Double Dam

2023-07-07
MN, ID, WA

Today was a relocation day. The North Cascades Inn seems to be well located for our visit to the North Cascades National Park, but they only have check-in until 7:00 PM. Well-located, not terribly expensive, but quirky. What this meant in practice is that we had to keep an eye on our time. We left Kalispel at 7:15 for a nine hour drive so there was a bit of spare time in the schedule. That "extra" time was poured into road-trippy things along the way so that we ended up arriving about 6:45, just under the wire. Let's call that "optimizing" rather than "cutting it close."

We left Montana on I-90 heading into Idaho. The rest area near the border between these states was closed, so when we saw the sign for Cataldo Mission half-way through Idaho we were ready to stretch our legs. The mission is the oldest building in Idaho, built in 1850-1853. It was built by the Native Americans under the direction of a Jesuit priest and served the miners as well as the Native Americans.

They say it remains 70% original through the restoration. I think the chairs were added later.

We continued on I-90 until Spokane, when we turned north until some signs for the Grand Coulee Dam completely distracted us and we detoured there. It is a massive dam, and generates several times the power of the Hoover Dam, making it the largest hydro-electric dam in the US. We didn't think we had time for the tour, so we visited the Visitor Center, walked the grounds to stretch our legs, and got back on the road.

As you will recall from earlier, a coulee is a large drainage ditch. A Grand Coulee is the biggest ditch in the area.

Continuing north, we passed the Chief Joseph Dam, so we had to stop for a picture or two.

I can take all the dam pictures I want...

We drove through some Washington apple country, where the apple crates are stacked high waiting for this year's harvest. We also stopped to replenish our pretzels. The mid-sized grocery store had a whole aisle of potato chips, some Doritos and Fritos and such, and exactly two types of pretzels: Crav'n Flavor Minis and Crav'n Flavor Sticks. I guess the further you get from Philly the less they care about pretzels. When we started to eat them a few days later, they seem hydrophilic. It's like taking the cinnamon challenge. Flavor wasn't the only thing you craved after eating these; water was also high on your list.

Stacks like this littered the area. We must have a lot of teachers that need gifts.

We entered North Cascades area, which is a National Park plus two National Recreation Areas and several national forests and wilderness areas that are all contiguous and nearly surround the park, but I will treat it all as the National Park because without a sign you can't tell where one ends and the next begins. From Glacier, which is the 10th most popular park with over 2.9 million visitors per year we traveled to North Cascades which is 57th (of 63) with 30,000 visitors last year.

Back on the road again, we got into the Northern Cascades region before stopping at one of the Ross Lake stops to hike about 0.5 miles to see a nice falls.

We stopped again at Gorge Creek Falls for some shots from the road bridge.

Then there was the traditional sign picture. I think they did a nice job with this sign, although (spoiler alert) the snow on top is not real.

It's a great sign, and the snow never melts.

We finally made it to the inn with a little time to spare. Since we will be here three nights we spent some time getting organized.