WALLACE, IDAHO

After five months sleeping in a forest we will need a bit of time to get used to the traffic sounds whilst sleeping in urban parking lots. We forgot that the Coeur d'Alene Home Depot is a bit small and noisy.

Plus our sleeping quarters are a bit small. No worries - it's all worth it.

Friday morning we were up early and continuing our trek east on the interstate.

An easy drive.

Then we spotted what looked to be an interesting town. I remembered seeing this area last fall when we took this very route. I'd wished we had stopped - this year we did.

We pulled into Wallace, Idaho.

Nice - and just look at those flowers in early October.

A very quaint town with a neat historic downtown - this is Bank Street.

It didn't take us long to spot the laundry - while Derek and Cassia toured a bit more I loaded up our stuff and headed there for some down time. A good deal at $5 for two loads and a very clean place. Priceless.

Just as Derek was mentioning that there really should be a craft brewery in Wallace - look what we spot. Actually, it was quite freaky with the timing. We almost thought we were dreaming. 

Wallace Brewing.

Guess we were dreaming ….. cuz we can't actually go in. Well, we could if tying your kid outside like your dog wouldn't be frowned upon. (You KNOW I'm joking - right?!)

Too bad I didn't get a better picture of this place - we did end up going in. The huckleberry ice cream was calling our names. 

But first we went to get a closer look at the cool bus. 

Then back over to the Red Light Garage with it's own UFO. I was thinking that I travel with a couple of aliens...

A VERY cool place and not to be missed while in Wallace. Kitsch is good - don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

A huckleberry ice cream and shake while we bellied up to the bar and had a great visit with Owner Jaime. Thanks for a neat place Jaime and nice to meet you!

A little trivia for you - Dante's Peak was filmed in Wallace.

Quite a collection - darn - wish we'd brought a plate with us. 

Next time……remember to bring one with you.

While I was doing the laundry, Derek, Cassia and Rufus found this very long walking/bicycling trail.

Nicely paved and through this stretch it sits under the interstate - it's the old railway line.

That's neat but we had another destination in mind. We learned from Jaime at the Red Light Garage that there was a second brewery in Wallace. Guess a visit was in order.

It was a little early in the day for us to sit for a flight - but Owner Mark of North Idaho Mountain Brew was nice enough to supply us with a few samples - the Pulaski Porter, Sunset Red and Black IPA. All very good - nice and clean. We headed back for our stainless steel growler to take some of the Porter with us.

Mark was generous enough to take us for a tour of the breweries facilities - that's his son in back. 

Then back to the trail for a bit.

A girl and her dog….

and a guy and his …. ah…. military vehicle.

A nice city park.

After that we headed back to the van. We felt pretty good about ourselves - right back into the travelin' grove. A historic town, lunch in the van, a tour of the business district, a stop at not one but two craft breweries, laundry, electricity and internet, ice cream and a shake and an urban trail walk.

Was that us who said we were going to settle down?

With it being around 3:00 pm we continued on to Missoula for the night. 

A really nice drive from Wallace to Missoula - lots of forest and then into ranchland. We stopped off at Exit 96 at the Town Pump for the sani dump. Heads up if you are in this area and are in need one. 

Exit 33 claimed to have a Montana Visitor Center - which it did - albeit a bit off the Interstate. Interestingly, it was closed but the horses out back were a big hit.

We spent the night at Lowe's in Missoula - a break from our usual. A Walmart shopping trip was on tap for Saturday morning to stock up on some things we'll need for the trip ahead.

We realized when we reached Missoula that we had in fact crossed over the time zone at the border. So that's why the Visitor Center was closed - we thought it was 4:30pm.

Today we ventured an hour from Missoula to another historic town - Philipsburg - we're here now enjoying some mighty fine craft brew and a little stealth camping.

Ha! More craft beer - it didn't take us long now did it. No worries though - we won't be coming even close to last years tally of 44 visits. We just want to get our fill before our three or four months in Mexico.

Cheers,

Teresa

ON THE ROAD……AGAIN!

The smart money was definitely on the Wood Clan travelling south again this year now wasn't it?

I know - I know - we have certainly gotten quite convincing - well, to ourselves at least, with our stories each spring about settling down and behaving like 'normal people' come fall.

But really - when push comes to shove can we really do that?

Maybe - but not this year!

Therefore, as we bid a final adieu to our summer gig we are once again pointing our noses south.

The Wood Clan is embarking on their 6th - 6th!!!!! winter south. Well, Cassia's 5th - and by the way our 5th in a row.

After all, we still have ice in our bones from last summer, last winter and this summer. Oh sure, we had some warm days along the way - but really, we need a long steady flow of hot to warm us up.

Which only means one thing - right?!

