Our ‘hotel’ did not have an outdoor pool, but did have a continental breakfast, which we contemplated checking out, but decided against. We were up and moving by 8am. So much easier really, not having to haul our luggage up to a room and back down. We save loads of time on the not having to shower or check-out business, not to mention a few bucks. Great bargain on the unadvertised hotel parking lot!
Montana is another really big state. We left Coeur d’Alene, Idaho about 8am, reaching the Montana border probably within 45 minutes. From there it took us all day to travel across the state to Glendive, with minimal but important stops. We stopped for a nice lunch in Missoula and found our Applebees in Billings for our July 1st supper. Last year on our trip to Virginia, we happened to have dinner at Applebees on July 1st, and were surprised when the Wal-Mart next door was having fireworks – on our Canadian holiday! So we figured it’d be funny to eat an Applebees again this year.
Funny how that worked out – we’d been thinking of Applebees for a couple days now (Derek had asked 2 guys at the gas station in Oregon last night where the closest Applebees was and they just chuckled at him - I guess it was quite far away!) – and Billings was the first we’d seen on our whole trip! And it happened to be in the Wal-Mart parking lot! But no fireworks, of course we might have been just too early.
The place was hard enough to find - but it found us!
We continued from there to Miles City (2 hours) and then on to Glendive (another hour).
We found the Days Inn for $62 fairly quickly and jumped on it – to not waste more time searching – and get rested for one more day of driving. We’re looking at about 7½ hours to the farm to pick up Oscar and 2 hours back to Winnipeg.
Hopefully there’s still a small corner in the car for the cat. ;-)
Monday, July 2, 2007
Saturday June 30th 2007 - Grants Pass, Oregon to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Had an early start – we were up about 8am and down for breakfast before it was closing and on the road by 10am. It was nice to be making use of the daylight hours!
Had decided last night that we need to make tracks as quick as possible, so sticking to the Interstate, which meant no Crater Lake for me! It’s been added to the “B” List – the list of things we don’t do but think we’d like to someday!
We stopped in Roseburg for fuel and a small search for flavored water.
We stopped in Salem - the capital city of Oregon.
Since Lincoln City, Derek had wished he had bought a couple more items that he’d seen at that time – he realized they were really good deals.
Driving up to Portland, I reviewed the free magazine I had picked up about the city. Read an article about the Columbia Sportswear store being founded in Portland – and how there was an Outlet Store in a suburb of the city (Sellwood). They did not have the exact shoes he had seen and wished he had gotten, but alas – there was another Outlet store just in the next area (Lake Oswego)! So he set out to find our second outlet store in Portland. They also did not have the shoes, but we managed to find deals at every stop. Shopping with the deals and no tax is so much fun!
We made a quick visit to the downtown area – saw some of the buildings and all the construction (street and some buildings). It is amazing how these big American cities move the traffic up and out. You can be in the middle of downtown one minute and cruising on the interstate five minutes later (probably different with rush hours).
We headed east along the southern side of the Columbia River. The scenery is beautiful with the reddish-colored cliffs and rolling, curving highways. We stopped a couple times – to look out over the river to Washington, and see a couple dams (one in The Dalles).
Oregon is very big – took forever to drive along this stretch and make it back into Washington. Makes you realize how big the USA is (and Canada). So much to see…
We stopped briefly in Tri-Rivers at a Wal-Mart to see if they had the same type of battery I use – they did not. We also stopped quickly at Jack in the Box to grab a quick bite to eat.
We drove up to Spokane, only to find that every place was completely booked. We drove on to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho … another ½ hour … only to find the same thing. The one hotel lady said that the hotels are usually quite busy on weekends and Hoopfest was also happening in Spokane – some basketball tournament with 3 players per team. So there was no room for us.
So we selected the Best Western as our place to park. We were both tired and didn’t want to head into the mountains and the unknown being all sleepy. Much preferred to drive in the daylight anyway. We found a great parking spot and called it a night!
Had decided last night that we need to make tracks as quick as possible, so sticking to the Interstate, which meant no Crater Lake for me! It’s been added to the “B” List – the list of things we don’t do but think we’d like to someday!
We stopped in Roseburg for fuel and a small search for flavored water.
We stopped in Salem - the capital city of Oregon.
Since Lincoln City, Derek had wished he had bought a couple more items that he’d seen at that time – he realized they were really good deals.
Driving up to Portland, I reviewed the free magazine I had picked up about the city. Read an article about the Columbia Sportswear store being founded in Portland – and how there was an Outlet Store in a suburb of the city (Sellwood). They did not have the exact shoes he had seen and wished he had gotten, but alas – there was another Outlet store just in the next area (Lake Oswego)! So he set out to find our second outlet store in Portland. They also did not have the shoes, but we managed to find deals at every stop. Shopping with the deals and no tax is so much fun!
We made a quick visit to the downtown area – saw some of the buildings and all the construction (street and some buildings). It is amazing how these big American cities move the traffic up and out. You can be in the middle of downtown one minute and cruising on the interstate five minutes later (probably different with rush hours).
We headed east along the southern side of the Columbia River. The scenery is beautiful with the reddish-colored cliffs and rolling, curving highways. We stopped a couple times – to look out over the river to Washington, and see a couple dams (one in The Dalles).
Oregon is very big – took forever to drive along this stretch and make it back into Washington. Makes you realize how big the USA is (and Canada). So much to see…
We stopped briefly in Tri-Rivers at a Wal-Mart to see if they had the same type of battery I use – they did not. We also stopped quickly at Jack in the Box to grab a quick bite to eat.
We drove up to Spokane, only to find that every place was completely booked. We drove on to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho … another ½ hour … only to find the same thing. The one hotel lady said that the hotels are usually quite busy on weekends and Hoopfest was also happening in Spokane – some basketball tournament with 3 players per team. So there was no room for us.
So we selected the Best Western as our place to park. We were both tired and didn’t want to head into the mountains and the unknown being all sleepy. Much preferred to drive in the daylight anyway. We found a great parking spot and called it a night!
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