Sunday, July 6, 2008

 

After our usual breakfast of cereal, we headed down the road to see if we could find a church or if we should just have our own service in the car.  We didn’t find a church until 11:15 so we decided to just have our own church in the vehicle as we drove through the Cascade Mountains.  What a beautiful setting for spending some time with God and his Word.  Chris did the reading for today.

 

All along the side of the road were large raspberry bushes with very large berries so we stopped at a roadside turnout and picked some.  The berries were so big and red and juicy but not sweet or good tasting.  We had some that were bright red, some that were dark red, some that were orangish-red so it seems we would have found the ripe ones in that much selection but none of them tasted very good.  We tried several with many being so bitter tasting that we spit them out.  How could they look so good and taste so bad???

 

The Cascade Mountains are in a wetland, maybe even a rain forest so the ground is lush green with lots of trees, bushes and flowers.  There are many waterfalls that we could see from the road along the highway.  The river and lakes are a blue-greenish color (more green than Alaska’s blue-green colored waters) with a little milky look to them probably from the glaciers around Washington.  As soon as we left Cascade National Park the scenery changed; more like desert.  What a contrast.  There were not as many mountains and the mountains were not as tall.  There was not as much water and the lush green was gone.

 

The sky looks like home. It is blue with high light fluffy clouds.  In Canada, Alaska and the coast of Washington, the sky has low clouds.  Sometimes we could see blue sky somewhere but we didn’t have any days where there were no clouds.  In this part of Washington, the sky is blue with a few clouds like many days at home.  The kids say that it smells more like home.  I think they aren’t smelling the fishy smell anymore.

 

We stopped at Winthrop, Washington for a picnic lunch and to check out the town.  It is an old western town with many of the old building turned into western and souvenir shops.  There was a glass blower making a hummingbird feeder so we stopped to watch.  It is amazing how the glass looks when it is got enough to melt and it doesn’t take very long before it cools to be hard again.  Chris found a treasure he couldn’t live without; some special cowboy boots.  I think he has been looking for these since he was about three but at last he has found them.  The lady at the store said all of her family members have their own pair of these cowboy boots and they love them.  Way to go Chris.  He has a good eye for treasures.  We also found an outdoor ice cream shop with homemade ice cream in many flavors so what could we do but support them and get a treat.  I had pumpkin ice cream; Tim had chocolate, coconut, almond; Aleesha had peanut butter chocolate and Sarah had homemade chocolate; Chris didn’t want any ice cream.  I can’t imagine passing up ice cream.

 

At one point in our driving today, we got pretty warm.  The thermometer in the car said the temperature was 91.  We are not ready for the 90+ degree heat.  Thankfully today, we drove out of the heat in just a few minutes and returned to the 80 degree temps but we know the heat will be upon us again soon.

 

We left Winthrop and headed south and east on highway 2 to Okanogan where we took highway 97 south to 174 east and on to the Grand Coulee Dam where we stopped for a visit. Built during Roosevelt’s administration, it is the largest dam in North America. There are enough hydroelectric generators in the dam to power all of Seattle and Portland.  They used as much concrete in building the dam, as it would take to make a 4-foot wide sidewalk around the world twice.  Quite impressive.  There is a laser light show at dark each evening but we couldn’t stay there that long.  Singing “On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again” we left the Grand Coulee Dam going south to get highway 2 east to Spokane where we got on highway I-90 east.  We had supper just east of Spokane at our choice of Subway or Panda Express. 

 

Just before we stopped for the night, we crossed the border into Idaho.  We stayed the night at Post Falls, ID at the SunTree RV Park.  They had a swimming pool with pretty cold water but Sarah didn’t mind and Tim and Deaune joined her.  The teenagers weren’t tough enough for the frigid water temperatures. ;-)  Actually Deaune wasn’t either but she tried.  We showered and went to bed knowing that tomorrow we have a lot of driving to do.  It is nice to have beautiful weather and temperatures cool enough that covers feel nice one more night because we know we will be driving into the summer heat very soon.