But really - should I even let you know about our so called plan - I mean - when do we ever seem to stick to THE plan. 

Let's just say that this year we are going south - VERY south.

The same day we left the park we crossed the border. A quick trip to Westbank to renew our auto insurance and purchase our Medical insurance and we were on our way.

If you have been following for a few years you will know that we rarely get through the border without our fair share of grilling. Something about being in our forties and mentioning that we are leaving for six months seems to set the sirens off among the border folks. Last year wasn't too bad - no major questions  - just an hour wait - it didn't provide me with much material for a really good border storey like the year before.

This year was down right unbelievable. To the point where Derek and I still can't believe what went on. We pull up - first into the wrong lane - but anyway - we adjusted and pulled up to the light. It went green after say a minute or so. We say hi - we hand over our passports. The friendly border fellow asked Derek where we live. (Always a tricky question for us of course) Anyway, Derek does his best - Kentucky-Alleyne Provincial Park, he says - we were the Operators there this summer. The fellow asks where that is - Derek describes the location. He then hands back our passports and says - Thank you.

As you can imagine we sat there for a minute. I mean - WHAT!? 

And then made our speedy - not too speedy - getaway - before they changed their minds…

Crazy!

With it being late in the day we carried on only as far as the Home Depot in Omak. Ahhhh - it was good to be home.

Wednesday morning we were up and on our way pretty early. After five months sleeping in the silence of the forest we can tell it is going to take awhile to get used to the traffic sounds of a city again.

Our first day and already a new road for us. We took the 155 from Omak over to the Grand Coulee and the Dam.

The bridge into the city of Grand Coulee over the Columbia River.

We pulled in to the Grand Coulee Dam visitor centre with a nice large parking lot overlooking the dam. Sadly the sun was in the wrong spot for a good shot of the dam but pretty impressive nonetheless.

The Visitor's Centre at the Grand Coulee Dam.

After breakfast the four of us took walk down along the main street back towards the bridge. There was a very nice park along the way.

Information placards line both sides of the bridge.

Then it was back on the road to Spokane. A lot of growing area between the two. We have been in central Washington a few times so this landscape is pretty familiar to us. We even drove through Davenport and recalled our yummy visit there back in the spring of 2012.

What's a first day in the USA without a trip to Trader Joe's! By my calculations we won't be visiting another one until Albuquerque. It was time to load up on our favourites. Amazingly I made it out with only one box of their english toffee but yes six tetra packs of coconut milk. I'm really starting to wonder how many of those I could actually store in the van to get us through the winter.

T-shirt - and shorts - weather even! 

Following a few hours in Spokane getting the really important stuff like TJ's food, e-cig stuff for Derek and some craft brew from Total Wine in the Spokane Valley, we continued east into Idaho.

Last fall we overnighted in Coeur d'Alene at the Home Depot - we headed there again just in time for dinner.

It was a good first day.

It feels good to be on the road - again. 

And - I can't wait to reconnect with all of our travel friends! So sorry for the lack of comments on your travel blogs over the summer. It was all I could do to get our posts up at the library although I did check in on you all as best as I could.

It should be a good winter. We have some new roads planned in the USA and then where….

Well, I may as well tell you know although it wasn't difficult to guess I'm sure…

Yup - the Wood Clan is returning to Mexico for the winter!!!! Yaaaaaaaaaaaa!

We're pretty darn excited!

So - sit back, get comfortable and come along with us won't you.

It promises to anything but boring. Let's see what kind of adventures we can find this year.

But please - no more mechanical issues - we had enough of that last winter!

We spent a great day in Wallace, Idaho today - that will be up next post.

We've already moved on into Montana - Missoula tonight.

Teresa

This is our second post of the night - scroll down to read about our last days at K-A.

OUR LAST DAYS AT K-A

For a summer that blew by the same can't really be said for the last two weeks. 

Guess that's how there things go - right?! It didn't help that the weather certainly became coolish - bordering on heartstoppingly cold. One night even went down to a harsh -7C if you can believe - and yes we were sleeping in the tent. We even had our own water fountain down at the lower water faucet with it splitting from the cold. 

Thankfully the days were warmish - mostly. 

Between the cleaning and registering of campers we managed to get all of our packing and loading done plus a few renovations jobs done on the van.

One last look at the entry sign to our Provincial Park this summer Kentucky-Alleyne. I mainly took the photo to capture the beautiful yellow of the aspens in behind. It wasn't long before the wind took all the pretty leaves away.

Our compound - well the service area really - complete with gravel and a chain link fence which stands right by the sign. Looking a little sparse without the large 5th wheel. Just down to the van and our tent during the last few weeks. And yes, that is a brown pit toilet - our 'bathroom' for the five months. 

