Travel Day – Coeur d’Alene to Tacoma

Our last day in Coeur d’Alene  started with some planning:

We had reservations for an RV Park in Port Angeles, but there is also an Escapees park at Chimicum, a small town about 50 miles from there.  Of course, they don’t take reservations, but we’d hoped they might have some sites available for us.  We called them and were told that yes, there were 3 sites available.  So, we decided to take a chance that there will still be at least 2 sites open when we get there and cancelled Elwah Dam. 

Some of the rest of the day was spent doing a little more exploring.  We went to the area called City Center,which is the “downtown” area next to the lake.

We walked around this boardwalk which is claimed to be the longest in the country:

They have a neat looking marina:

We had lunch and browsed some of the shops, and then visited the beach and park area and just watched all the fun goings on.  The weather was absolutely perfect with mostly sunny skies and no hint of rain for a change!

Even the geese were out enjoying the day:

Today turned into an interesting travel day!  We started off early, around 7:30.  Dortha and Mark took a turn at being the leader to the new state:

Oh, looks like we got into Spokane at rush hour!  At least we could keep that other Phaeton in our sight!

Soon enough we left the city behind and found ourselves in rolling hills and farms.  Then we came across the Columbia River! We saw this bridge, but when the road curved to the right and Jim realized we were going over it, he balked a little, but did fine going across!

  Soon we got our first glimpse of Mt. Rainier!

We had already decided not to drive the entire trip today.  We’d planned to stop at a new casino that was supposed to have overnight parking for RV’s.  We got to Snoqualmie Casino around 12:30 and looked around the parking lot.  It’s a beautiful looking, huge new  casino, but they don’t have a clue about overnight parking for rv’s!  There were about 8 parking places for rv’s that are back-in and nowhere near long enough even for our rigs, even if we’d wanted to unhook the cars.  We pulled over into an area as far back as we could and assessed the situation.  A security truck came by within a couple of minutes to tell us we would have to park in the designated rv spots to spend the night.  We then decided to go on to Tacoma where we knew there was a casino with a large parking area for rv’s.

While we were having a sandwich and preparing to drive on to Tacoma, our chat-room friend, Phyllis stopped by to say hello.  She lives in this area and had planned to spend the afternoon at Snoqualmie Casino, and she found us in the parking lot.  Guess it’s hard to miss our 40’ rigs in that small parking lot!  Phyllis, it was great to meet you, sorry we couldn’t stay and play awhile!

We got back on the road and made our way to the Emerald Queen Casino, right off I-5 in Tacoma.  We parked the rigs and were on the way to the casino to let them know we planned to park overnight.  We found the security guy driving around, and talked to him, but he told us we should park in a different area.  One more move!

Finally, we got parked and went in to the casino for a little dinner and some penny slots.  Afterwards we came back to the motor home, got the dogs out for their walk and are now settled in for a noisy night next to the interstate!  But, we’re in Washington, and tomorrow we have less than 100 miles to travel.  It’s a good day.

Coeur d’Alene

We had an interesting travel day yesterday.  It started off rainy, and for awhile I was wondering why I never knew Montana has hurricanes!  But the rain let up, about the time we found ourselves on a very narrow, twisty-turny two-lane road through the Flathead Indian Reservation.  That gave way to a little nicer road through some of the most beautiful country we’ve seen.  We were still doing the twisty-turny thing, but the road wasn’t bad.  Eventually, we got to I-90, wow, that was an extremely bumpy ride!  I had a pot of soup in the crockpot, and I’d already moved it to the sink in case some of the twists and turns caused a disaster.  I was worried that the bumps on the interstate would splash that soup all over the place.

But, we survived it all and arrived at Blackwell Island RV Park in Coeur d’Alene by mid afternoon in basically one piece.  The weather has been mostly gloomy since we arrived, with a few brief periods of sun and several periods of rain.     This is a very nice park, quite large, and the sites are roomy.  It’s located right on the bank of the Spokane River, which flows from Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Not long after we arrived, we got in touch with Jenny, our RV Dreamer friend who lives near here.  She and her friend, Richard came over to visit and we all went to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant.  We made plans for an outing today to explore Lake Coeur d’Alene, with Jenny’s expert guidance.  She’s lived in this area for many years and knows the area and it’s history very well.

Dortha, Jenny, and I are ready to go eat!

