Hi Gram,

I made it to Seattle to see Tom and the family. They’re doing well, but let me back up a few days and tell you about how I got here.

• 

From Utah, I had a 9 hour drive to get to Idaho and see my friends Rogers and Larissa. I never have a problem staying awake on a drive, but if I drove straight through, I would have gotten into a small mountain town – that I’d never been to – around 4am. I decided to break it up a little with a good night’s rest halfway there and boy, am I glad that I did! The scenery on the first part of that drive was spectacular, but the sun quickly set and I knew I was driving through beautiful scenery in the dark. The moon was out just enough to see the outlines of mountains in the background, but not bright enough to really see any detail. I had my tunes going, along with some podcasts, and quickly made my way to Idaho Falls. I stopped in a little chain hotel, and immediately knew I wasn’t in the big city anymore. They had homemade cookies on some tin foil by the front desk, and the clerk was a very charming young man. After checking me in, he asked if I wanted some cheesy bacon potato soup from the crock pot on the side table – apparently, they serve hot soup for their guests every night. It was late, so I declined the soup and headed to my room, ready for bed. As I entered the room and set down my luggage, I saw that there were Andes mints on the bedside table, just another little touch you wouldn’t expect these days in a small chain motel. I cleaned up and went to bed, and slept like a log!

• 

I woke up early, eager to get my day started, and headed down to the lobby for some hotel breakfast. This usually consists of packaged yogurt in the mini fridge, juice from a machine, and assorted packaged pastries and cereal, but not at this place! I could smell the bacon and sausage as I got close, and found that they had a full spread of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, ham, pancakes, and waffles in addition to yogurt, cereal, and bread. I sampled a little of everything, grabbed a banana for the road, and headed back to my room. I loaded up the car and headed to the gas station to fill up. It was 4 degrees outside, and I had left my mittens in the car the night before, so I was FREEZING! I did my best to stay warm by jumping around and keeping my hands in my pockets while I filled up, then headed into the store to get some bottles of water for the drive. As I walked in, the clerk declared “you must be freezing, where are your gloves?” and handed me a cup of hot water to wrap my hands around and warm them up. I wish I could have brought that whole experience with me on the rest of my trip, with everyone so friendly and helpful!

• 

• 

I stopped in Missoula, MT for some gas and lunch. I try to avoid chain restaurants when I’m on the road. I figure I can eat Applebee’s or Cracker Barrel anywhere; I want to sample some local food that I may never be able to try again. At the gas station, I asked the attendant where he’d suggest, trying to get the inside scoop from a local. He told me about the chain restaurants at the next highway exit, but I pressed further. No, I don’t want a big name restaurant, I told him, where would you go for lunch? Apparently, he loves the Cracker Barrel though, so I was left to explore on my own. The first place I stopped at was a BBQ joint with probably the best name I’d ever seen – The Notorious P.I.G. That won’t seem as clever to you, Grandma, but there was a famous rap musician named The Notorious B.I.G. so it brought a smile to my face. Unfortunately, they were closed on Mondays, so I had to wander on until I found an Argentinian place called “The Empanada Joint.” I met the owner, a very personable and informative woman, who steered me toward a couple empanadas and a bowl of ginger carrot soup. It was the best lunch I’d had in a long time! Full and happy, I walked around town a little, then hit the road.

• 

• 

Back on the highway, I headed toward the border of Idaho and Washington to meet up with my friends Rogers and Larissa. They’re spending the winter working at a ski hill named Lookout Pass. I arranged my trip so we could ride on their days off, but unfortunately, it’s been warming and freezing the past few days with rain some days, so they said it’s a sheet of ice and not worth even trying. The drive up there was beautiful, though, and I stopped in Wallace, ID, a town just down the highway from where they work. It was a cute little mountain town, with a couple older hotels and rundown shops – you could tell that it was a mining town that has seen better days, but the folks I met there were just as friendly as you’d expect. We headed over to Spokane Valley, about halfway between Spokane and Wallace, and met up for dinner. It was great seeing some more skydiving friends in the off-season, and we caught up on our lives over the past few months. They gave me some suggestions on a few stops to make between there and Seattle, and we agreed to maybe meet up in Portland or Seattle to do a little skiing and snowboarding.

