28 July 2017
I'll blame the water broo-ha-ha for my relapse into an after 10 start. I finally did get back on track, up immediately onto I-90, where I would spend most of the day. I'm not crazy about traveling on Interstates, but it certainly followed that 'Great Circle' line, as far as Spokane, anyway.
I had enough gas left to get me 50 miles...one good thing about traveling on the I-whatevers is the availability of fuel, or, if not, warnings of its lack. So, off and right back on, good for another 200 miles--not going to get much more than that at freeway speeds.
I try to take mental notes during the day, so I'll have something to write about in the morning, but it doesn't always work. I tried using one of those small 'note recorders' for a while but it was fiddly to record with, and the wind noise was a problem. If I had a map pocket on my tank bag, I could write on that with a grease pencil, but I have a bunch of electronic crap mounted on a custom panel there. So failing memory it is.
One thing I have been doing is turning on the Garmin Virb camera when there's something photogenic, except it's so wide-angle I can't always make out just what I turned it on for. Since it's from Garmin, it records Lat/Lon, too...if you leave it on long enough, which I hardly ever do. But the recordings are time-stamped, so I can go into the tracks the 60CSx records and get a pretty good approximation of where I did it. And since it takes some time to boot up and start recording, I'll miss the spectacular view that caught my eye.
I'd been warned by Greg Thomas that there were fires west of the Missoula area, and I started smelling smoke sometime before I got there, which got stronger as I headed west. It never did quite obscure the road; I came around one curve and could see where the smoke was rising from to the south, within a mile I saw a helicopter carrying one of those bags of water, heading for the fire. It stayed smoky even after I passed--I thought the prevailing winds would be carrying everything to the east.
Stopped for gas again shortly thereafter, and asked the attendant if there were more fires to the west; she said not that she knew of, the smoke was from those fires to the east.
Crossed into Idaho, through Coeur D'Alene and into Washington, then Friday afternoon commute traffic in Spokane, where I finally got off of I-90.
Just west of Spokane is Fairchild Air Force Base, and it looked like the Thunderbirds were practicing--great loops to the south, with smoke (or else how could you tell?) Actually, you could see the formation at the head of the smoke.
West on US2, then, changing to SR174 at Wilbur, and that into Grand Coulee. I'd laid out a route farther to the west, but there weren't any towns of any size for another 80 miles, and there were three motels here, one with a Safeway right close. There's not a level spot on the Trailwest's parking lot, but he makes me a deal on a room with a dripping air conditioner. Walk to Safeway for the evening's victuals, and I'm good.
Motel: $60.45
Groceries: $16.42 (includes breakfast)
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