Spokane, Eastern Washington, and Idaho

After a few days in the North Cascades, we continued our road trip and ventured toward the eastern side of Washington. It's amazing how quickly the landscapes in the western US can vary, especially compared to the eastern half of the country. Leaving Leavenworth, the environment quickly changes from forests to farms to grasslands to desert within a few short miles. We traveled through these dry landscapes with the backdrop of smoke-filled skies from the wildfires.

Our first stop was in Dutch Henry Draw, a small canyon where we hiked to tiny Dutch Henry Falls. This was vastly different from our lake hikes in the North Cascades - it was essentially a short trek across a dusty desert to a small hidden waterfall. The tiny oasis below the falls was lush and filled with tadpoles, birds, insects and a random deer.

I don't think most people would guess this is Washington! You can see some wildfire haze.

The trail to Dutch Henry Falls.

A tiny waterfall and pool hidden in the desert!

Nearby Jameson Lake.

Continuing east, we went to Dry Falls State Park. This state park is at the site of a massive ancient waterfall created when glacial lake Missoula burst through ice dams and made its way to the Columbia River and the Pacific via massive floods. There is an observation area with exhibits explaining the geography of the area and images of what the falls would have looked like. The state park also hosts a few lakes along the water table with lakeside recreation and hiking trails. While here, we took a short hike to the Lake Lenore Caves. These shallow rock overhangs served as a good viewpoint of the valley. It was a short but very hot hike with no shade.

Huckleberry ice cream. Huckleberries is like blueberries, but can't be cultivated. A treat anytime we're in the northwest.

Overview from Dry Falls State Park.

A huge waterfall flowed over these cliffs thousands of years ago.

David at one of the cave entrances.

A view along the Lake Lenore Caves trail.

We went to three different caves.

Hanging out in the smallest cave! A nice break from the intense sun outside.

Resuming the trip towards Spokane, we passed through a few small cities and stopped briefly at the Govan schoolhouse. It's the one remaining building of a town that formerly had hundreds of people. It was a quick stop just a minute off the main road.

The Govan Schoolhouse.

We made it to Spokane by late afternoon, and took a walk around downtown and Riverfront Park. It was still very hot (Spokane has been in a heat wave since the end of June), which was a contrast to the last time David visited this city in summer and it was cool and a bit rainy. Overall, Spokane is a pretty nice place and an under-rated city. The downtown is larger and more walkable than you'd expect from an American city its size (only a few hundred thousand people). There are many restaurants, bars and shops in downtown, many of which were just reopening from COVID closures.

The nicest part of Spokane is the series of parks and venues along the riverfront. There are multiple miles of walking and biking trails along the rocks/cliffs near the river, and a large park that was part of Expo '74, the first world's expedition themed to the environment. After our walk, we had a great dinner at Wooden City, then returned to our hotel. This was by far the nicest lodging of our trip. We stayed at the Historic Davenport Hotel, a spectacular 1914 hotel that has been fully restored. The lobby is worth a visit even if you're not staying here.

View of our historic hotel.

Riverfront Park.

View of some of the falls.

So many good viewpoints!

The spectacular lobby of our hotel.

Dinner time! The food and drinks were great at Wooden City.

Pimento cheese dip at Wooden City.

The next morning we set out early for Coeur d'Alene, Idaho (about a 40 minute drive east from Spokane) with the goal of visiting Silverwood amusement park. Silverwood is kind of in the middle of nowhere, and is the North American park with the most roller coasters that Paul had not yet visited. The park didn't open until 11AM, so we first stopped in downtown Coeur d'Alene and walked around for a bit and had breakfast at Honey Eatery and Social Club. We didn't have much time here, but it seemed like a cute little tourist city.

Coeur d'Alene's downtown is super cute and walkable!

Best breakfast place of the trip. David had Kimchi fried rice breakfast with pastrami!

Silverwood is a surprisingly good park. It's not that big, but has a couple of great coasters and some really well maintained landscaping. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us, it was "Toyota Tuesday" where Toyota owners got free tickets. So the park was packed. We just got one ride on each coaster before heading out. The park had two wooden coasters, including Tremors, a unique ride with several underground tunnels. The standout ride is the new Stunt Pilot coaster.

Yay, roller coaster alley!

The new Stunt Pilot coaster.

Tremors wooden coaster.

This is a hill where the coaster comes from underground, crosses the path, and goes right back underground!

From Silverwood we drove north a bit before cutting back west and south to Spokane. We enjoyed the Idaho scenery, taking in views of the Pend Orielle River and stopping in the cute town of Sandpoint. We finished the day with dinner at Nudo Ramen in Spokane.

Matchwood Brewing Company in Sand Point, Idaho.

We stopped for a flight!

The Cedar Street Bridge Public Market in Sandpoint.

Dandan noodles and yakitori at Nudo Ramen House in Spokane.

For the next part of our Washington trip we again drove across the State towards Mount Rainier National Park, where'd we'd spend a few days. More to come!

More Adventures in Yellowstone

Yellowstone is a huge park, and after our first day we had barely scratched the surface. We spent the next two full days exploring the different areas of the park, going on hikes, and watching for wildlife. Day two began with an early morning drive up through Dunraven Pass (8,859 ft), which was still covered in thick snow even though it was almost June. After taking in the amazing views, we descended down toward the road leading to the Lamar Valley. We saw a bear with two cubs, who came very close to our car. Second day, second bear sighting! We continued past an awesome columnar basalt formation, and saw some bighorn sheep before stopping for our big hike of the trip, the Specimen Ridge Trail. This was a great un-crowded hike through a meadow and up a mountain for a fantastic view across the Lamar Valley. We saw a couple of bison, some North American pronghorn, and ground squirrels while hiking. At one point a bison decided to walk right on the trail towards us, so we had to step out of the way for a while.

