Crossing the Border

Trip Start Jul 27, 2007
1
5
31
Trip End Oct 22, 2007


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Flag of United States  , Idaho,
Sunday, August 5, 2007

We (Simon, Heather and myself) headed off just after lunch on Friday to head across the border as we were going to spend Saturday at the Silverwood Amusement Park near Sandpoint, Idaho. The trip started slow as myself and Simon had stayed up the night before having a few drinks with Sam who had just hit town and weren't in our peak state of mind. Once on the road we found another hindrance being that it was going to be a long weekend that weekend in Canada so plenty of people were on the road leading to a large line up at the border crossing. This did give us sometime to jump out in pairs and check out the duty free shop on the side of the road. After just over an hour wait we crossed the border and headed into in the USA. We then proceeded to Sandpoint (2hr drive) and had a bit of a walk around  the town before looking for somewhere to stay the night. After checking out about 4 hotels we realised this small town music festival that was on wasn't so small and proceeded to the next town which also had no rooms Silverwood Park
Silverwood Park
 . We were told to check in Spokane which was an hour away over the state line. After checking hotels in a third town with no rooms we finally had some luck when Heather put on a Oscar-winning performance in the lobby of a hotel that had just turned us away and the woman behind the counter called a hotel in a town called Kellogg that had rooms. The drive was another 45 mins and in the opposite direction in which we had been traveling. We finally arrived abit after 11pm checked in and went straight to bed. It was a shame we only used it for a place to crash for the night as the hotel was brand new and was a really classy establishment.
We got the next morning, grab our breakfast on the go from MacDonalds and head back towards to Silverwood Amusement park doing a bit of shopping (and my regular trip to a Costco store) along the way.  
We finally got to Silverwood and spent the morning taking on the rides which included a pair of old school wooden roller coasters, a metal corkscrew roller coaster and tube ride that got you more wet then most of the water slides. After we had stopped for lunch we then hit the water park where I spent most of the time lounging around in the wave pool. All three of us and two unfortunate visitors took on this water slide where upto 6 people sit in a inflatable tube and get sent down this extra large water slide. Now I hadn't done anything like this since my infamous trip to the Wild Winter Weekend at Perisher some years ago where we competed in the tube race down the half pipe and that ended in disaster Simon and Heather on the Roller-coast
Simon and Heather on the Roller-coast
 . From the first turn we knew this ride was going to be full on when our tube raft got sent down with me facing backwards (i.e the raft had all its weight at the front). We entered each bend with my side first causing the raft to rise right to the top edge of the slide. It felt like you were about to fall out of your seat into the lap of the person opposite you which for me was one of the unfortunate visitors who joined us (and was much smaller then me).  We all were able to hang on till the end with no crashes or injuries. Once we had dried off we jumped back in the car and drove the 4 hours back across the border to Fernie, Canada hence spending just over 24 hrs in the USA.

Mick
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