Days 4, 5 & 6 Moscow to Seattle

After a night in Billings we hit the road yet again with Moscow, Idaho as the destination. For this day, unlike many of our others, we had fun stops within the day to break up the 9 hour drive. We began around 8 and set out to Wheat Montana in Three Forks, Montana. Along with the stunning views of the Rockies we also got great sandwiches on homemade bread. After this pleasant stop we continued on the interstate towards Missoula, Montana where we planned on exiting the interstate and heading to Lolo springs. Lolo turned out to look somewhat less than what we had anticipated (the hot springs were actually pumped into both an indoor and outdoor pool leaving a less than outdoorsy experience). After this detour we continued on US-12 into Idaho and got one of the more spectacularly scenic drives of the trip thus far. The highway follows Louis and Clark’s path through Nez Perce country and has many outdoor trails leading off the highway at designated parking spots. We stopped along the way to hike along one of these paths and thoroughly enjoyed being able to stretch our legs while getting great views. We ended this day in Moscow after a delicious dinner with Peter and Carolyn. Their house turned out to be in a very outdoor setting and was set in the mountains with a great view of the night sky which featured a very luminescent moon. I believe both Sarah and I were thoroughly impressed not only with Idaho and the lack of potatoes that we saw ( we think this is because we were in northern Idaho) but also with the immense size of the mountains we were passing through. Neither of us had been to the northwestern corner of the United states and I can say these mountains made the Smokeys pale in comparison. The next day began early again with Seattle as our end destination. We left early and after filling up with gas in Idaho ( where gas is 20 cents a gallon cheaper than its 5 mile away counterpart, Washington) we proceeded to hit the road! Today the goals were to see Leavenworth, Washington, a bizarre little Bavarian themed town set at the foothills of the Cascades and to hopefully get some hiking in when we reached Seattle. Leavenworth turned out to be unique to say the least. It’s strange dedication to appearing German was very unexpected but very amusing. I will say we ate our worst meal of the trip thus far in Leavenworth and spent the remainder of the drive for the day regretting it. Upon reaching Seattle we went for a brief hike and reached Ardie and Keith’s without a problem ( but with lots of traffic). They live in Northwest Seattle, immediately next to a fantastic park and we greatly enjoyed getting to see the waterfront as well as getting to walk some more (the long stretches in the car are getting to us). Today we had the grand tour of Seattle. Starting at the original Starbucks we then proceeded to see Pikes Place, the Olympic Statue Garden, Bainbridge Island, the Fremont troll, Gasworks Park and eat dinner on Capitol hill. This was by far our fullest and more exhausting day but I think it was my favorite. We got Seattle on some remarkably sunny days and the sights we saw were amazing. I am really blown away by the number of trees in such a metropolitan area. Tomorrow we depart Seattle and hopefully we will update the blog more regularly as the peanut gallery ( dad) is getting restless without daily updates.

(more pictures to come but they are on the fancy camera located in the car