel bathrooms in the US. They seem to consist of shower over bath, with the fiddly little button push/pull way that you choose if the water comes out of the tap or the shower head. The shower rail is however curved outwards, so your shower curtain doesn't flap and stick on your skin. (You know what I mean) and all the shower curtains are weighted with magnets at the bottom, that stick each side to the end of each bath. Jumping forward, imagine we are in Seattle in our ritzy hotel on the bay, same thing with the bath/shower but they have two curtains. The waterproof one on the inside with the magnets, and the second outside one is a dry patterned material one that hangs over the outside on the bath just to look pretty. It does. Weird tho.

Did you know that American toilets are different to NZ ones? A secret Ken has kept from me. They are lower than ours for a start, which works for short people but maybe tall people, not so much. They have a kind of stretched ovoid shape, and the water comes up ¾ of the bowl. ( Strangely enough... no splash back..'nuf said. ) When they flush the water comes from the bottom of the toilet through quite a strong valve facing the back of the bowl and this is extremely efficient. But odd. Just thought I would bring you up to date on this.

BACK TO THE ROAD TRIP:

On the Interstate to Seattle we found to our surprise several absolute gems of places. Firstly we came to a very high spot looking over a deep canyon with a broad river flowing through it out to a broader bay. I will have to go back and check my map to be absolutely sure where we were, but I think it was the Ginkgo State park, and the river was the Colombia river. It was very hot, and we shared our viewpoint with strolling couples and a couple of guys with their dog Bourbon, who had been in the car a long time. (Apparently) We were sad our trip didn't include the Grand Canyon, so we contented ourselves with this.

But then we drove into Snoqualmie State Park and that was a treat. After driving uphill we reached the summit and decided to stop at the general store and the petrol station on the top. The General Store was odd to say the least. We think it was run by people who 'put their hands in the air, cos they just didn't care'- it was the craziest muddle of stuff, the toilets hadn't been cleaned like...forever... and no one seemed to worry if you needed to pay for something or not. There were a group of people sitting in a shade area outside, laughing and talking loudly about many strange things. Ahem... we liked it. It was odd like us.

We went to drive back onto the Interstate and turned on GPS but true to form, she decided she wouldn't take the short turn onto the interstate, but would take us down this little road under a bridge. Now she may be quirky, but we do trust her. We followed instructions.

What a magic ½ hour drive through the most stunning wooded single lane road. We wove through dense forest glimpsing people with tents and fires through the tree trunks with the smell of smoke and cooking drifting through the beams of sunlight and competing with the sounds of the river making its way over the rocks and fallen branches down to the hills. Overhead branches over-locked to provide dappled shade and we both kept going "wow, this is so lovely."

We were not the only fans. People slowly negotiated their cars past us as we drove downwards and at a car park hidden behind trees we could see a lot of vehicles. Yet it was all strangely silent. We stopped at one point by the side of the road so Ken could take one of his panoramic pictures, and quietly strolling down the road came a couple with a baby in a papoose. They smiled, and said Hi, as we pulled out to drive onwards. We could have stopped here for a long time.

But on we drove. As we came into Seattle the roads got 8 lanes wide and filled with cars. (Why do we always arrive at cities at 'drive-time'?) But here is a city nestled around a harbour on the Western sea board. Our hotel faces the marinas and city (see view from window in photos). It looks very pretty and it is lovely to see the sea again. Tomorrows post will be about our day in Seattle, but then the last post after that will be after we arrive home in Wellington. As we have another long flight in front of us. Keep reading, I am sure there will be more tales to tell yet. J