Leaving Vancouver, we decided to go home via the United States, since there were many places we wanted to visit along the way. We stayed in Seattle one night. Considering the area's rainy reputation, we were lucky and got a fine evening in which to take a stroll on the waterfront. There was a Japanese "tall ship" docked in the port, and two of the sailors were kind enough to allow us to take a photo. We also came upon a street artist whose work we really enjoyed. We bought one of his paintings, it is still hanging in our dining room.
From Seattle, we headed east (of course) on interstate 90. We stopped for a visit of Snoqualmie Falls, then headed for Coeur D'Alene Idaho. Along the way, we spotted an old, abandoned water pumping windmill. To me, these are so representative of the old west, I felt we just had to have a photo. We had driven a few kilometers before we decided to actually do it, so we turned around, found a place to park and trekked through the field to get a closeup. On the way back to the car we found a tumbleweed! Now, I grew
Smile!Two Japanese sailors from the tall ship.
up listening to the Sons of the Pioneers singing "Tumbling Tumbleweeds". I never thought I'd actually see one, so I was really excited! (it doesn't take much). I wanted to take it home, but Eddy said no, we had no room. Oh well!
We camped in Coeur D'Alene that night at a very welcoming campground a little outside of town. At the time of this trip, we didn't have a tent of our own, we had borrowed my son's pup tent. It was very small, but lots of fun. That night we were hit with our first storm. We just had enough time to fashion a rain shelter out of a tarp and some branches, before the rain hit, but we managed ok, and the next morning, we visited the local hardware store and picked up a few extra poles, pegs and rope, and from then on, we were all set.
Artist at workThis guy had the fastest paintbrush in the west! But he was good
United States' Flag
Map of United States