Day 1: On the Road, in the Rain

It was raining when we pulled out of the driveway at 6:05am this morning!  I was hopeful it was going to stop raining once we got over the pass. Well, that did not pan out at all. It did not stop raining till we got to milepost 38 in Montana!  BUT let's start at the start! We stayed on I-90.  Our mileage leaving was 95173

A little blurry, but  leaving at 6:05am will do that!  Lon was starting work on his coloring book. A new one he got for his birthday.
The hot wheels book and the Scooby Doo book were the big hits of today's drive

Our first rest stop.  7:30am.  88.6 miles from home.Tritop got selected to be in most of our photos for the stops

In case you want to know more!

I love Thorp Fruit. We did not stop, it was on the other side of the road, but maybe Lon and I will go out there later. Like August or September.

We left home with 1/2 a tank of gas. I should have filled up before. We did not make it to Moses Lake for gas, we stopped in George. Yes, George, Washington. It is near Martha. We filled up with 11. 57 gallons of gas.  Price per gallon was 3.88
We passed a rainy, wet Moses Lake at 9:03am

 10:25 am. The nice ladies from the senior center gave Lon a cookie and warned us the weather was nasty toward Spokane. We told them it probably was not any better going west.

Spokane, 11:01 am. 50 degrees according to the sign on the bank.
We were making okay time. The weather was rough. Windy, rainy, lots of cars. I took it very easy.  I am thankful I can get out of a hyrdoplane before it turns into something nasty.  A car passed us, just before we got to the Schrag rest stop.  We passed him as the tow truck was pulling him out of the ditch. His pretty little white car had a smashed roof.   We took it even easier after that.

We stopped for lunch at Applebees. Lon ordered a grilled cheese, a milk shake and broccoli. But they put some spices on this broccoli, so he did not eat it. We played battleship too. It was very fun.  I had chicken for lunch, and coffee. The waitress asked me if I wanted a summer cooler drink to start with. I tried not to laugh.
We left at 12:04!

Lake Coeur D'Alene.
Still raining.
But we are in Idaho!

We needed a bit of a leg stretch, so we stopped in Wallace. The young man at the information station was very nice and helpful. He told us the entire town of Wallace was on the National Register of Historic Places. We could just drive through and get right back on the freeway.  Sounded interesting enough.

Inside a pretend mine shaft.

Releasing the wiggles!

Looking at Ore samples. The statue behind Lon is dedicated to the firefighters of the 1910 blaze that destroyed the town. I have to do more research on it, but it was a huge event in the life of this town. There was a man named Pulaski involved in it. I saw a postcard referring to Pulaski's cave.
History Bit:
Edward C. "Ed" Pulaski (1868–1931) was a U.S. Forest Service ranger based in Wallace, Idaho. Pulaski traveled west and worked as a miner, railroad worker, and ranch foreman before joining the forest service in 1908.
On August 20, 1910, Pulaski was credited with saving all but five of his 45-man crew during what is known as the "Great Idaho Fire" or the "Big Blowup". It had been unusually dry in 1910 and forest fires were rampant across the northern Rockies. Pulaski was supervising crews on the west fork of Placer Creek, about five miles south of Wallace, when the fire suddenly broke out of control, overwhelming the crew.
Drawing on his knowledge of the area and of the dynamics of forest fires, Pulaski led his men to safety in an abandoned prospect mine. After ordering his crew into an abandoned mine tunnel, he threatened to shoot with his pistol any man who left. Lying prone on the tunnel floor, all but five of the firefighters survived, but two horses with them died from smoke inhalation. The mine entrance, now known as the Pulaski Tunnel, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places

Beautiful Wallace, Idaho. Yes, it was still raining.

Lon saw a sign that said Mining Museum and he wanted to stop. Which is what we did.

On our walk to the museum we spotted this.  How can you not think this is cool? Love the little UFO thing.

Inside the museum. Lon got the kid's treasure hunt. He loves those! The museum held alot of good things. They had a mine simulation of sorts. You walked into a dark room and there were turns and branches, lights came on as you walked by. It was still fairly dark and Lon did not like that part as much. He did find all the things on his treasure hunt, and he got a prize of some peacock ore.  It is very pretty stuff. We have to find a bag for him to keep all his treasures from this trip in. He also got an Idaho Potato pin at the visitor's center.   I bought myself a charm from Wallace, an ore cart.  First real souveniers of the trip!
We left Wallace and were back on the road at 2:18

Our next rest stop! Lon got a cookie from the Lion's club and I refilled my coffee.  They asked how far I was going today. I told them I was thinking about Butte.  They said it would be better to push on to Bozeman.  No one I talked to seemed to like Butte.

Mile post 38, the sun came out. Montana is a pretty pretty place. Lon said he wants to live here since it is so pretty. We also crossed the Continental Divide today, did not write down the time, but the elevation was 6593. I did not realize till tonight that going up and down those mountains,mainly on wet roads, I was clenching my jaw.  Lon was really good about not asking me to look at something while we were going up and down around twisty corners. I did show him the run away truck ramp coming down the divide.  He wanted to know why trucks had to go 25 miles an hour down. It was a steep grade down. They wanted to make sure the trucks did not fry the brakes, so they have them shift way down to keep super slow.

It is pretty but places to get gas are few and far between.  We were getting low.  We found a town called Alberton, and this is it. Almost all of it. We had 449.8 miles put on the car then at 5:00 pm. There was a time change, so we still felt like it was only 4pm.

Some beauty shots of Montana out the car window.

We stopped for the night in Belgrade, MT. We really needed to stop for the night. We will go through Bozeman tomorrow on our way to our first adventure stop at Big Horn National Monument.  We are rethinking some of our trip as the fire in Colorado is not contained. Smoke from that fire is visable here.  I tried to take a photo, but through the car window it did not work well. The hotel we are in is taking evacuees from Colorado.  An entire state away.    We are staying at a La Quinta. They are nice. Really nice. I like it.  I have not stayed in one before. Lon ate some pizza we had delivered to the room. Lon vetoed the idea of trying to find someplace to eat by getting back in the car. He told me we could save that for tomorrow. He fell asleep very quickly.  He did great on today. There was not one complaint about anything other than the rain.