get away

Our trip began on Wednesday morning. We kissed the kids off at Grandma's house (and they totally weren't sad because they LOVE Grandma) and then headed north to Missoula, MT via Sun Valley and Salmon. We stopped near Redfish lake and walked through the river. (see previous post picture.) It was a beautiful drive. We got to Missoula around 8 and then turned west to Couer d'Alene. We were kinda bummed that we drove through so much of Northern Idaho in the dark. We got to Round Lake State Park around 1 (I guess it was 12 with the time change). We pulled into the parking lot, rolled out our sleeping bags in the back of the truck and slept under the beautiful stars. The next morning we rode our bikes around the lake. It was a beautiful trail!





We then headed over the Sandpoint and up Schweitzer mountain. We were going to ride the ski lift up to the top and ride our bikes down, but wouldn't you know it, it started to rain and they closed the lifts. So we left. The view of Lake Pend Orielle was beautiful up there. Here's our "baby truck" (in the words of Ana) checking out the view. Dave rode his bike down the road back down. He beat me down, and I was going at least 30 mph.


That night we stayed at the south end of Priest Lake. If we had known how beautiful Priest Lake was we would have skipped Schweitzer altogether. It is crystal clear (you can see the bottom 20 ft down) and so picturesque. We went swimming early the next morning and even at 9:00 it wasn't too cold. We had the beach practically to ourselves.

We then headed over to Spokane, via Couer d'Alene. We weren't impressed with Couer d'Alene. Maybe because we only saw the "tourist trap" or maybe because we had already seen so many beautiful lake views, but Spokane we liked a lot. We went to the Temple, which was really nice. We stayed that night in a hotel, so we swam in the pool that night, and then rode our bikes around downtown Spokane the next morning. It was a pretty cool place.


The next day was Saturday and we headed South via Moscow and Lewiston. Lewiston was beautiful. The highway passes really high above Lewiston, but there is this crazy windy road down into the town. So we drove down there and visited Hell's Gate state park which had all sorts of interesting stuff about Lewis and Clark.



Along our drive we saw:

This cool battlefield. It spurned an interesting conversation about Native Americans and Manifest Destiny.



This beautiful gorge where we saw fish in the water and almost pulled out our fishing poles.

These beautiful white sand beaches along the Salmon River. We wanted to find a way to get to them, but we couldn't find the bridge.



And this:



We also saw a sign to Hell's Canyon National Recreation Area and thought, "let's go see it." Not a good idea. Sure the view from the top was beautiful, but we couldn't even see the Gorge itself (the deepest in North America) and the road up to it was an 8-mile, 1-lane, dirt and gravel switchback road up the side of the mountain with the plunging mountainside beside us the whole way. It was scary. Here was the view from the top. It doesn't do the top justice. It was pretty cool, but totally NOT WORTH THE DRIVE from Lucille, Idaho. I'm sure there is a much better way to get there and we totally want to go see the Canyon some day.



We ended up driving almost straight through the night. Our original plan was the camp Saturday night, but we passed the camp grounds and didn't feel like stopping, so we kept driving. About 12:30 we pulled off the road and slept in the cab for about 3 hours, and then Dave woke up and kept driving. While we were gone, the kids went to my parents house for a few days, and we pulled into their church parking lot in our Sunday clothes at 9:00 am for church. Boy were they surprised.

It was an awesome trip. We missed the kids, especially after I saw my life flash before my eyes while driving up that treacherous slope. And I could tell they missed us, too. But Dave and I had a stellar time. We talked and laughed a lot, listened to music, sang, and did whatever else we wanted. There were a few things we would've liked to do that we didn't have time for. Maybe another time. It was definitely needed. I'm glad Dave talked me into it.