This morning’s breakfast: Huckleberry Flapjacks.  The Huckleberries are grown locally (I saw many signs advertising “fresh hucks” while driving) and were delicious.  I don’t think I ever had flapjacks before either so it was two new things tried in one meal.  Flapjacks, as I found out today, are kind of like crepes just flattened out in circles that look like pancakes.  I was always under the impression that flapjacks were just another name for pancakes. Wrong.

      After the delightful breakfast I got back on route 2 and continued west toward Idaho.  The nice thing about route 2 is that it passes through all the towns so you don’t need to decide if you want to get off the highway to see the area or not.  When I started passing through the town of Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho, I decided it was worth pulling the car over and snooping around.  The town had a little main street containing a bunch of stores so I went in to check them out.  The pawn/ gun shop was interesting of course.  I asked a kid working at another store in town what there was to do in the area but he said the main attractions are hunting and fishing.  The moose hunting sounded particularly interesting because you can’t kill a moose unless you get your name drawn in the moose lottery.  If you are one of the lucky six or seven people for the year you get a permit to mow down a moose.  If not, you can’t kill one.  The kid also recommended some good local creeks (pronounced ‘cricks’)  for fishing but for some reason I never ended up stopping.  I brought my fishing pole with me but it has yet to be assembled.  Anyway, before leaving town I checked out the local museum which was just a store with a bunch of old stuff in it.  There were some interesting things like the wax spools that used to play music prior to records and record players being invented.  The lady working there said her father had written and recorded one of the songs they had there.  She also said when she was young she used to have to bring the cattle down to the river in the mornings to get water and in the winter it would be about 40 degrees below zero.  Does not sound like a fun job.  She must have been at least 90.

    After Bonner’s Ferry I continued west and entered Washington.  Spokane came up shortly and I considered staying. However, having been in the boonies for so long the city looked too big and intimidating so I drove on.  I then took a slightly northern detour toward Grand Coulee Dam which is three times the size of Hoover Dam in Nevada (for those of you who have seen that one).  It has three power plants attached to it and is supposedly the largest concrete structure in the world.  It was built in the FDR era under the Public Works Program.  They also commissioned Woodie Guthrie to write songs for it to get people on board with the whole idea.  77 people died during its construction but it eventually was finished and is now providing electricity to a lot of Washington.  I was thinking of staying in Grand Coulee for the night but all the hotels seemed to be booked up so I continued on.  They give a laser light show on the dam at 10 pm which I had wanted to see but oh well.  Leaving Grand Coulee I headed south on route 155 to hook back up with 2.  The scenery along 155 was great and looked nothing like I thought Washington would.  There was a lake surrounded by plateaus and canyons which resembled something I would expect to see in Arizona. The scenery was nice (as it has been most of the way) which makes the driving easier so I continued on to Wenatchee, WA which is the apple capital of the world, apparently.  The region produces almost half the USA’s apples which has to be a staggering amount.  Strangely I’ve seen no apples trees or signs for apple picking.  They are also know for peaches but the one sign I did see was for cherries and cots (apricots I assume) not peaches or apples.  So I got a room for the night and am laying low for the evening. Until tomorrow.