America's farm land

We were on the Idaho - Washington border for a few nights at Old American RV Resort in Newport, WA.  Our RV was actually in Idaho, but the office for the resort was in Washington.  This park is directly on the Pend Oreille River and as we tooled around town we kept passing this only indication that you have entered Washington from Idaho.  

Newport is small town and they have a section they call Old Town that is actually in Idaho and runs along the river.  We found a great restaurant, Riverbank Family Restaurant (established in 1963 and still owned by the same family).  They also have an attached bar, Fay’s Lounge, but we never got a chance to check that out.  We had poor cell service and no WiFi, but we did find another pretty cool bar downtown that had good WiFi.  It was called Kelly’s. They served local brews, but were not our usual brewery. 

Heading deeper into Washington we headed for Othello.  We stayed at O'Sullivan's Sportsman Resort for a few days. This is a members only KM Resort campground that we have access to through our  RPI affiliation with Thousand Trail. This is a great place. The sites are so roomy with nice grass between the sites. Met some real nice people here. It is a real community. They have awesome facilities and are adjacent to a golf course that has a great restaurant and bar. We never left the area of the park until we were pulling out to move on.

When we did leave Othella to head towards Leavenworth we drove through beautiful farmland. Crops of everything all around us for miles. It was beautiful. We discovered, via a billboard, that this county of Washington grows more potatoes than Idaho. I know! It blew my mind too. 

We stayed at the Thousand Trails in Leavenworth and it is a pretty cool place.  Lots of woods, which really translates to small RV slips and the roads are so dusty you can’t keep your windows open or really enjoy the outside at your site (unless you like road dust in your drink). Several people were watering the road in front of their sites. I don’t think it helped.  But we found a good spot and headed for the trails all around the park.  The woods are amazing here.  They are green with large trees and I am in love with these Ponderosa Pines.  They look like they are dripping.

This Thousand Trails has these brightly colored tiny houses for rent.

I was very excited about coming to Leavenworth.  I had read about it being a very Austrian / Swiss Alps kinda feel and I loved it there.  Sure enough, it was really cool. Everywhere the buildings are built to bring you to the Alps.  The city is surrounded by mountains as well.  Very pretty place.  

We hit the little shops like the rest of the tourists - and there were a few tourists!  We did our shopping and hit the brewery.  A cool vibe here too.  

These drawings are chalk!  I know!!!!!!

We got a seat on the patio and started people watching when out of 

nowhere this little boy yells, ‘Hi, Santa!’

Wow, who do YOU think he was talking to????

I laughed so hard I thought I almost peed my pants!

We decided since we drove all the way to the Swiss Alps we should have some Bavarian food.  I tell you what, we really do stumble into some of the best places!  This time it was the Barren Haus.  Instead of getting my usual Schnitzel, this place had a Schnitzel Cordon Bleu.  I mean, it don’t get any better than that.  Does it, really???  No, it does not.  It was really good.  Dennis got the Sauer Braten and it was the most tender and delicious roast I have ever had.  I highly recommend this place.  They had an hour wait and I asked if the bar / stage area was open seating and the lady let us sit there, but the person behind me asked and they said no. I think it was a seating limit or staff limit issue, not all of their tables were full.  We have run into the staff problems every where we go. Additionally, I don’t think Washington is wide open yet.  They still have to limit guests indoors.  Some of the restaurants here in Leavenworth were only open on weekends because they can’t get any help, according to one of the locals.  When will we ever get back to normal, guys?  I hope soon.

Leavenworth has these beautiful hanging flowers all over the place.  They even have them set up to self water.  We are definitely out of the desert because they are not afraid to use water in Washington.

We hit a wine tasting room in Leavenworth too that was really good.  Their wines sell for $60 a bottle which is a little steep for us, but they discount the cost of the tasting if you buy some.  So we did!!!!

Love me some Sangiovese - This one is great

We did sit outside and enjoy the nice weather one evening at the RV park and saw these cute little chipmunks running around hiding nuts and met some other really nice local folks.  

