Yellowstone and NW USA - Ged and Lynne 2016: Journey Day 13

[catchup; photos added 25/08/16]

Eagle’s Nest Motel was excellent. Comfortable, very clean and well maintained as well as cheap, good air-con, comfy bed and the basic continental breakfast was fine. A fun touch is chainsaw carvings of bears in all sort of poses along the rails outside the rooms.

Traditional motels are great for packing as the car is outside the door of the room.

Priest River is little more than a few buildings along a stretch of road and within seconds of starting we were out on the highway and on our way.

Our stay in Idaho was very passing and we quickly moved into Washington state and hit the town of Newport.
Washington suddenly feels more urban, or modern or civilised, I can’t really put it into words, maybe more West Coast? The supermarket is massive, polished and well stocked with major fresh produce all. It’s like a big smart Morrison's or Carrefour rather than the oversized camp shop feel of many stores across Wyoming and Montana. There are more businesses, garages, machine stores, pharmacies and seemingly more schools. Out of town, gardens are more tended and agriculture tidy.
Sadly another evidence of modernity is that there is litter in the pull-outs (laybys) something we haven't seen through Wyoming and Montana.

Today was the second day of a 500 mile transit from Glacier NP to North Cascades NP so, with 250+ miles, we were disappointed to discover the 55mph limit which everyone obeyed. Progress across the map seemed much slower and then we hit 3 sets of road works with long delayed and pilot cars managing one way traffic. Later on, we crossed a County line and the limit suddenly rose to 60mph but still dropping to 25 every time we passed any buildings.

We continues through a verdant landscape. The rolling hills were wooded with deciduous as well as pine and thick green undergrowth. Evidence of wild fires a few years ago where tall dead pine skeletons towered above new growth. At Glacier Park we read how the tree line is rising with global warming and here we could see the species climbing.

Following Scenic Byways and climbing through switchbacks into Coalville National Forest, a large are for recreation with lakes and wide rivers around us through the trees. We stopped by Crystal Falls in 90F then continued through the road works and over the massive Columbia River coming south from Canada only a few miles north of our route.

Lumber was the big industry in these parts at the end of the 19^th century and we stopped by a historical interpretation of log flumes. I had not really considered the log flume at theme parks as anything beyond invention based on floating down a river but, here I learned more. They constructed V shaped wooden troughs down the hillsides and stacked logs in them before opening sluices to send them all racing downhill to the river or railway. Rather like ‘inclines’ taking quarry stone to a canal. The were ‘Dry Flumes’ as they only had water when the sluice opened, the ‘Wet Flumes’ had a continuous flow, for example a straightened stream.

Our highest pass today was the Sherman Pass at 5575ft where we stopped for lunch in the picnic site. Pre-packed salad bowls from Safeway this morning.

After passing the town of Republic we began a steep long descent to plains surrounded by bare rock low mountains speckled with sparse pines, the hot flat basins irrigated and growing fruits from apples to some vines. The sagebrush that has been missing for a couple of days has returned on the m
ore barren areas with some almost desert areas. Temperature peaked at 99F outside.

We arrived at our destination Winthrop about 4:30 and followed Beryl’s (Sat-Nav) instructions ending up in the middle of a bridge. I remembered that I hadn’t stored the Chewuch Inn as a waypoint but just entered Winthrop. No problem, we have the address… Beryl doesn’t think White Avenue exists. Back to driving up and down highway 20 and we spotted the sign.

We moved in to our comfy attractive room and then settled on chairs on the lawn under the trees with cold beers. The sprinklers were going and the wet grass smelled of home though it wouldn’t have been 90F at 5pm at home. Wild turkeys scavaging under the trees.