Friday 8/27/00
Day 10: Gardner Caves, Steptoe & Pullman
We
got up around 8:00 and talked to the manager in the office who told us about
the Gardner Caves. These were near the Canadian border on the east side of Pend
Oreille River. She mentioned that they have tours every two hours starting at
10:00. I thanked her for the info and told her we would probably be back this
summer on our way back from Alaska as it was a clean inexpensive hotel and quiet.
I would recommend this to anybody in the area. We left the hotel around 9:00
and drove to Sullivan Rd to the Dam Falls at Mill Pond which had been built
in the 1900's for electricity. There was also a Mill Pond camp area close by
that only cost $5 a night . The road continued east for a mile before reaching
Sullivan Lake. This is a long narrow lake that has forest and mountains in the
background for nice scenary. There were many people fishing here as there were
campsights at both the north and south end of the lake.
We
drove back to Metaline Falls and crossed the river on Boundary Rd to go to the
Gardner Cave and also the base of the Boundary Dam. We got to the caves right
at 10:00 for their tour as they explained how this land was privately owned
in the early 1900's and was even used thy the owner to produce alcohol during
prohabition. He would take the alcohol over the border to Canada and sell it
there. The cave is 1050 feet long of which 500 feet is accessable during the
tour. The cave was well lighted for pictures and the tour guide explained how
the cave was formed from sea fossils that formed to limestone. The limestone
then dissolved from acid rain over thousands of years to form the cave. You
could still see small drops of water forming pools in the caves. At the bottom
of the caves the tour guide turned out the light to get an idea of how dark
it really inside a cave. The tour lasted about an hour and is worth taking if
you are in the vicinity.
We
left the caves and continued north to drive to Boundary Dam.. There was a small
day use parksight at the dam as we walked around and took some pictures. There
was alot of water being let out at this time of year. There are also tours that
could be given on the inside complex but they needed to be scheduled ahead of
time. We started back and would take a gravel road that stopped at a old shack.
Jacob and I walked around as there were remains of an old pickup truck and new
yorker car with bullet holes thru the metal. This place had been deserted for
many years and was probably a booming area during the building of the dam and
early 1900's. After leaving here we continued back and would stop to take some
piures of Box Canyon Dam and the Pend Oreille river before driving to Iona.
We turned right on highway 20 at Iona and drove west to Colville. This is a
nice drive as you go past forested area and also many lakes on both sides of
the road. We saw Lake Thomas, Lake Gillette, Keough Lake and White Mud Lake
on our way to Colville. Colville is surrounded by a nice farming valley and
quiet community. It is the largest town in the Northeast area of Washington.
We drove south form here along highway 395 and would go into Spokane. This was
a boring drive as there was to much traffic on Father's Day for a two lane road.
In other words, I couldn't get to Spokan fast enough.
We
finally arrived in Spokane around 4:00 and went east on I90 for a couple miles
before turning off on 27 to go south to Pullman for the night. This is a windinng
road that goes thru all little farming communities for the next 60 miles. You
can drive for miles along this highway and only see a couple farm houses with
many roaming hills of either wheat or dirt fields. About every ten miles there
will be a grain silo and some nice older houses with one street of businesses.
We went thru Rockford,and Fairfield which are small community with grain storage
and one main streets. As we continued south we would enter Latah as this was
a litlle bigger with more older houses and a couple streets of business. Tekoa
was about five miles south and this is the nicest of the small farming towns
as it has many large older houses along several community blocks. We drove around
town for a little while. The people seemed friendly as there were many taking
walks outside and waving at us as we drove by. The road now would wind westward
to Oakesdale which has a large building still standing along the railroads that
was used as a flour mill the first part of the century.
We
took Hume Rd from here off of 27 to go to Steptoe Butte State Park, this is
the nicest view of the Palouse area as you can drive to the very top and see
360 degrees of roaming fields. It is a four mile drive to the top and 3600 ft
in elevation, and the view is well worth it. The rolling hills reminded Jacob
and I off an enormous golf course for miles and miles as there were many traps
and roughs but also beautiful greens that stretched forever. You can only imagine
what sunsets and thunderstorms look like from up here overlooking the wheatfiealds.
While we were up there a person came to us and showed us a picture of a hotel
that used to be here on the emountain in the late 1800's. The hotel burned down
in the early 1900's and was never rebuilt. He showed us a picture of the hotel
from a book that he had. Palouse was the next farming town we visitied as this
is only a couple miles from the Idaho border. The last stop before reaching
Pullman would be Kamiak Butte Park. This is a county park with many trees on
top of a butte overlooking all of the farm land. It was nice to stop as it was
about 75 drgrees with the only shaded area we had acces to. There wer many people
having picnics today with a view overlooking the wheat fields. There was also
a hiking trail that would let you climb to the very top of the butte which we
did not take.
We finallly arrived in Pullman around 5:00. We made a quick drive thru town to show the kids what we remembered from twenty years ago and what changes we think the town had gone thru. We got a room at the Motel Manor for $65 including tax. This is along the main strip where we could walk downtown later. Around 8:30 we went to Basilio's Italiian Cafe for dinner. Cindy and I split a carafe of wine. We ate Raviolis, Manicotti, Cobb Salad and small pizza. It was OK for the price and what you can expect for food at a college town. We went back to the hotel and put the kids to bed. After they were asleep aroun 10:00, Cindy and I went downtown to Rico's. This was one of the few places that looked famaliar to us when we drove in. As we walked in, we heard 70's music and it was like Deja Vu. Inside the bar you have a tri-level bar with pool tables on top, tables and 70's music on the second floor and a band playing older jazz down below. We listened to the the jazz group for about an hour where we could relax away from the kids. We next went to Pete's Bar that used to be The Ram. They were also playing disco music and it just felt weird, like we had never left. When this place was The Ram in late 70's they let you cook your own steak and it was one of the more popular restaurants back then. There was a private party going on tonight as we could only go into the bar. We had a couple drinks here before leaving around 12:30. We went to sleep at 1:00. We drove 500 miles today.
I drove 350 miles today and 2800. total