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Llywindatravels 2021

~ Around the world with Two Suitcases

Llywindatravels 2021

Tag Archives: Covid19 travel

NW Montana to the Oregon Coast

04 Friday Sep 2020

Posted by winifredcreamer in Montana, USA, Washington

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Covid19 travel

Day One: Fortine, MT to Ritzville, WA

Car packed and house searched for last minute items left in nooks and crannies, we left Fortine, Montana, passing the local On The Fly Cafe for the last time. We started north, through Eureka, then turned west to Lake Koocanusa, where we turned south–no trip is a straight line in the mountains.

Morning mist was just rising off the mountains, and though the sky looked threatening, we had no rain. The lake was a pattern of shimmering silver disks, reflecting the gray sky.

Our route across NW Montana crossed the Kootenai National Forest, as beautiful a drive as ever through the tall pines. We drove via Libby, formerly a mining town, now a superfund site with some impressive murals of local wildlife, then the road headed north again. Crossing into Idaho we drove a strange stretch through the panhandle, passing a tremendous number of rail lines full of freight trains mostly sitting still. Was it the Covid19 decrease in commerce, or a bottleneck on the line?

Libby, MT grizzly mural
Bigfoot?

North Idaho is also home to some very large auto scrapyards. Huge, even. There were hundreds of cars spread across fields. Some had a few choice older vehicles lined up by the gate (school bus yellow Camaro, anyone?). Stretching into the distance were rows of increasingly distressed cars, trucks, and farm machinery.

We turned south once again, and headed for Spokane, coming out of the mountains into rolling hills that rapidly flattened out where we picked up the interstate. Suddenly, we were surrounded by wheat fields to the horizon.

By mid-afternoon we arrived at the Best Western Bronco Inn, in Ritzville, WA. We were tired from the long day, and had a picnic dinner in our room. Jonathan was pleased to find the “Grass Station”, next door to the motel, and paid a visit to check on their inventory. (NB: Bronco logo from motel appears over the Grass Station.

Day Two: Ritzville, WA to Cannon Beach, OR

The fields of wheat accompanied us south to the WA/OR border, but things changed when we crossed the Columbia River. The highway follows the river from Umatilla all the way to Portland, along the shore and past the Dalles, the Columbia River Gorge, and the Lake Bonneville Dam and power plant. Rock formations loom over the highway,

We stopped to picnic in a park along the roadside just east of the Columbia Gorge. The day was beautiful and we enjoyed the break from driving. After that, we made a beeline for Cannon Beach. Traffic through Portland didn’t slow us down at all, and we arrived at our new home in the late afternoon. A quick shopping trip to the grocery store around the corner and we could stop moving for a while. We can see the ocean from our living room. Ahhh!

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Motels/Dining/Covid19Summer

07 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by winifredcreamer in Cross country, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota

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Covid19 travel, Food

We stayed in three different motels on our trip from Rochester, MN to Fortine, MT.

Sculpture outside Rochester, MN

We ate takeout sushi in Fargo (terrible, don’t ever do that). We didn’t get sick, we just found the sushi to be inedibly dry, cold, and hard. We ate leftovers that we had with us for dinner in Williston (after the night of terrible sushi). We bought a rotisserie chicken in the grocery store in Havre.

Fargo, ND: Residence Inn by Marriott Fargo was very clean, as were all the places we stayed. Most people wore masks going in and out, but not everyone. Staff was behind a plexiglass sheet. They were helpful, for example, giving us the extra packet of coffee we requested. Coffee maker was in the room already. There was supposed to be breakfast, but we decided to visit Starbucks instead.

Williston, ND: Winterton Suites. Like most of these motels, Winterton was unprepossesing, painted in an unfortunate shade of slightly mustard-tinted yellow that seems to be popular with motels and rental properties this year. The bathroom was very clean despite decor approximating a gas station restroom. On the bright side, the managers were very cheerful and readily available, and the price was right, $100 a night. This was less than our other stops. We didn’t investigate breakfast options. The motel rooms faced a parking area, and not all rooms were occupied. We wore masks going in and out, but didn’t see other people except from a distance.

Winterton Suites, Williston, ND

Havre, MT: Best Western Plus Great Northern Inn. This motel backs onto a BNSF railyard that emits lots of huffing and puffing, like a very loud AC unit, but inside our room we heard none of it, so I’m not sure it matters. The pool was open here and I couldn’t resist taking a dip–no one else was in it at the moment. The breakfast was limited to non-existent, though there was supposed to be something. I got an apple wrapped in plastic that tasted fine (I washed it again). Most people wore masks in the indoor spaces, but not 100% of people.

406 Coffee Roastery and the red caboose in Havre, MT, next door to the Best Western

Next door to the Best Western was the highlight of our trip in culinary terms. The 406 Coffee Roastery in Havre had good coffee, and exceptional baked goods. The crumb cake was dense and delicious, with lots of crackly topping. The lemon poppyseed muffin was flavorful and large sized. We spent half as much as we had at the Starbucks in Fargo, to boot, including our big coffee drinks. There is a small park next door with a red caboose parked in it, very apropos for this town along the rail lines.

We chose places to stay that had a kitchenette and refrigerator so that we could renew our cooler each night. It proved useful when we found that eating in was preferable to eating out.

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