We found several wineries in the area and at least three on our way home from the grocery store one day, so we had to finally stop, right?  We had a real nice tasting with a snack of cheese and crackers.

We had a really nice time in Leavenworth.  I would totally go back there and stay in town.  That way we could walk to all the tasting rooms.  It reminded me of Fredericksburg in some ways. 

Next up on our adventure was Puget Sound.  I am familiar with the name Puget Sound but nothing specific about it.  I discovered it was called a ‘Sound’ by British explorers who were here, well, exploring.  A ‘Sound’ refers to body of water that is not completely open to the sea and has islands.  Well, I think it fits perfectly!  We are actually staying in Poulsbo.  To get here you have to cross the Narrows Bridge or take a ferry at $100+.  We decided to take the bridge and people - even Dennis - remembered hearing about this bridge going all wonky and collapsing during a high wind. It had been opened in July, 1940 and collapsed in November of the same year. I do not recall hearing about this and am glad I didn’t - but I have now seen the video and it is just crazy!

So I told you Washington has water everywhere.  Well, it looks like the Sound is actually very low as we ran around Poulsbo and the surrounding area.  They have a beautiful historic downtown on the waterfront.  It is really breathtaking.  But the water is about 100 yards from shore.  It was dry and people were walking around on it and playing in the water, but some boats were even moored mostly out of the water.  So I know that cannot be the its normal level.

This is a beautiful area - I think all of Washington is fantastic! Simply beautiful.  But, you have to be a special kind of stupid to be the engineer that designed the highway system here.  Traffic is unbelievable.  When you have three merging 2-3 lane highways that merge down to three lanes, or four if you count the exit only lane they throw in there as well it is a massive pile up!  This is one example.  All of that was happening simultaneously.  The exit only lane was not a half a mile from the massive merge.  We had been forewarned and didn’t try to drive too much with the RV through that mess, but even without it behind us it was rough.

Besides the frustrating traffic around Seattle and Tacoma, we had a darned flat tire.  We were filling up the truck to prepare to head towards Monroe when we got out this very loud hissing sound was all we could hear.  I couldn’t figure it out at first.  So it’s over 100 degrees outside and we have to change this enormous tire.  The valve stem just busted.  I think Dennis took three breaks and drank three bottles of water.  I held an umbrella over him, but it was still so hot on this asphalt parking lot.  Then we went down a Firestone and had them repair it, but that took 2 hours.  They were so busy.  So after all that we just had to treat ourselves to some fresh seafood at a restaurant by the water.  I think he deserved it, don’t you?

We plan to stay around the sound, hoping this heatwave will pass.  Temps have been in the 100’s where they are normally in the 70’s.  They are shutting down schools and businesses - that sucks for us.  But most homes and some businesses don’t have A/C here.  It sounds crazy to us Texans, but they so seldom need it they just don’t make that investment.  They don’t even have A/C in their cars. So we are finding restaurants closed (they say the kitchen can get up to 120 degrees under normal conditions, with this heat they are afraid for their kitchen staff).

So we go to Monroe, WA and had planned to drive north to Bellingham (which is an hour and a half drive) and then down to La Conner and then take the scenic drive on WA Hwy 11.  I really wanted to see these historic waterfronts that are supposed to be thriving with hip businesses and artsy fartsy stuff.  We got to Bellingham and the entire downtown area is closed.  There is no one walking the streets, except this one man looking in windows to see if anyone is in there.  He must be like us, here visiting and there is nothing to do.  So we tried to find a restaurant to grab lunch, and, well, see above. HEAT WAVE. I thought we were gonna have to resort to eating our beef jerky (we keep some in the console) for lunch.  We did find an outdoor brewery that was open.  They said if they had a kitchen they would likely have been closed as well. This brewery, like so many others, gets its food service from food trucks. Of course, they were no where to be found.  UNFORTUNATELY, I opted for a nice wine, a red blend, they had.  Not refreshing in 110 degrees.  I almost could not finish it.  We then walked through Boardwalk Park and there are people everywhere.  They have a coffee shop in the park and it is pumping out the cold beverages at lightning speed. Everyone is just laying around in the shade with their dogs and kids trying to get out of the heat.  All the windows and doors of the nearby apartments are open.  We saw one guy had a fan in the window, but it was on the sunny side of the house.  It isn’t that bad in the shade, he should have put the fan in a different window.

