Welcome to Washington - A visit with my brother's family...

Day 42

October 22, 2010

It feels a bit like the last day of our vacation.  Today we enter Washington.  We have plans to keep the vacation spirit.  We’ll visit my brother John and his family in Spokane and then go on to Pullman – home of WSU, our alma mater.

We travel west along I-90 out of Montana.  One small side road slows down our pace a bit and we travel alongside the Clark River.  A small fishing pullout out has a picnic table and we take the opportunity to make lunch.  The air is cold, the sun is warm, the river flows quietly, trees rise up on both sides of the river.  We spread out the paper towels, lunch meat and garlic cheese curds bought in Wisconsin.  Our condiments are thin, so I mix a big squeeze of brown mustard with a little scoop of plain yogurt and spread it on all sides of the hearty wheat bread and proceed to pile on the meat and cheese.  Wrapped all in paper towels we dine in fine style. 

The mountains remain rocky and the larch, fir and pine mingle in large bands of green and yellow.  In places, the larch predominates and rolls over the hills in big yellow patches.  An occasional maple, quaking aspen, or cottonwood add brief glimpses of orange and brown.  The fall color tour continues.  We’d seen the larch along the east coast, but it’s reappearance here is far more dominate.  This is a marketable evergreen that actually changes colors and eventually drops it’s needles.  The sun is bright and when it lights the larch a beautiful golden light radiates through the forest.

Our new friend from the Safeway parking lot yesterday tells us that the weather has been unusually good this year.  Normally snow would cover the ground.  We did bring chains for that very possibility, but with the exception of a few very wet days in Vermont and some very hot days in New Mexico, the weather has been idyllic.  We’ve been blessed for sure.

The long stretches of interstate and short drives along the scenic bypass don’t offer many safe photo opportunities.  The expanse and majesty of it are hard to express and even harder to capture on film.  We pull into a rest stop that has very good views of the surrounding hillsides and Jack is a happy photographer for a few brief minutes. Information posted on two platforms tells the story of the original road built here in the late 1800s.  In four months, ending in December over 100 miles of road were cut, leveled and bridged. A quote in this transcript says it far better than I, “The scenery was the wildest ever gazed upon, and grand if so feeble a word can be used to properly express anything in this amazing mountain range.”  Randall Hewitt, 1862.

Leaving Montana and entering Idaho we are along the lowlands with mountains towering high above.  Looking out the window layers of stratified rock stare back at me.  Perched perfectly on the low ridgeline at the freeway exit into Wallace is a perfect flaming hardwood.  Red at the crown, quickly fading to shades of orange and yellow.  With the sun lighting it from above it glows.  We’ve entered Pacific Daylight time.  My watch, which has never been reset to the local times of the areas we traveled, now reads the time correctly once again.  Wallace, Idaho is a worth stop.  A old mining town, it’s an easy and fun walk through the main street.  An antique store has a sign for tea shop inside.  Well we’re tea drinkers and this is a definite temptation.  We’ve had plenty of tea on the trip: weak tea, tea brewed in lukewarm water, tea brewed in water stored in a pot that sometimes serves coffee, tea in styrofoam cups, paper cups, and the occasional mug, generic tea, popular brands of tea, but not tea that s really brewed hot, in a pot, in a tea cup.  Not that kind of cup of tea. In a corner of the shop are five tables fully set with silver, linen tablecloths and napkins rolled in silver rings. We order a pot of tea, but the waitress insists we have a small plate of sweets with it.  As our teapot is preheating she brings us a small fruit plate of melons, red grapes and black grapes so sweet with delicate fruit forks to pluck delicacies from the plate.  China cups and saucers, raw sugar, cream and a plate of cookies, breads, scones, and lemon butter-way more than we want or need. Our tea has steeped and it steams rich and amber into our cups.  We’re in heaven.

An hour later we are welcomed at my brother John’s house, a nice change from the chain of motels we’ve stayed in.  Warm and inviting and so close to home.  Shortly after Tina arrives and groceries are unloaded.  We visit a while and take a walk through the neighborhood before dinner.  On the perimeter of the neighborhood we walk a trail for about 2 miles.  We walk around and down a few hills and out to the Little Spokane River where deer are feeding in a field.  The hill seems a longer climb back and I need to pause and drink while John and Jack can talk and walk without missing a beat.  Home cooked burgers with quality beef, home baked fries, salad and berry cobbler with ice cream.  It’s all good – food, conversations, Phillies on TV and finally we sleep.