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!

North Cascades of Washington

This month we took our first real vacation since the beginning of the pandemic, and spent a week exploring the National Parks in Washington state. We've both been to Seattle before, but had never explored outside of the city. With three national parks and ecosystems ranging from desert to coastal rainforest, Washington is a great place for a roadtrip focusing on hiking and outdoor activities.

We started with one evening in Seattle. First we visited with David's video gaming friend Sherrod at a bar near the airport. Then we met up with our friends Leslie and Lauren. We walked around the Capitol Hill neighborhood and had dinner at Taku, a Japanese fried chicken place. We were pretty exhausted with the three hour time change, so we headed back to our friend's apartment and crashed. We do need to get back to Seattle sometime to spend more time in the city!

Flying over Washington, with the mountains poking above the clouds.

We could also see the wildfires from our flight - these would impact our trip route due to closed roads.

We also had a fantastic view of downtown Seattle just before landing.

David & Sherrod - the pandemic encouraged us to make friends in new ways - this one via Final Fantasy XIV online. It's nice to meet in person!

The Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.

On our first full day, we set out early for the area near of North Cascades National Park, in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. We did the Chain Lakes Trail, a 6.5 mile loop trail that goes around Table Mountain with views of Mt. Baker, Mt. Shuksan, and several alpine lakes. Several parts of the trail were still covered in snow, even in late July. This was a great hike with good views, and wasn't crowded. There were a few uphill sections with 1,800 feet of altitude gain, but it wasn't too bad. 

After the hike we had a late lunch at Chair 9, and relaxed at our AirBnB in Glacier. Overall, staying near the Mt Baker trails are a bit tricky and the town of Glacier seriously had like 2 restaurants and some shoddy AirBnBs so we probably wouldn't recommend staying here. That said, this was one of the best hikes of the entire trip and the wilderness area up here is really stunning!

Great weather for a hike!

Still lots of snowy areas.

The perfect kind of weather...cold enough for snow & but warm enough for a T-shirt!

David on a part of the trail cutting across a steep incline.

We love hikes like this!

Icy lakes are the prettiest lakes.

Iceberg Lake.

When the clouds parted we had direct views of Mt. Baker.

A few areas had snow/ice banks that had melted from below.

After hiking - giant pizza time!

The next day we backtracked and drove to the south side of North Cascades National Park, in the Ross Lake National Recreation Area. North Cascades is a bit odd because it's difficult to actually get into the national park unless you're doing backcountry camping. Most of the trails are in the surrounding national forests and recreation areas. But we saw the entrance sign and the visitor's center (which was mostly closed due to COVID), so we're counting it. 😂

We decided to do a relatively short trail, since we had an unexpectedly long drive ahead of us. Our original plan was to continue east on Highway 20, staying in Winthrop. However, the forest fires resulted in the closure of Highway 20, the only east-west road in this part of the state. Instead of a one hour drive east, we would have to backtrack and head quite a ways south before turning back east again. So we did some time management and did a hike on the Thunder Knob trail, a relatively easy hike that was just a bit over 3 miles round trip. It still had some great views of Diablo Lake and the nearby mountains. After leaving we had a quick lunch at a quirky Korean/American restaurant named Mondo in Marblemount, before continuing on the 4 hour drive to Leavenworth. 

One of the best looking national park signs.

Awesome views from the Thunder Knob trail.

Views over Diablo Lake.

Korean pork and hamburgers were both on the menu at Mondo!

Leavenworth wasn't in our original plan for this trip, and resulted in a lot of extra driving, but we're glad we visited! We arrived in the afternoon, and walked around a bit before having dinner. It's a faux-Bavarian town, like a larger version of Helen, Georgia. Leavenworth is also nicer than most American-made Bavarian towns. A common refrain was "oh, this is nicer than our Helen." The downtown area was closed to motor vehicles, which created a nice pedestrian experience. We weren't sure if this was a temporary thing due to COVID or for the tourist season, but it was great and they should make it permanent. We unfortunately were visiting during a heatwave, and it was really hot, but luckily it cooled off as the sun set. We had some beer, walked around the waterfront park, and then had dinner at Stein before heading back to the hotel (which was very nice and featured a really beautiful breakfast area on the top floor).

Welcome to faux-Bavaria, y'all!

All the people hanging out on the shady side of the street - it was hot!

A maypole and Bavarian-styled building.

Lots of cute shops and restaurants.

There are three breweries in town - we had a flight at Icicle Brewing.

Sampler time!

Hungarian poutine in the USA. Nothing here makes sense, but it was great!

The Wenatchee river goes right through town.

Our hotel, the Enzian Inn, was great. Highly recommended.

The European-style breakfast room in our hotel.

Paul hanging out our Juliet balcony. Unfortunately, the courtyard was under construction.

Our first few days were a great start to our Washington road trip. We saw friends, both old and new, dashed through a bit of Seattle, explored the snowy North Cascades, and dined on the Washington-Bavarian Riviera. The next part of our trip would be quite different - heading into the grasslands and deserts of eastern Washington!