 

I know we will survive this heat wave, it feels pretty normal to us.  It is supposed to pass soon and maybe we will be able to check more stuff out.

It should be cooler when we leave this location.  We will be meeting up with some folks we met at the Old American RV Resort in Cle Elum, which apparently is near where all the famous folks have their summer homes.  I will let you know how it goes.

The glorious state of Montana

We went on up into Montana and stayed at the Conestoga Campground & RV Park in White Sulphur Springs.  On Google Maps the Conestoga Campground is listed as an attraction.  I don’t know what you would do here if you weren’t in your RV camping, but it was nice and well maintained. 

Cute little fountain in front.

The slips were entirely too thin.  Almost exactly the width of your RV. The slide outs were over the grass, but at least there was grass.  When we were setting up our neighbors came home and I felt I needed to apologize because my slides were almost encroaching on their picnic table.

About the only thing we found interesting to to in White Sulphur Springs was go see The Castle Museum and Carriage House. This castle was built by Byron Sherman in 1892 on some 300 or so acres and now sits in the middle of a rough residential section of town.  It actually has neighbors across the street. Can you imagine giving directions to your house by saying, ‘I live across the street from the castle.’  I believe the original views from this place would have been spectacular.  In 1894 Sherman enlarged a pond on his ranch that was fed by an abundant spring, and laid a twenty-inch pipe about 150 yards down the hill to a two-story electric light plant that had two dynamos in the basement. The electricity was carried into town on bare wire strung on pine and spruce poles. The plant could run only about six hours before the pressure of the pond became too low. Consumers learned to plan their activities around the 'on' hours, but they could lay claim to living in one of the first towns in the state to have electricity. Sherman did not live there long until he become ill and his family moved him to California thinking he would get better there. Well, he did not get any better and no one else ever lived in the castle.  It was an interesting story, but it was just another old house.  So, now you know.

  

Look at this view

This pipe has actually been confirmed to be Sitting Bulls!!

He is my ancestor, so - cool.

This coin operated game is still playable!  It is like foosball!

Training potty.  So cute!

This is how they made copies back in the day.  

A huge camera to take a shot of every page.

So after seeing the castle, the only thing we really did here was had dinner at the steakhouse.  They serve their food on plates like they used at Pancho’s.  Anyone remember that place.

But seriously, this perpetual vacationing can be pretty exhausting.  We are still having great fun, but need our down time when we can get it. So we relaxed and caught up on few things and rejuvenated ourselves.

Next we headed out to Bernie and Sharon’s Riverfront RV Park in Garrison, MT.  This place had plenty of room.  They initially had 3 slips where there are two now and when they started building RVs with slide outs they took one out and planted apple trees in its place. It was a pleasant place, but with no real amenities to speak of.

It was time for an oil change so Dennis found a place with some good reviews down the road in Deer Lodge, MT.  It was called Old Stage Lube and they were very friendly.  We walked down the road to grab lunch and wait for their call.  When we didn’t hear anything we waked back to the lube shop and the mechanic said the transfer case was completely empty and was missing some bolts.  He put fluid in, but as he was backing out of the bin he heard a rattling noise that worried him and he did not think we should drive it back home.  He will drain the fluid and see what comes out and then get back to us.

