Come to the Mountains, my friend!

September 9, 2010 (Happy Birthday, Bev!) – Since we’re so far ahead of our schedule, we grabbed the opportunity to sleep in . . . ahhhhhh!  Before leaving Missoula, we stopped to gas up and ran into Don & Sandy Salo, good friends of my parents from Marquette!  We knew they were traveling the same route but never dreamed we’d run into them!!!  Don noticed the Michigan plates and was shocked to see Joe get out of the car J  After a quick visit and a photo, we grabbed our morning Starbucks and began a beautiful day of touring through the unbelievably huge mountains (we were so entrenched in the mountain valley that cell phones and even our XM radio wouldn’t even work).  It’s hard to even describe the beauty of it all, mountain range after mountain range with a stream winding all along the way.  Pictures don’t do it justice.  Unfortunately, according to the locals, summer is over and it has been overcast or drizzling and cool.  We were really hoping to rent bikes for a 13 mile bike ride above the peaks of the Idaho/Montana border which included 10 tunnels (one is 1.7 miles long built in 1908 for trains) and 7 sky high trestles.  It sounded so cool but the weather didn’t cooperate.  We settled for a fun few hours of exploring Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, where some of our Marquette friends once lived.  It’s a beautiful lakefront city and we took advantage of the opportunity to walk the world’s longest floating boardwalk.  We also took the opportunity to eat lunch at Crickets Pub where it was Ladies Day, which equals two for the price of one drinks for ladies only.  Joe had a hard time getting me out of there . . . I never have been able to resist a bargain! 

We made it to Seattle but, since it was a late arrival and since we’re not expected until tomorrow, we took a hotel to rest up, get used to the time zone change and arrive nice and fresh . . . that was before Joe noticed an Irish Pub down the street!  Just got home and are hoping to sleep fast and wake up feeling fresh :-)