it's not life that matters but the journey...

Here's part two of my travel post. This is from Montana to Washington.



Day 4, Saturday: driving from Billings to Superior Montana
The fourth day of travel, which was just through Montana, started out rainy and cool. We had breakfast in the hotel again (our third Super 8, all of which have what they call “Continental breakfast” - usually muffins, bread, cereal and coffee and juice) and got on the road by 9:30 a.m. At first we got turned around and couldn’t find the highway, but finally got to a gas station, and also picked up some subway sandwiches. We stopped a lot on this day - several times to check on Leo because he was crying a lot, and also for gas and food. We stopped in a town called Belgrade, Montana for lunch - some personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut. Montana was really beautiful - full of mountains, little rivers, and very windy roads:








The driving was intense at some places, with steep grades and winding roads, which made me very nervous. And what I couldn’t believe is that the speed limit was still 75 mph! At one point we climbed all the way to 6,300 feet elevation and then had to go back down - that was super scary! Neither of us is accustomed to driving mountain roads, but Masahiko was much better than I was at handling the curves. We passed the town of Missoula, which has a big university - that looked like a really interesting city and I wish we’d had time to see it. The weather had cleared up since the morning so that we had sun and clear skies and temps in the 70s. We arrived at our destination, Superior MT, around 6 p.m. The town was so cute - the population is only about 800 or so people , and the town rests at the foot of a mountain, with a river running through it. The place we stopped right off the highway was so peaceful, with just our little motel - called Big Sky Motel - a gas station, a restaurant and a police station across the street from the motel, and a grocery store around the corner. Here's some pics of Superior:
















We checked into our motel, which ended up being the biggest room so far - they gave us two double beds, and the room was huge, with a big bathroom and a refrigerator and a table and chairs. Leo was really comfortable in this room, and I think we all could have stayed there for a week! The only place to eat was the restaurant across the street, called Durango’s. So we went there and ordered food for takeout and looked around the gift shop. We took our food to our room and ate, then walked through the town a bit - saw the courthouse building and took photos and video of the river and mountains. We stopped at the little local grocery store, which seemed to also be the post office, hardware store, drug store, and everything else - we got some bottled water and cherries. I felt so relaxed in that town, and I think this was my favorite spot on the whole trip - so peaceful and calm, and I slept better that night than I had all week - I went to sleep by 9:30 and didn’t wake up until 6 a.m. the next morning.

Day 5, Saturday: Driving from Superior MT to Ellensburg, WA

This was our last full day of driving. We knew that had less than 400 miles to drive this day, so we got a late start - we ate some breakfast from the hotel (some bread and coffee) and I bought some souvenirs at the little shop/restaurant. Then we got on the road by 10 a.m. The weather was beautiful, and the drive from Montana to Idaho was mostly uneventful, the scenery much the same as the day before, very mountainous, with lots of rivers:







Once we passed into Idaho, the roads became even crazier - we started climbing again, and the roads were steep and very winding. Masahiko did most of the driving this day - thankfully! He did a great job, but we were of course worried about the brakes because we had to use them a lot on all the hills. The drive through Idaho was very pretty and green, and we passed through the town of Coeurs D’Alene, which seemed to be a very cute town. Not too far past Coeurs D’Alene, we got into Washington - and here the scenery, as well as the weather, started to change drastically. It had already started to feel hot as the morning wore off, but when we got into Eastern Washington, it was noticeably hot! We decided to start using the air conditioner (which up to this point we hadn’t had to use, thankfully) - mostly because Leo was starting to get really hot and I worried he would get dehydrated. We drove past Spokane, Washington (which also seemed to be a really pretty and clean city), and finally found a place to stop so that I could begin driving a little bit - Masahiko had driven all morning and was tired. But once we got away from Spokane, our surroundings became really desolate, and very desert-like. But we did pass over the Columbia River, and that was breathtaking. Quite a variety of landscapes:












Washington had a huge heat wave (as some of you know) last week, and it was still really hot in the Eastern part of the state. And after Spokane, there were miles and miles of nothing but just wide open spaces, with hardly any farms or anything. And everything was so dry, it almost looked like the Arizona desert. Then at some point, we started really climbing, and the car was starting to struggle a little bit - we had to turn off the air conditioning, but still the temperature gauge on the car was going higher. I remember we stopped at a little town for some gas and food, and we also stopped at a rest area. We started seeing lots of broken down cars because the temperature was probably around 100 and the road, although it wasn’t winding or narrow, was climbing in elevation - we climbed back up to about 3,000 feet again. But with all that heat, it was so hard on the car and on us. When we stopped at the rest area, we had to take Leo out of his cage and make him drink water, and put some ice water over his body to cool him off. We stopped to see a view of the Columbia River and some mountains, and the heat hit us like a ton of bricks. It was like stepping into an oven - so unbelievably hot! Finally around 4 p.m. we arrived in the town of Ellensburg, Washington, which was really the first signs of civilization since we had driven through Spokane (except for the little town where we got lunch). Right off the highway was a Comfort Inn, so I asked Masahiko to stop. This was the first night that I didn’t have a reservation, because I thought we’d have no trouble getting a room. But I was wrong - after waiting in line at the Comfort Inn for about 10 minutes, I asked the girl if there were any rooms, and she said only one with two beds for $109.00. So I got back in the car and called the Super 8, which said they had rooms for a bit cheaper. We were pulling out of the Comfort Inn parking lot, when our third catastrophe of the trip began. A guy pulled up next to us and told us we had a flat tire! Sure enough, our back tire was flat, and it was one that Masahiko had been worried about because the valve had been broken awhile back, and he had repaired it during this trip. He started to fix the tire with some fix-a-flat, and I walked over to the nearest hotel to see if they had a room. The Quality Inn had a room, and the girl gave me a 10% discount because she felt sorry for our flat tire - but I paid extra for the cat of course. She gave me the address and phone number of the Les Schwab tire place, but I didn’t realize that it was a Saturday and they were closing at 5 p.m. By the time I got to our room and called, they told me they were closing in just 10 minutes! So we left Leo in the room, drove like crazy, and arrived at the tire place just about 5 minutes before they closed. They fixed our tire in just about 10 minutes, and didn’t even charge us anything! We did give the guy a $20 tip though because he worked really hard, and after closing time, to help us. It was just amazing timing - if we hadn’t gotten there before they closed, we would have been stuck in Ellensburg, still about 160 miles from Port Angeles, for another day - because everything is closed on Sundays in small towns. Really I feel like the whole thing was a miracle that we didn’t get a flat tire until we rolled into the town where we were planning to stay for the night, and that we had just enough time to get the tire fixed!

After the tire was fixed, we drove next door to the teriyaki place and got take out for dinner. By this time it was about 5:30 - we went back to the room, showered (we were so hot and sweaty!) and ate. Masahiko took a swim that night in the hotel pool, but I was too tired. We slept early and got up at 5:30 on Sunday to begin our final drive.

Day 6, Sunday: Driving to Port Angeles, WA

The last day was really easy. We had about 106 miles to Seattle, which was easy driving - no hills or really winding roads. The scenery was really pretty - I wished we had time to stop in Snoqualmie, which is where the opening to the Twin Peaks tv show was filmed. But I think I’ll try to take Masahiko there before he leaves for Japan - if we have time. Some views from our drive:









We got to the Seattle area by about 8:30 or 9 a.m., and drove on through to Edmonds, where we had to wait 30 minutes for the ferry to take us across the Puget Sound to the Peninsula. My cousin Dave just happened to be driving back from Port Angeles at the same time, so we were able to meet him for a few minutes at a grocery store parking lot in Kingston where the ferry lets out. From there, the drive was just over an hour, but I made a wrong turn and ended up going south - by the time I realized it, I had driven about 10 extra minutes, so I turned around and got going the right way. But with stopping to see Dave and his daughter Leah, and then turning the wrong direction, I added about 40 minutes to our drive. We finally arrived in Port Angeles and at my parent’s house by 12:30 or so, just in time for lunch.



I didn't take any photos of us here in Port Angeles yet, though I should probably do that, to complete the whole travel posts. however, I also didn't take any pictures of our leaving Chicago - we were just so tired and ready to get out of Illinois that day. Anyway, we are here, enjoying our surroundings and staying busy. We have lots of organizing to do, but that will not happen until after my brother leaves, and after my sister's visit. It's going to be really busy for about the six days, so I hope to have time to get on here as much as possible.