Butte -> Seattle (last leg)

Butte to Coeur d'Alene

We left the hotel around 9:30 am and headed for Coeur d'Alene. We headed over some pretty big mountains to get to this city that was nestled in the mountains by a HUGE lake. This whole drive was HOT and DRY. 90 degrees and humidity at around 20%. Yikes! We were sweating like crazy and chugging so much water. It was dreadful not having A/C in the car.

Coeur d'Alene was beautiful. There were a bunch of shops and restaurants everywhere. Parking was weird because there were a lot of Park Here signs but then we'd pull in and find out that it was for the people who worked at the shops nearby or whatever. Very frustrating. We finally found a parking area near a thrift shop. It was different because it just had this box with slots in it that had corresponding numbers to parking spaces that you just shoved your money into. We hadn't seen that before so we went into the thrift shop to make sure we were doing it right. The girl working there was nice but she thought it was funny that we hadn't seen that before. So after we parked we looked for a place to eat. We decided to eat at a Greek restaurant called The Olympia or Olympus. We got babaganoush with pita, a gyro and falafel. It was really tasty! Afterwards we walked around Coeur d'Alene. We stopped in a couple of shops (they had a Pendelton's!!) and walked down to the lake. We both chatted with our parents for a bit (Hi Moms and Dads, we know you're reading :) ) and then decided to get back on the road.

Coeur d'Alene to Seattle

We drove for another 4ish hours to get to Seattle. There wasn't much to see in most of Washington. Very flat, hot, and dry most of the way. Once we got closer to the mountains there seemed to be a haze forming in the sky and it looked like there was a fire on one of the mountains in the distance. It was really strange. There's also an Amber Alert in effect out here so the radio kept cutting to that announcement and there were a lot of posts on the highway. Hopefully they find the girl and boy who were abducted!

On top of one of the sets of mountains there was a windmill farm. There were so many of them! It was quite windy though so I can understand that it is a really efficient way to produce energy out here. In another part or in a different set of mountains there was a lake that was also really cool. The best part of the trip was when we could finally start to see Mt. Rainier in the distance.

When we finally got into the Seattle area the traffic got rough. It wasn't completely horrible but the sun was in our eyes and other cars felt like zipping and weaving in out of the traffic. When we finally got to our exit the GPS started to crap out which was AWESOME. We were freaking out a bit because it kept taking us down roads and then say that it was recalculating. We quickly used a phone to figure out how to get Marco Polo Motel on Aurora Ave. It was about 9pm when we got there and checked in. The room is fine. We have internet and tv. It is clean and we're basically just sleeping there so it works.