Quality Inn Valley Suites Spokane

... br> Leaving Saturday for L.A. where I'll meet up with Terry Chamorro and stay at her place Saturday night. Sunday morning we have a 7:45am flight out of LAX which means going to the airport at 5:45am. Ungodly time. We are flying on Mexicana Airlines via Mexico City to Guatemala City. <br>Not exactly sure yet where we'll meet up with Rose and Jim....probably at LAX before the flight.<br><br><br>

Finally got the truck back, all fixed and running beautifully. Decided to get on the road, though it was already 2 pm. Headed south along Flathead Lake through green forests and valleys to I-90, then west, west, west. All uphill, what a climb, to Coeur d'Alene in Idaho, then downhill into Washington State. Spent almost two hours trying to find Riverside State Park in the city of Spokane, finally set up the camper and tried to settle down for the night.

... UK &#8211; and for anyone who has never heard of it this is rodeo for under sixes or those under 40lbs.  The kids are dressed in chaps and given a helmet and then loaded onto a sheep &#8211; the longest ride wins.  We keeled over with laughter to see these little kids gripping on to the sheep then swinging under their bellies and dropped to the floor.  This would be a great crowd puller in the UK.  The kids that won were then going to be in the grand final on the Sunday and the ...

... Rob and Ian) took off for a day&#8217;s fly-fishing where they waded into the St. Jo River to cast their lines under the expert guidance of Rob. Ian&#8217;s casting was significantly worse than the other two but being a jammy sod he managed to catch one fish &#8211; a 13 inch cut throat trout (photograph to prove it) and Tim also landed one but two fish for a whole day&#8217;s work seemed a harsh return for the effort they all put in.<br><br>Everyone ...

... at home and this was a Ford Focus but that didn&#8217;t stop him breaking the world record rally course time and nearly giving Steve a heart attack on the way! We got there in one piece and off we went to the clubhouse to sign in. Here I found that we were playing a top 50 US course famous for one particular hole "The floating green at Coeur d&#8217;Alene!" &#8211; the ...

... en gländewage ;o) am bowman lake acho, hämm** eus wand**tüchtig gmacht und sind loszoge, in wald ine und em see nah. Trotz warntafle hämm** kei<br>grizzlies atroffe, was eus ehrlich gseit rächt gsi isch. Wo mir zrug gsi sind, hani mi wiä üblich uf **kundigstour im see gmacht. S'isch gar nöd sooo chalt gsi, au wänn en iheimische gfunde hät, ich spinni und ob ich vo schwede chäm ;o) isch ä h**rlichi abchüelig gsi!<br>

... the kids were cooking smores (called smores from the term &#8220;do you want somemore &#8211; s&#8217;mores)  This is a gooey cocktail of charcoaled marshmellows  with a layer of chocolate wedged between two sweet biscuits  - great for the kids as they roasted their own marshmellows on twigs.  Fun evening finishing with us all crashing into the crisp linen and soft mattress after a warm, clean shower with crisp towels (things we used to take for granted. 

... not admit to the true superiority of the Garden State.<br><br>The rest of the drive was very pretty through Idaho and into Washington State. We stopped at a rest area that had a most peculiar animal....the ground squirrel. There were dozens of them..scurrying about across the grass, and the best part is that they would walk right up to you! Adorable. Def check out the pictures and video.<br><br>We arrived at our Comfort Inn, but had a bit ...

... wet. Hmm. Reasonable, I suppose. I gently kick/push the ceiling a few more times, listening to the snow dropping on the fly and noting that the tentwalls and ceiling are soaked. Push the snowpack away from the bases of the vestibules, get out to tighten up the fly, vent the vestibules from the top for some breathing air, make sure my down bag isn't touching anything wet, and set my three watch alarms for five, six, and seven. A couple more ...

... plate back to the kitchen, where we nervously speculated about the angry confrontation that was sure to occur between our waitress and whatever poor kitchen staffer was responsible for cooking the rice. After some time had passed, a new wrap was delivered. This one featured ingredients that were considerably less reminiscent of jagged glass. However, the Thai sauce was quite spicy for the tastes of both Mel and Kia. Kia, particularly, feared that her lips would ...