While we waited this time we did have a real good time down at the Old Montana Prison Museum. Along the sidewalk I tried to enter a door and noticed a sign saying if you have a gun you need to leave it at the counter.  We couldn’t get in through that door, so when we found the entrance I told the young girl that I had a gun and asked if it was her I was supposed to leave it with and she was blown away. So an older woman came up to me and asked if I had a gun and I told her yes, but there was a sign to leave it at the desk.  Anyway, she was so excited that I had a gun - she finally said no, don’t leave it, just go on into the museum.  She did chase me down and ask if I had a permit and I told her I did and Montana was a reciprocal state, so I was legal.  So we went on our way.  As we left the museum the lady asked to see my gun.  She was so funny! We actually realized later that the sign was probably from when the prison was a working prison, not for modern times. Oops, my bad!!

Part of this museum is the best old car museum I have ever seen in my life. My first car was a 1968 Nova, they only had one other Nova in the entire shop, but so many GTOs, Roadrunners, Mustangs, Corvettes, Volkswagens, one of the first ever electric cars was there - very interesting - and they even had an antique jet ski. If you are a car enthusiast, as I am, you should go there.  Very cool.  We really took our time in this place.

Then we got to the prison part and that was kinda creepy.  The place was built in 1871 as an attempt was being made to tame the Wild West.  Again, it was an interesting place, but so cold.  There was no running water or sewer facilities so each cell had two buckets.  One for sewage and one for water.  The stone buildings had such thick walls (3 ft thick and extends 4 ft underground) it reminded me of the Castle. Or maybe the chill was just the place.  There had been some famous prisoners in here.  The most famous was Paul ‘Turkey Pete’ Eitner who was sentenced to life in prison for murder.  Turkey Pete was a model prisoner and was assigned to tend the prison turkeys until one day a man stopped to admire the birds and Eitner sold him the whole lot of them for $0.25 a piece. This marked the end of his farming days and the beginning of his decline from reality. Now that he thought he was an entrepreneur and philanthropist the prison began humoring him and allowing him to have checks printed at the print shop and began an illustrious career with Eitner Enterprises.  He used these checks to ‘purchase’ - not really - the prison and begin running it - again, not really.  But he would write these worthless checks to the guards for their salaries and for prison expenses.  Eitner Enterprises also wrote checks to save Brazil’s coffee crop, purchased alfalfa seed from Poncho Villa, sold grasshopper legs to Fidel Castro, sold pink alligators, and sold ships to the Navy’s.  He was quite busy.  His cell was cell number 1 and the cell was retired and converted into a barber shop upon his death in 1967 at the age of 89.  His was the only funeral ever held within the walls of this prison. 

 

As we were on the grounds we could see that a pretty good storm was brewing and coming towards us over the mountains.  Since we were on foot, we had to cut this visit short.  We went back down to the lube shop and I believe God was watching after us on this one. The mechanic believed that the drain plug had also been screwed in to far and had cracked the transfer case.  We needed it replaced immediately.  He also saw where a stearing bar was bent and worn almost completely through.  Wow!  Okay, now what? They immediately got to work on procuring parts and thought they could still have it ready tomorrow.  

As you can imagine, there is no Uber or taxi service in Deer Lodge, Montana.  We asked how we were getting back to Garrison.  They called a friend and he happily took up back to the RV.  We ended up running into a couple of hiccups getting it fixed, but only had to extend our stay for one day.  I had stayed home to prepare the RV for departure and Dennis drove the mechanic (who had worked until after 11PM the night before on this thing) back to the shop and came back to hook her up.

I gotta tell you, I was a tad nervous heading out with this truck so soon after the all that work was done on it, but it was fine.  We also noticed a noise that we figured was a rock in the wheel was no longer there. We had been hearing that noise for a long time.  Guess it was the transfer case.  Yippies!

We made it to Columbia Falls, MT all safe and sound.  The park is nice with short but wide slips.  We were able to pull the truck in across the slip and not be in the road.  So it was good.

