Day 6: Mountain time (zone)

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Bill

Got to drop off the grandkids at Girl Scout camp and summer pre-school. The are very good at keeping their masks on. Then we headed for Boise. We can backtrack through Washington and Oregon (Spokane, Ritzville, Tri-Cities, Pendleton, Baker City, Ontario, Boise) for for about a hundred miles less, but about ten minutes longer we can drive down the west side of Idaho (Spokane, Lewiston, Grangerville, McCall, Boise.) We took the more scenic Idaho route. The views never disappoint. This is from a rest stop on 95:

That said, there are two significant construction projects along the way, so we’ll go back via the Interstates.

Dinner tonight at Tin Roof Tacos. Good food, cheap, open late and nice outdoor seating. OTOH their other location was closed fo Covid and staffing issues. So… there is that. Being from Washington State it’s a little confusing to be in a place where virtually no one wears a mask, not even the restaurant staff. The barista in Starbucks in McCall did have a face mask, but she wore it like a chin strap.

We’re hanging out here for four full days and then resuming the journey.

	Miles driven	Time on the road
	375	7:01

Days 2 to 5: Chillin’ in the hood

Posted on August 24, 2021 by Bill

No travel days recently. We’re just hanging out with the grandkids and thier parents. We had a nice breakfast picnic on Sunday. We got gluten-free waffles at People’s Waffles and ate at Riverfront Park. The carousel is nice, but we made our way to the Garbage Goat. No, really. They have a mechanised, vacuum powered trash eater in the park.

We met a man playing a handpan. He was kind enough to explain the instrument and play some for us. It looks like an inverted steel drum but has a similar sound.

The kids played on the red wagon slide. I’ve ordered one for our house. No, just kidding! But I do have ideas for a slide that wife and contactor are both trying to talk me out of. Mal sehen as they say in Deutschland.

So, all in all a mellow four days in Spokane. The M’s won twice. Got good food from Nudo and Kuni’s. (Still not eating in restaurants.) The weather is great, only a tiny bit smokey. Tomorrow we’re off to Boise.

If the adjective form of metal is metallic, what’s the equivalent for iron? Oh… how… ironic.

Day 1: On the road again. Finally.

Posted on August 22, 2021 by Bill

Ok, so we like to take a road trip every summer. And last year, well, you know, that thing happened. Not that things are all rosey again at the moment. But we’re on our way across a bunch of Western states for a few weeks. We have lots of masks, Lysol wipes and hand santizer and we plan to stay out of most indoor spaces. We will be staying in hotels for a total of eleven nights. We even bought some camp chairs so we can order take out and find nice places to sit outside and eat.

And of course testing… (Negative)

Day one was simple, from home to Spokane for several days with those little people, the um, um, granchildren! And their parents of course. Lots of traffic today. Apparently we were not the only people with this idea.

Miles driven	Time on the road
286	4:39