And We Resume: Hotsville USA

It is wonderful to be on the road again, but I haven't felt like writing because it has been TOO. DAMNED. HOT. You wouldn't automatically think Pacific Northwest when someone says it's too damned hot, would you? Neither would we. We are having a great time but it has been too hot to enjoy spending time outdoors.

We spent close to a week with beloved family members in Washington, and the best part was that it became a familyfest, with a few gatherings of family members I never get to see--including a cousin I haven't seen since I was 18--all in the same place at the same time. It was wonderful, it felt great, and it was hard to leave.  One of the best things, besides the awesome family time, was the opportunity to pick rainier cherries. One of my cousins is in the cherry business, and he helped us have the opportunity to pick cherries for ourselves. And not just cherries, but rainier cherries, the most rare and delicious cherries of all. We picked them, took them home, washed them, and then ate them....ate them...ate them...and are still eating them, a week later. Bob and I are now traveling with them and eating a few at a time, and we feel like we got away with something amazing!

We had piles and piles and piles! And we picked them ourselves!

Bob and I were sad to leave our family (and the cherries!), but we have been happy to be back on the road, even if it has been too hot to have much fun. 

Our first stop was a very sweet and fun little town called Republic, which is an old Western town that looks like it belongs in a movie.

A little bit of downtown Republic

It was too hot to walk around! But we did find a sweet little place for dinner, where they serve beer made next door in a brewery that was closed for the day. We also visited the Grand Coulee Dam, which is the biggest in the country, and the second biggest in the world. It's on the mighty Columbia, which we almost followed from the Pacific into Canada (with a few hiccups). It was an amazing sight, and would have been even more interesting if the water had been running out the spillway, which would have happened in the spring. It also would have been more fun if it hadn't been 104 degrees outside.

The dam...with no water coming out

So, we headed north into British Columbia, which we had hoped would surely be cooler...but alas, it wasn't so.  We skirted the border for the rest of the day, then dropped down into a little bit of Idaho and then into our beloved Montana. Hooray for Montana, one of our favorite places in the US of A. We landed in Missoula, which is a place that I love. We are still loving it, but it has been too hot to bike, too hot to hike...but not too hot to go to the movies and go to breweries in the afternoon.

Missoula is just a little bit of beer heaven. I think we would have to stay here a long time to try all the beer that is made in this town. ...and that would be fine with me. What a fun town! It's a lot like Portland, but with a "western" feeling. Lots of people with cowboy boots, but that same laid-back, youthful, easy-going feeling. Today we had a picnic and watched some people float lazily downstream in inner tubes, looking like they didn't have a care in the world.

Guess you can't see them here. Maybe they just floated past.

It's just a lovely, easy place, and one that I will want to come back to whenever I can. In the meantime, I'm enjoying every minute, every view of the mountains,  and every excellent beer. A singer I have been wanting to see for a long time, Hayes Carll, is playing here on Saturday night, and I'm pretty happy to be seeing him at last. And in the meantime, it's just waiting for the sun to go down so it will cool off.  It's going to be hard to leave, even though Glacier is calling us. We will make a visit up on Flathead Lake, and then hope by the time we get to Glacier it will be cool enough to hike. In the meantime, Montana is one of the very best places there is.

Oh, look closely. There they go.