The chemical warfare we waged on Kris' toothache turned the tide and the pain abated so we decided to spend 5 nights in the Portland area, ending each day with a couple of glasses of wine at the Shaken Martini Lounge (the one we mentioned in last week's blog... check out the review in the Gresham Outlook published while we were there; if it is still available) in Troutdale. Unfortunately by the end of the 5th day the tooth was a little uncertain so we decided to change plans and head for home via Spokane rather than Seattle/Vancouver. The unfortunate result, for us, is that we missed connecting with our friends John and Joan who recently completed a cross Canada trip and had already traveled onto the Okanagan area by the time we hit the Radium area.
We had a good time in Portland. After the Sunday craft market we mentioned last week, we did a day at the Japanese and Rose Gardens followed by the Hawthorne district, a day combining downtown and the Pearl District, and a day in the Arts district mostly all just wandering, sightseeing and checking out the wide variety of shops including, or course, Powell's Books.
The Japanese Gardens were in their usual beautiful and tranquil state...
... and, much to our surprise, and delight, the Rose Gardens were still in full bloom...
Leaving Portland we stopped for lunch in Goldendale Washington. We decided to try out the Windy Ridge Saloon and Eatery on the main drag. Nice... the interior decoration was quite neat, a sort of gentrified western saloon, very authentic but with modern touches. The menu was varied making it hard to decide what to try. Kris settled on batter fried salmon which she concluded was probably the best she had ever had. Brian settled on the Goober Burger, a 1/2 lb pattie covered with a large spread of crunchy peanut butter. Their menu stated that it "Sounds weird, tastes awesome" and was true to their words. Good choice and the beard only needed a good rinsing after as the pb was a tad melty :-)
North of Goldendale we came across a couple of sights worth mentioning. The first was a viewpoint...
... with a great view of a mountain across the valley. We think we could see Mt St Helens but couldn't be sure from the viewpoint map, however the view was fabulous...
The second was more on the negative side. We got stuck in a very long traffic jam for over an hour...
It turned out that a large transport truck did something to catch fire. It sparked a grass fire on both sides of the highway, hence the long holdup as the fires were brought under control. The cab of the truck ended up a pile of molten rubble (couldn't get a pic of that) and we couldn't tell if it was only one vehicle or if there was another smaller one in there as well. Brutal sight! We checked the local newspaper the next day and it reported that only the truck was damaged and nobody was injured. We guessed that something in the truck engine sparked the fire.
Anyway, we decided to stop the night in Yakima and found a spot in a RV Park next to a golf "resort" (use the word loosely). The RV park guy told us there was a bar/restaurant in the clubhouse so we decided to wander over and have a glass of wine and possibly some munchies. Recall our experience, earlier this trip, at Chowchilla where the clubhouse had a very nice bistro overlooking the 18th green. Not this time! As we approached the clubhouse one of the young men working in the clubhouse pointed us to the bar. We entered to a seemingly surprised woman who looked at us as if we had two heads. She looked at the clock to see that it was all of 6:20 PM then at us and said quite sourly "well I decided to close at 6:00 today". We asked if we could have a couple of glasses of wine to have on the patio and we would leave the glasses with the guy in the clubhouse... Well, didn't that just pee in her cereal! She was not having any of that! As we left, the clubhouse guy came over and sheepishly apologized and said that she normally stays open later but apparently can do whatever she wants. Any golfers still on the course were out of luck on that front. In retrospect, it was not the most modern looking "bar/restaurant", sort of on the grubby side if the truth were told, so probably just as well.
To top off the Yakima visit Brian got accosted by some guy panhandling in a Target store parking lot. Brian declined to offer up anything and the guy looked at our license plate and loudly suggested that "we should go back to where we came from"... after driving around to sightsee Yakima for a bit we decided that it was an apt suggestion and since we were on our way back home anyway we would continue to do just that! No need to spend anymore time there.
The next day we continued on to Coeur d'Alene for a couple of nights. Since we were nearing the end of this trip we decided to have a nice prime rib dinner at the Cedars floating restaurant on Lake Coeur d'Alene. Very nice!
On the way north up the Idaho panhandle we decided to stop, for a night, at the Blue Lake Resort about 8 miles south of Bonners Ferry. We have driven past there many times and always thought it was probably a mosquito infested little swamp. NOT SO! Turns out the little lake is spring fed and is some 50 to 100 feet deep. The campground is a delight amid a pine tree forest...
Then it was on to the border where there was zippo for a lineup and after a few quick questions the agent wished us well and sent us on our way. We headed to Fort Steele just north of Cranbrook for the night. That turned out to be the coldest night of our trip with the temperature dropping to a few degrees below freezing during the night. The little ceramic heater along with an extra blanket we have does a decent job of keeping the wee trailer and it's occupants warm enough but as we were getting close to home we decided to do the relatively long drive, for us, and head back to Calgary the next day. It was a beautiful drive north to Radium, over the mountains and on to the foothills into Calgary on a clear blue sky day.
Home again.
Some stats for this trip:
Total distance traveled: 10,928 kms
Total $ spent on fuel: $CDN 1,737.34 (after converting $US to $CDN)
Average $ cost per litre of premium gas in Canada: $CDN 1.426
Average $ cost per litre of premium gas in US: $CDN 1.061 (after converting gal to litre and $US to $CDN)
| Back to Week 9 | ... end of this trip |
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