  

At Columbia Fall we are practically at Glacier National Park so we headed there.  I had not done a lot of research about this park, but it is quite different from most national parks we have been to.  Basically there is a road around the whole park with a few unconnected roads that go toward the center,  and then there is the Going to the Sun Road which cuts right through the center.  That road is an engineering wonder of the world with many narrow tunnels through the mountains.  They will not let anything but small cars drive this road.  So we would either need to rent a car or not go.  They were also requiring passes to drive the road.  We actually got on the road and drove some distance without a pass or anyone telling us not to proceed.  We got less than half-way and they had the road closed down.  There were some beautiful sites here, but we never got to see any of the glaciers.  Here are a couple of pretty shots of what we saw.

 

After we left the park the first day we went into Columbia Falls and found a fantastic place for a drink and a snack. The place is called The Gunsight Saloon in the historic park of town. They have an amazing outdoor area like at Luke’s on Calder in Beaumont. They have an historic bar inside - that is where we sat - and an old safe in the dining room.  One of the guys told us no one can open it, but knowing a couple of the previous owners he is sure there is nothing of value in there.

I love old buildings and this ceiling and the light fixtures are pretty amazing.  The bar here was actually made by Brunswick, the bowling company. Both my parents retired from a company that was a former subsidiary of Brunswick’s oilfield division.  We got cheap bowling gear back in the day.  I never knew they did bars. 

Columbia Falls is also very close to the Canadian border.  I know it is currently closed, but we wanted to go chunk a rock at Canada anyway.  Along the way we saw 5 antique cars traveling down the road.  They were all in perfect condition!  I tried to get pics of all of them, but my phone delays sometimes.  I might get a tire or a hood ornament and that is it.  They all had this sign on the back of their rides - something about Pathfinders. They were pretty amazing!

The border was unimpressive. 

Their was a US Border Patrol building across the street, but not a soul in sight.

We also decided to take the road on the northwest side of the park to see what there was to see.  This was an unpaved road that we thought would also lead to the Canadian border.  This road is so rough.  We went about 25 miles before we both finally gave up.  We turned around and went to this Polebridge Mercantile.  We had read about it and thought there was also an additional entrance into the park from there.  We got there - I had to run and powder my nose - and this place is a store with a few cabins around it. We decided to take another of these horrible dirt roads, but didn’t even make it a mile before we turned around.  It was way worse than the other one.  We have not been to a national park with such terrible roads.  We headed back south on the first dirt road and found a paved road heading into the park.  There was no ranger station here at all.  You could totally enter this park for free.  Anyway.  We went over to one of the villages and both the kids some Huckleberry stuff.  Huckleberry is the thing around here, like Mayhaw in Beaumont.  We even tried some Huckleberry ice cream.  So delicious. I am a fan of the Huckleberry.

It was time for a mani-pedi for this girl so I went to town and found me a great place and had my hour and a half of pampering and on my return I found an antique car show. So I went home to get D and we went back.  They had some neat old cars, and some guy driving by with an antique RV pulled in to check it out too.

For our last full day in Columbia Falls we found a bucket list item to entertain us. 2FlyUs.com aka the flying Flanagans!  They are Debbie, Kevin and their daughter Devin Flanagan who have a Hot Air Balloon operation.  They fly out of Phoenix, AR during the winter and Kalispel, MT during the summer.  They are so much fun and the ride in the hot air balloon was exactly as I expected!  Absolute blast!  If you ever have the chance you gotta fly with these guys. We were with one other couple on their honeymoon and that is it.  They don’t do 25 people at a time.  It was very intimate and a perfect ending to our time in Montana.

It is such a small operation you gotta work to fly.  LOL

This is Devin - She is also a pilot and she performed the ritual of the Champaign toast, but with sparkling juice because of Montana’s alcohol laws. They are strict around here.

So we will be saying goodbye to Montana and heading straight through the Idaho panhandle and finally into Washington.  Montana has stolen our hearts.  It is one of the most beautiful places in these United States.  We hope to return here and stay a while.  

We are currently afraid we may not have a place to stay for July 4.  It snuck up on us and we are currently scrambling to find a spot. Wish us luck!