Today was day one of our drive across the country. On Friday we went to Multnomah Falls and then Hood River. I'm so glad we were able to go when we did because today that same stretch of road was completely grayed out with smoke.Â
Saturday we packed up and cleaned out our apartment, said our teary goodbyes to Ana and Keith and then headed to Steve and Shannon's for our last night in Washington. We'd orginally planned to go out for a last hurrah dinner but the verdict quickly came in for sweat pants and takeout Thai. Perfect. One last night of Rockwood trivia (the neighborhood where we grew up). Previous rounds of Rockwood trivia have resulted in beautiful hand drawn maps of who lived where.
This morning we hit the road for Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. We drove the same route along the Columbia River gorge that we'd just driven on Friday. But today it was so smoky you couldn't even see the river. The smoke got progressively worse and worse and when we reached Sprague Washington the main freeway was shut down due to the Gray Fire outside of Spokane. They rerouted traffic onto a small side highway and it was very slow going. The fire is currently over 10,000 acres and 0% contained. It was a little unnerving to be on a gridlocked road, surrounded by dry wheat fields but we eventually made it to our hotel.
We walked into town from our hotel and had a nice dinner - we hadn't stopped for food all day so it really could have been anything and we would have thought it was great. Tomorrow we head to my dad's hometown - Helena Montana.