• 

• 

Tuesday morning, I got up and checked out Huckleberry Market in Spokane, one of their suggestions. It was a cute little market, with a wide variety of groceries and assorted sundries that you wouldn’t find at a main stream grocery store. They had a breakfast buffet, but I had made the mistake of having the hotel breakfast at the Ramada. As great as the breakfast was the day before, this one was just as disappointing. I’ve never regretted having a free breakfast and ignoring my friends’ advice to eat at the market as much as I did that day. I got a chili cherry chocolate bar, a banana, and some yogurt at the market, and did NOT regret that decision! I drove around town a little, then got off on highway 2 on my way to see the Coulee Dam. To be honest, I wasn’t that interested in seeing a wall with water rushing over it – I’ve seen dams before – but I figured, “hey, why not? I’m running a little earlier than my plans since we didn’t ride with Rogers and Larissa, and I have about a week scheduled to see Tom and the family in Seattle, so I’ll take a day and just do a leisurely drive.” It was the best decision I’d made in days, though! The drive there was just astounding! I would be driving through the plains, where fog often settled and froze on the plants, so every square inch just glistened with ice crystals and the landscape for miles was pure white. Then, I would drop down into a valley and the fog would be above me, and there was a wall of stone that had been carved out by glaciers to my left and a blue lake to my right. I would climb back out of that valley, through the fog and crystal-kissed trees, then up above the fog, where I felt like I was driving above the clouds. Then I’d be back driving flat across the plains, where the land was rippled from massive flooding thousands of years ago, like the way sand ripples in a creek – except these ripples were each 30 feet high, and every now and then there would be a huge boulder in the middle of a field, the way a pebble might be picked up and washed downstream. I wanted to pull over and take a picture every couple miles, but I resisted the urge and only stopped about every 30-45 minutes instead. haha. I drove through some switch-back curves, up and down, like a slow motion roller coaster and eventually found my way to the visitors center at Grand Coulee Dam. Seeing as it’s winter and a weekday, there weren’t many cars in the parking lot, but the gentleman at the counter inside gave me a lot of information, and set me to wander around and discover on my own. I read all about the history of how they moved entire towns to make way for the reservoir lake, and brought thousands of men out to build the massive structure of the dam. It was one of the massive infrastructure projects undertaken to put people back to work after the great depression. They talked about how men would work on it for a few months, then get sent back home as a new wave of men was brought in to get a chance at working and supporting their family. It was really much more interesting than I would have expected.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

After leaving the dam, I wound through some more gorgeous scenery on these forgotten back roads, stopping every now and then for more pictures, or a hot beverage, or to fuel up. I drove through so many apple orchards and saw the huge industrial apple processing plants that provide the country with our never-ending apple supply. Eventually, I ended up in a town named Leavenworth, a Bavarian town straight out of the tales like Hansel and Gretel. I walked around town for a few hours, where every other shop was a German restaurant serving sausages and schnitzel, or a store selling handmade toys, or a winery or brew pub, and the second and third floor of each building was a hotel. Eventually, my legs grew tired and I decided to continue on my journey toward Seattle. The temps would go up and down as I drove through the mountains that day, and I was surprised to see the temperature rise by 25 degrees in about as many minutes as I started descending from Stevens Pass to Seattle.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

When I was about an hour outside of Seattle, I talked to Tom and found out that he and Howard were going to be participating in a Pinewood Derby race at the grade school that evening. I decided to meet them there, and watched as Howard won first place for his Cub Scouts troop. It was a gymnasium full of excited first through fifth graders, and the noise was as loud as you’d expect from that description. I didn’t care, though – I was seeing my brother and nephew for the first time in years, and sharing in Howard’s excitement, I just didn’t care about the noise and random kids bumping into me like blind bumper cars. After the races were finished and the awards were handed out, we headed to their house and relaxed for the night.

Wednesday, I just rested and recovered. I took some of my luggage and camping gear out of the car, took the roof box off the top of the car, and worked to get the car de-cluttered for my drive up to Canada next week. We played some games with Howard and visited with Andy, then got a good night’s rest, ready to drive back up the mountain the next day. On Thursday, I woke up early and headed back to Stevens Pass to do a little more snowboarding. It was warm until I was almost there, then quickly dropped to 28, where it had been snowing all night and left us with a few inches of powder to ride on. The runs were steep, but fun, and the lift operators seemed to enjoy my jokes as I passed them each time. About halfway through the day, though, the snow was pretty choppy. That’s common when you have fresh powder – the skiiers and snowboarders riding over it pack down where they’re riding and push the other snow into mounts. Between the choppy snow and the gray, cloudy sky, I decided half a day was plenty and headed back down the mountain. I stopped in Skykomish, another little mountain town, for lunch, where I had a nice conversation with the two or three other patrons scattered about the dining room. One of the guys was from there in town, while a couple sitting at another table were just passing through to see some family in Tacoma. The sandwich was hot and delicious, the homemade potato salad was creamy and flavorful, and the waitress kept my soda water filled and added some helpful history and advice to our conversation.

• 

• 

Our schedule for the next few days are packed too. Today, I’m going to a game night with Tom and the family. I’m not sure “night” is the right word, since it starts at 3pm, but I’m sure it’ll lapse well into the night. Tomorrow, Tom and I are taking the kids skiing. Andy was skiing a few years ago, but hasn’t gone lately, and I don’t think Howard has ridden at all. It’ll be fun to see how they enjoy it. Monday, I head up to British Columbia, where I’ll be snowboarding for a few days at Whistler/Blackcomb. A number of my friends have told me that this is the best resort in North America, so I’m very excited to go see what it’s all about! I’ll let you know all about my trip up there in my next installment!