Spokane in north eastern Washington is awesome! Not only does it have the honor of being the home of the Allers, but it is a beautiful city with tons of trees and flowers, hills, a river, and a charming and accessible downtown. On top of all of that it provides easy access to Idaho's mountains and forests to the east.
After arriving we spent the afternoon enjoying a walk to the park and playground followed by a home cooked meal. It was great to catch up with Jim and Tracey.
After arriving we spent the afternoon enjoying a walk to the park and playground followed by a home cooked meal. It was great to catch up with Jim and Tracey.
Sybil and I took a walk the next morning to Duncan Garden just a short walk from the Allers' home. She especially liked the pink flowers and fountains.
Hud and I are getting good at sneaking out for trail runs when Sybil is taking naps, thanks for covering Cara! Jim directed me to the Bluffs, his favorite place to mountain bike and trail run close to home. It was a great trail with a pretty steep drop off to the side of the narrow trails. We were loving it and I couldn't imagine riding it. Good reminder I need more time on my bike on trails.
That afternoon we went downtown to the children's museum and then Tracey treated Sybil to her first carousel ride! I'll let Sybil speak for herself about whether or not she enjoyed it. :-)
After feeding Spokane's famous garbage eating goat and sliding down the huge radio flyer slide, Sybil enjoyed a riverside dinner. One very hungry (and lost?) seagull provided her entertainment.
Family photo with the Allers! Thanks for opening your home to us again. We were off to explore the Idaho Panhandle National Forest next.
I love this photo. This was our first time to really take in our little section of the Coeur d'Alene River near our campsite.
A creative lumberjack created this stump thrown.
While Cara was fly fishing in the pools nearby, Sybil, Hudson, and I lounged along the river bank wading, skipping stones, building rock towers, and sunbathing.
We've been lucky to find these precut logs in our campsites, which have served as perfect tables.
This root provided a perfect nature toilet for Syb!
Happy family about to begin the Route of the Hiawatha. It would take awhile to get everyone happy again after the first tunnel.
The Hiawatha is an amazing Rails to Trails that is about 15 miles long through some beautiful national forest on the border of Idaho and Montana off I-90. It's a gradual downhill ride for 15 miles that passes through several tunnels and over hugely high trestle bridges. It was a beautiful sunny day and perfect for a ride. We were warned about the first tunnel, which is over 1.5 miles long, pitch black, and really cold (30s/40s), and tried to prepare Sybil. She was justifiably freaked out, and spent the first 10 minutes of the ride crying and worried another tunnel was coming up. "I don't want to be brave," was repeated over and over. The tunnels gradually got shorter and her courage grew so that by the time we had to ride back through the first long tunnel at the end of the ride she hardly made a whimper and quietly and bravely rode through the dark and cold.
Just past the first tunnel.
Thanks to a tenant of the Machine's that left behind a bunch of child gear. The Spiderman helmet and rear child seat worked perfectly!
Syb's first bus ride, that drove us back up the mountain to the first tunnel.
View from the Route of the Hiawatha. We would later ride over the trestle bridge pictured in the background.
We celebrated that night back at camp with S'mores!
After two nights in the Idaho woods, we were refreshed and ready to hit the road headed east/northeast to Whitefish, Montana to stay with the McCoy's, long time family friends from Spring, TX. It's been over a decade since we've been back in the Glacier area, and we are pumped for more mountains, trees, glacial lakes, cool temps, and hiking. Here we come Montana!
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