Day 4

Left at mile marker 2230 and bid a fond farewell to Wallace. Actually, we loved Wallace. On our way out (at 5am), we stopped at a gas station run by two women who were laughing hysterically when I walked in about how pathetically their grand evergreen was decorated with Christmas lights....and they were right. We pulled out in the dark and just as the day began to lighten, we pulled into Coeur D'Alene to see the huge, beautiful lake. As Betsy said, Coeur D'Alene means, roughly translated mind you, "those scuzzy Indian traders" --too bad because the words are quite lovely. Here's what the lake looks like:



This is a very upscale place, and as we pulled into the visitor's parking across from the lake, we saw something like 30 trees intricately decorated with tiny white lights. Ms. Calamity said, "Wallace, eat your heart out!". Yup.

So, we pulled out of town and found ourselves in the glorious state of WASHINGTON!!! We drove through Spokane and over the Columbia River:



and farther and then, we began to see signs for the Snoqualmie pass. But again, the weather was perfect and we were through the pass before we even realized we had started! Thank goodness the chains stayed in the car! How lucky were we. And then we stopped off at Snoqualmie Falls ( where The show Twin Peaks was shot) and looked at the fabulous falls ( hard to see with all the spray).





Then we were on the way to Seattle and then heading up 405 and then 5 and all the way to the border. Here, we had a little snafu as Betsy forgot to say that the car was staying in Canada. When he figured this out, I think he was a little unclear about us, and he made us go inside and talk to an agent there. The guy inside turned out to be vey nice, and in about 15 minutes fate getting on the road, we arrived:




Yahoo! 2700 miles later, here we are with Mount Rainier peaking his lovely head over the pines in the backyard.....NICE.

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Location:Coeur D'alene