Just outside of the city I spent the night in, my guidebook claimed that there was a small marker by the side of the road for a trail that led to a beautiful waterfall. And, in fact, it did. The trail went on a sturdy bridge over the local train tracks that was followed by two flights of descending stairsmade up of some sort of perforated steel mesh. I could see all the way down to the ground from the top, which was a bit unsettling. Then the trail split two ways. I took the first path, to a swinging suspension bridge. The bridge was basically a wood frame held up by four steel cables, so it swung around a lot. But the view was beautiful. After contemplating the view for a bit, I took the other branch of the trail and watched the waterfall, which was also very nice.
Then it was time to get back on the road...
Shortly afterwards, I finally made it out of Montana and into Idaho. The main difference is that the speed limit in Idaho was slower--generally 60 or so, instead of Montana's 75. And Idaho has lots of small towns to drive through. But, after an hour or so in Idaho, there was Washington. I kept driving, and stopped in Spokane for breakfast (IHOP!) and gas.
The Western end of Montana, the portions of Idaho I drove through, and the Northeastern end of Washington are offer beautiful roadside terrain. Just past Spokane, Washington becomes a barren wasteland. Part of this was the fires that had moved through the area, as recently as the day before. But most of the area was, I suspect, simply farmland that had already been harvested down to almost nothing, and was simply waiting sans irrigation for the new growing season. Whatever the reason, the terrain was desolate. I even got a picture of one of the dust devils drifting across the fields.
After another two hours or so, I arrived in Walla Walla, Washington. Walla Walla is in the middle of nowhere. Even in North Dakota, or Montana, I never really got the same feeling of isolation. At Fort Walla Walla, there's a pioneer museum. This was a really cool museum; they had lots of artifacts and displays. If you're only going to see one pioneer museum while driving around the country, I'd have to recommend this one. The most impressive display was of a 33-horse combine harvester--complete with models of the 33 horses, and a diagram showing how the horses were connected so as to balance the force between them.
After a bit of shopping in the obligatory gift shop, I drove on into Oregon. I stopped at The Dalles, about an hour and a half outside of Portland. It turns out that The Dalles is the start of a local recreation area along the Columbia river. I should note for the record that the Columbia river valley was a beautiful stretch of the country.
There was dinner, a bit of sunset and star watching, and sleep.
Once I'd realized that I was going to be going through Portland, I knew I'd have to make a pilgrimage to Powell's. The main Powell's is one of the biggest bookstores on the planet; it occupies a full city block... and there's an additional technical bookstore only a few blocks away. I checked the evening before with my Mom and with my friend Rachel to see if there were any books they desparately needed. I downloaded their lists in the morning, and drove into Portland for some book shopping.
Powell's has a parking garage built in, so I didn't have to deal with finding parking in an active dowtown area. I actually did fairly well... between the regular and technical bookstores, and buying stuff for everyone, I only spent a couple hundred dollars on books. Fortunately, there was still lots of room in the trunk of my car. A few hours later, after a brief walk around downtown Portland in search of an ATM, it was back on the road.
The drive out of town and back to the Pacific coastline was relatively uneventful. I drove a bit up and down and around through some hills, and eventually got to the huge bridge that connects the 101 between Washington and Oregon. The Pacific Ocean wasn't far behind, so it was down south towards home.
In Oregon, the 101 is generally a 2-lane highway. The northern half of the state is mainly tourist resorts, with the requisite slow traffic and lots of small towns with 30 mile-an-hour speed limits. I found a town about halfway down the coastline, picked a hotel with a good view of the ocean, and checked in. There was a nice nearby restaurant, which served a nice enough local Riesling (Hinman's) that I had to go find some in a local supermarket's wine section. And I walked out onto the beach at night, tasted the ocean, and watched a few Perseid meteors fall. Unfortunately, there was a lot of haze from the water and background light from the town, so the stargazing wasn't terribly spectacular. But four of the meteors went Westward, while the other went mostly Southward, and they all came out of about the right region of the sky (according to another astronomical friend, Al), so they were at least properly identified.
(to be continued when I get around to typing more in)