Notes from the Road - Day 10

2/8/04 10:10pm Spokane, WA

I left Missoula around 9:30am, slightly dreading the road ahead. Sometimes just preparing for the worst places it firmly in your mind, and that was the case with the Continental Divide. I put on two layers of clothing from head to toe for the first time on this trip, in preparation for the point when I’d have to get out of the car and put on the snow cables I bought in Bozeman, a point which thankfully never came.

The road continued to climb and descend, cutting its way through the Rocky Mountains, but the road was always dry, with the right lane completely clear and the left lane covered in sand. The mountains are covered in conifers, but from the road they’re almost always either leaning towards you or away from you, which makes them look perpendicular. Every once in a while, I would turn to my left and see that instead of going downhill, as it had seemed, I was in fact going uphill according to the positions of the trees. This would occasionally be confirmed when the car would shift down to keep up my cruising speed.

I have often seen slabs of rock exposed to the roadway that were set at an angle of up to 45 degrees from level. In Yellowstone, I found out why. The stratum of the rock was formed when the land it covers was a flat plain. Later, when one tectonic plate slid against and underneath the other, that rock was forced up as the plate below was consumed by the molten layer underneath in a process called subduction. This effect was most notable in Yankee Jim canyon.

Near the top of one mountain, I saw a sign for an historic ranger outpost on 9-mile Road. I took the exit and followed the road to its end. On the way I passed many homes in the edge of the woods, each one with the familiar DirecTV satellite dish on its roof, or a bigger one. I also passed a llama farm and an old railroad track that was missing a couple of bridges. The ranger station itself just looked like a big barn and, like most stuff up here, including state parks, was closed for the season.

I got back on the road and noticed that despite the great upkeep of the roads, there was about four feet of snow plowed up to the barriers on either side. As the temperatures remained in the mid- to high-30’s all day, there’s no telling how long it was there, but it must have come down all at once from the uniformity of its appearance.

As soon as I crossed the border into Idaho, I saw a sign welcoming me to the state and the thickest, darkest expanse of fog lying over the valley below that I had ever seen. Since it was all downhill from there, I didn’t pull over at my last chance to put on the cables. I figured only semi trucks would have trouble slowing down, even though signs along the road said “6% Decline.” The road became wet as well as sandy, so I slowed it down. Obviously, some of the slush had only recently melted. There were other signs along the descent that pointed out exits for “Out of Control” trucks. These were long, slight inclines off the interstate covered in an indeterminate amount of snow, but any truck would have a hard time taking one of these exits with the amount of snow plowed off the highway and blocking the entrances. I guess that’s why so many trucks were pulled over at the top to put on chains.

Crossing the Idaho panhandle, I stopped in Wallace for gas and to see a model of a cross-section of a mine demonstrating several different means of supporting a mine shaft. There was also a metal statue of a miner as a memorial for 91 miners who died in a silver mine near here. This area has produced more silver than anywhere else in the world, according to the display at the visitor information center.

Further along I-90 and close to the Washington state border was a beautiful lake town called Coeur d’Alene. I stopped and took a scenic drive along the lakeshore that ended with an area good for watching bald eagles, although I didn’t personally see any.

When I got to Spokane, I called my cousin Julie for directions to her place. She and Mike’s two girls, Jessica and Mary, warmly greeted me with Valentine’s Day cards. They’re cute and talkative. Jessica reminds me of my sister Amy at that age. We decided to take a walk around the fairgrounds in the center of the city. Spokane hosted the World’s Fair in 1974, and some parts of it still remain, like a giant metal butterfly frame that used to be one of three and float in the breeze with a fabric making up its wings that is no longer there. Now it hangs lifeless, but there’s a drive to raise $20,000 so it can fly again. There are at least five pedestrian bridges that cross the Spokane Falls, and two dams that draw power from the river.

After our walk, we went to the classy restaurant where Julie works for some very good food, the Clankendagger I think (I can never get the word right). It was an unusual name, but it used to be one of three. They shortened it to just one word because it was hard to say and remember. When we got back to her place, the girls were almost ready for bed, but first Jessica had to play some Playstation 2. Apparently, she and Mike share games. He and Julie read sci-fi and fantasy books and play video games. He also has the complete Master and Commander series. Julie hooked me up with a cheap, clean hotel about a block from her house.