As promised - a picture of our completed shelving system at the back of the van. Instead of shelves with a door we opted for cubbies. Each has about a three inch lip to hopefully catch things from falling. 

Although we did intend to do just the one project we ended up taking a bit more on. There is an area at the back near the floor that was painted the cream colour. That being Rufus's area whilst driving it was starting to look a bit rough. We decided to paint it the same 'chocolate brown' as our lower kitchen cabinets. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we didn't pick that same brown up at Home Depot in Westbank (more than an hour away). We tried to match it in Merritt but couldn't quite get the right tone. All ended well when Derek spotted and suggested this red - amazing! 

We L.O.V.E it! 

With the cool mornings and evenings - Cassia and her animals have taken to hanging out at the furnace.  Looks like the dinosaurs are as much heat seekers as the Wood Clan.

So, the interior of the van is looking pretty good these days.

And not to be outdone…….

Look what Derek decided to get himself involved in - AGAIN! (Guess he didn't learn from the first time he decided to paint our van - right?!)

If you missed last year's 'simple plan' it's worth a look!

It all started innocently enough - as these things do - right?! This is my side - but what got the ball rolling is that the green was  - or has - been flecking off for some time now on Derek's side. Something just HAD to be done. Which in this case turned out to be more paint. And while we were at it why not new colours. 

So - here we are - working on our 'new' look.

There it is partially done. All to coordinate it all what with needing to await our next trip into town to pick up more paint. I was really quite ok with a partial paint job - and it did take some negotiating back and forth between us - but finally I succumbed to Derek's need to pair all the way to the fiberglass top.

And so - that's what we did. I know - I know. But hey - at least we are original - right?! The other side looks much different by the way although using the same colours. This is good though because you can play - spot the animals - kinda like looking up at the clouds.

We are calling it our desert camo look - wonder how we can top it next year?! Well, we won't if the bloody paint would just stick already!

Anyway, obviously we had much to keep us busy over the last few weeks of working.

Things really had quieted down so we really did have time on our hands. 

Time for a farewell dinner hosted by two of our favourite campers - Bev and Leo. Here's Leo cooking up our burgers. 

And here is a group dinner photo of us, Bev and Leo and two more friends Pat and Cathy. Pat and Cathy look after three Forest Recreation Site campgrounds about 1 1/2 hours away from our park. Interestingly, we first met them back in 2006 when we took over from them at Kentucky-Alleyne - and they were also the operators of Skihist before we worked there. It was nice to see them after all these years. 

Certainly not the best picture of me - but Bev and Leo stopped by a few days later with a gift for each of us - our own Trembling Aspen walking sticks. 

Such nice gifts from a great couple - we will sure miss them two. Speaking of which - I met a ton of great people this summer. The weather may have been the pits most of the time but we had a lot of great campers. 

Want a stat? Here's one for ya - this summer I registered a camper 2,315 times in the 148 days. So, I wrote down the last name, town or city, number of campers, my initials, the dates of camping, number of days and fee amount two thousand, three hundred and fifteen times!!!!

A special thanks to everyone that made this summer fun for me as I walked the circuit stopping in to talk to each and every camper - including but definitely not limited to: The Millers, Bev and Leo, Terry and Cathy, The Adolfs, David and Maria, Atlan and his family, Chuck and June, Pearl and Bruce (+ Pearls sister and husband), Rudy and Inga, George and Gail, Mr. Mears, The Bailey's, Randy and Shirley and of course our Mexican friends Chris and Juan who definitely drove the furthest to reach us. 

Plus, the hundreds more whose names I didn't get but whose company and conversation I enjoyed nonetheless.

After five months camping in the forest and with cooler temperatures on the way - this brings tears to these Park Facility Operator's eyes. Ha - no - it wasn't that bad - but it is nice to bring the season to an end.

Nothing like an empty park to bring it home. Of course, as I walk around I can see and hear all the RV's and goings playing in my mind.

And so - just like that - the end has arrived. 

An early morning shot after we spent our last night down in a campsite at Alleyne Lake. 

Later, the four of us took one last walk over to Kentucky Lake.

Highlights for us this summer were (in no particular order):

+ the Western Toadlet migration - 

we sure enjoyed visiting with Andrea and Alan and their crew

+ enjoying the wildlife that visits the park, particularly hearing the call of the Loons

+ our weekly visits to Merritt - the pool, watermark and library

+ taking Rufus out to the group site

+ visits from friends and family

A fitting last picture I thought - as we head out and say goodbye to the Park. 

A good 5th season of operating a campground.

For me it was our best season yet. This type of work definitely has it's ups and downs and collateral damage - but in the end I can look back and say that it went well.

Where to next summer? Well, we really don't know right now - we have our eye on a few other parks in a much warmer climate.

Where to this winter? That's up next.

Teresa