Greetings all from Spokane, WA.!

We arrived here a short while ago to a magnificent hotel with a welcome cooler and cookies for us weary coach travelers (I feel as if I’m still in the sway of the coach as we traveled from Butte, MT. today).  The grounds are beautiful and the peace and quiet is so welcome after a long day of travel from Montana, across the panhandle of Idaho into Washington state.

Our first stop today out of Butte was Wallace, MT.  It is a quaint village nestled in the foothills of one of the many ranges of the great Rocky Mountains that span over 2500 miles from Colorado to northern Canada.  Wallace is home to the first federal prison in the USA (hope I have my facts straight) and is now a museum that also houses an extensive display of antique cars, including early Cadillacs, Desotos, Pontiacs and Chevolets, as well as several Packards and Hudsons (okay gals, remember these beauties from our youth).

During the long coach ride, we saw a video about the true story of Nicholas Wilson, a young Montana youth who lived with the Shoshone Indians for two years during his adolescent years.  He was coaxed to come to their camp and was befriended by the son of the Chief.  Chief (?) and his mother considered Nicholas their own son and taught him the ways of the Shoshone.  During a fierce battle with a neighboring Crow tribe, the Chief’s son was killed.  When the Shoshone elders learned that a white posse was headed their way to search for the boy, they encouraged him to return home.  As he rode across a pass in the mountains, he killed an Indian about to scalp a young white man.  That “white man” was Nicholas’ brother, Sylvester.  Four years later, Nicholas returned to the Shoshone camp to learn his Shoshone ‘mom’ had died.  The story touched the hearts of everyone on the coach. 

The Shoshone had made peace with the white settlers and refused to go to war with them as they moved into the great northwest.  Most of the earliest settlers were Mormon and the relationship between the settlers and the Shoshone tribes was one of peace and great friendship.  The chief of the tribe that reared Nicholas was later granted high military honors by the US government and is buried on a large Shoshone reservation in northern Montana.

The other highlight of the day was a stop at Lake Coeur d’Alene (hope I spelled it correctly).  This beautiful lake has a 135-140 mile shoreline and houses an upscale resort on the shore of the lake near the town that bears its name.  It’s a quaint village with neat shoppes and well-manicured lawns.  The place was ‘hoppin’ because Rudy Guilliani was expected for a major fundraising dinner in or near the resort and the TV crews were everywhere. 

The lake is nestled between the mountains that are everywhere!  As far as the eye can see are magnificent peaks covered with evergreens that rise from the rocky face of the peaks.  It’s so awe-inspiring its hard to describe.  The little towns along I-90 (the longest continuous interstate in the US stretching from Boston to Seattle) are all historic and most have kept their facade commensurate with the era in which they were born.  We stopped at one village a short distance from Coeur d’Alene and had espresso almond ice cream sitting on chairs vintage 1915!  Every other shop was antiques and collectibles (I didn’t dare cross the thresholds).

Tomorrow is another long coach day beginning at 7:00 a.m. (ugh).  We’re headed for the Canadian border and the town of Vernon, BC.  Saturday we depart Vernon and coach to Vancouver where we’ll board Holland America lines for a 5:00 p.m. departure along the inner passage to Alaska.  We are ALL anxious to board the ship (I plan to sleep until noon on Sunday a.m. - well maybe just until 9:00 and that will seem a luxury).

I continue to be overwhelmed by the vast beauty of this part of our country.  It is exquisite in its contrasts - mountains, cool clear streams, quaint villages that look like they came out of a western film, wide plateaus with fields of cattle and sheep and the vast blue sky that seems wider and higher than I’ve seen before.  It’s so much it’s hard to take it all in!

I gotta’ tell you - I’m exhausted.  I think I’m typing in my sleep, so I’m going to close for today’s post.  Don’t know whether internet access will be possible at tomorrow evening’s hotel, but if not - look for another tale from Linda’s travels once on board the Zuiederdam (know that’s not correct spelling, but you get the gist).

 Hope all is going well for all of you.  Continue to keep us in your prayers for safe journeys and we’ll be in touch again soon!

 Have an AWESOME evening!

  Linda