Jenny came to the rv park about 1:00 today and the 5 of us climbed aboard the Jeep for our guided tour of the area.

Near the beginning of the scenic byway that circles the lake is this sign that provides information about it:

Lake Coeur d’Alene was formed by by a glacial moraine that dammed the rivers about 600,000 years ago.  It covers a 50 square mile area with 32 miles of shoreline.  The depth is unknown.

We got to enjoy a little break in the clouds while we made our way along the scenic route:

And saw some beautiful views.  In the center of the picture below, you might be able to pick out what appears to be a white dot:

Which turned out to be a tiny island absolutely covered with white pelicans (and 1 lonely cormorant) :

We had a lot of fun looking at the views and taking pictures:

At the end of the scenic byway we found ourselves at:

So of course we went in, got ourselves signed up with players cards and started off our next adventure with a delicious meal at the buffet.  I know, here I am talking about eating out a lot again, and you wonder how we manage to stay with our Weight Watchers plan when we do eat out so much.  It’s a matter of choice, and today I chose salad, rice, shrimp, cedar-plank salmon, broccoli and peas.  That left a little room in the plan for a few bites of dessert – yum!

The winnings at the casino were not as friendly to me, however, and I left a deposit with them.  We may have to see about getting that back at some point!

We’ve had a wonderful day today, in spite of less than wonderful weather.  It’s been fun to reconnect with Jenny and catch up with each other’s lives.  Thanks for the great tour, Jenny!

Last Day in Montana – For Now

Well, tomorrow is a travel day and we will be  heading back into Idaho for a few days on our way to Washington state and the West Coast.  But this entry is about today, so…

We planned to make a trip over to Hungry Horse Lake today to see if we could find the campsite where Janna, Mike and Emmi are staying.  After our morning routines were completed, off we went, even though the weather was wet and dreary.  The little town of Hungry Horse is located just a few miles west of where we are staying, and the lake is south of the town.   As with most of the area around here, this was a beautiful part of the country.  We crossed the dam and headed even further into the woods to find the forest service campground.

Finally, Janna and Mike’s motorhome was spotted:

They are located in a beautiful forest next to the lake: Where Emmi can attack the trees: And they can take walks along the trail around the lake: We visited with Janna and Mike for awhile: And had a discussion about going to lunch after Emmi had gotten soaking wet playing in the trees: We all decided to go to a local bar/cafe for a bite of lunch: The shell of a vehicle on the roof is an old tour car like the ones that they still use in Glacier National Park.  I had a salad and chili for lunch, Dortha had soup and salad, and everyone else had gigantic burgers that sure looked good!  I’m assured they tasted good!

After lunch, we said our “See Y’all Down the Road” to Janna and Mike.  We’ve sure enjoyed our time with them, and hope to see them again before too long.  Of course, we wish them the best with raising Emmi, she sure has a great personality and lots of energy!

This afternoon we did a little more research and made some calls about rv parks in the Port Angeles area.  We do have reservations at Elwah Dam RV, but have been told it’s not really a desirable location.  After a few calls, I found a park between Sequim and Port Angeles that sounds promising, although they don’t have 50 amp sites.  We went ahead and made reservations there, too.  We will cancel one of them, depending on what we might find out about Conestoga Quarters.

We are really looking forward to our next adventures, although Montana is a magnificent state!  I’m sure we’ll be back again.

We Meet Emmi

Today was errand and Weight Watchers day.  The four of us went to Kalispell where Dortha and I attended a local WW meeting while Jim and Mark took care of some errands.  When they picked us up from the meeting, we had lunch and did some shopping.  One stop we made was at the Great Harvest Bread Co.  where we each got a loaf of their honey wheat bread.  They also have cookies that are pretty much out of this world.  Mark and Jim each got a cookie, and Dortha and I each had little tastes of their cookies.

It was time to head back to the rv park to get things ready for dinner.  Janna and Mike were on the way after getting their motorhome road-ready. 

They arrived right on time for a dinner of beef and chicken fajitas, along with stuffed jalapenos and avocado salsa.  Dortha made a delicious berry cobbler for dessert.   Of course, the star of the evening was Janna and Mike’s new miniature schnauzer puppy, Emmi, who is now about 8 weeks old:

BoJangles was not sure what this critter was:

It was great to see Janna and Mike again.  They are staying over at Hungry Horse lake, not far from us.  We plan to go check out their campground and the lake tomorrow.