Driving through the Hayden Valley in the morning.

Snowy Dunraven pass. Doesn't look like summer!

Beautiful views of the snowy mountains and foggy valleys.

A bear with two cubs!

We watched them walk around for a while (from the safety of our car). The cubs were adorable!

Huge basalt formation alongside the road.

First bighorn sighting!

Walking across the first park of the Specimen Ridge Trail. It was a bit chilly at first.

Great views from the trail across the meadow.

David and his Dad with the Lamar Valley in the background.

Specimen Ridge Trail is worth it for the views alone.

Paul on the trail.

We saw a ton of these guys in the meadow on the first part of the trail.

After the hike, we drove through the Lamar Valley, seeing several huge herds of bison. We exited the park's northeast entrance for lunch in Cooke City, Montana. Cooke City is interesting as there's just one road that goes through town from east to west. In the winter the road east is closed and it had still not opened for the season when we arrived. All winter folks living in Cooke City have to drive west through Yellowstone to leave town, which can take a very long time to reach anywhere.

After lunch, we found an ice cream shop while heading back towards Yellowstone. The couple that owned the store were actually retiree school teachers from Fayetteville, near Atlanta. Small world! While eating our ice cream we noticed a moose across the street chilling in a small city park. We spent a little time watching it graze and then headed back into the park. This was the only moose sighting of the trip.

Heading east through the Lamar Valley, near the northeast entrance of Yellowstone.

It's a bit more mountainous on this side of the park.

Obligatory Yellowstone sign shot!

Lunch was at a beer-friendly place. Someone else wrote Atlanta.

Hi Mr. Moose!

The next stop on our tour was Mammoth Hot Springs, which was more than an hour drive from Cooke City. Along the way we stopped at Undine Falls to check out the view. Mammoth Hot Springs is the northern entrance to the park, and has one of the busier visitor areas. There were quite a few elk chilling in the little village center, and lots of tourists running around.

The springs themselves are a series of cascading geothermal features that built up over time. They sort of look like stalagmites; as they both form from the build up of minerals from ground water over time. The springs look different depending on the time of year and rain. The weather was a bit bad when we arrived so we didn't linger.

Undine Falls.

David in front of the Mammoth Hot Springs. 

Completing our visit to the north side of the park, we swung around the west loop road to check out Norris Geyser Basin before returning to the Lake Lodge for the evening. The Norris Geyser Basin hosts a large collection of geysers, mudpots and other geothermal features. Paul really loves checking these out! Norris is one of the most geothermally active areas of the park, and probably the most impressive geyser basin.

Back at the hotel, we had a late reservation for dinner at 8:45 (way past David's Dad's dinner time). The food was expensive for what it was, but it was still the nicest meal we had in Yellowstone, where the food is in general just ok.

Overview of the Norris Geyser Basin.

Steam rising all around in Norris.

Paul with some steam vents.

Boiling water and bacteria.

Norris has fascinating streams of hot geyser water. The different colors are different species of bacteria and microorganisms that live at different temperatures.

Back at Lake Lodge there's still ice built up on Yellowstone Lake.

Paul's dinner.

On our third and final full day in Yellowstone, we focused on the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, one of the central features of the park. It has two huge waterfalls, and multiple scenic viewpoints. Unfortunately a couple of the viewpoints and trails were closed for renovation, but we still had some amazing views of the falls and canyon.

Classic viewpoint of Lower Falls.

The canyon has a beautiful variety of colors from minerals in the rock.

We hiked down to the brink of the lower falls. You can get really close.

Paul at the brink of the falls.

We also stopped at the Canyon visitor center, which had some excellent exhibits on the geology of Yellowstone. This was our favorite visitor center in the park. We had breakfast at the Canyon diner next door, and visited the mud volcano area on our way back to lake lodge. It was a rainy day, but the mud volcano area had some amazing roiling mudpots that were worth getting a little wet for.

A giant model of the park at the canyon visitors center.

A bubbling lake at mud volcano.

This was an impressive steaming, roiling mud lake.

Walking the boardwalk through the steam.

The dragon's mouth, steaming and bubbling.

After mud volcano, we dropped David's Dad off at the hotel to rest, then drove to the West Thumb Geyser Basin, despite the rain. West Thumb is a small but interesting basin with some geothermal features right on the shore of the Lake. We saw a baby elk there too, but didn't linger long due to the soggy weather. We rested back a the hotel for a bit and had a quick dinner at the deli in Lake Lodge, before a short evening drive past LeHardy's Rapids and some wildlife viewing in the Hayden Valley again.

An overview of Lake Yellowstone from a burned hilltop.

This was a pretty cool fact. The other side of lake Yellowstone is farther from a road than anywhere else in the continental US!

Yeah it was a bit rainy all day.

A big blue steaming hot spring in West Thumb.

There was still quite a bit of ice on Lake Yellowstone.

An elk wandering around West Thumb. Her baby was hiding nearby under a tree.

Another cool colorful hot stream full of bacteria.

Quick stop at the rapids.

That wrapped up our final day at Yellowstone. It's a spectacular place, and should be on everyone's bucket list. Our next stop is Grand Teton on the way back to Salt Lake City.