First two days of Spring Vacaton

Well we made it to Seaside last night at 6pm. It has been an eventful two days to get here.  I started off my Friday morning by getting the last minute things together in the Rubbermaid containers and then loading everything into the truck.  At 8 am I got Lindy all packed into the truck and headed off to drop her at Ann & Lloyd’s.  While I was there, I put her up onto Ann’s bed and when I got up Lindy jumped off the bed before I had a chance to grab her and down she went onto the hardwood, slipped and went splat. There was no yelp or ouch but she couldn’t walk on her left hind leg she also couldn’t even scratch her little face. So off to the vet to see if it was just a bruise or something more, well it wasn’t a break but she did rupture her cruciate ligament in her knee. This meant surgery. We explained to the Dr Macleod that we were leaving on vacation in three hours, so he booked her in for Saturday, he also offered to keep her at the clinic while we were on vacation, but I really didn’t want her to be by herself for three weeks. So if was great that Ann and Lloyd love Lindy as much as we do and offered to nurture her back to health while we were gone,  So with Lindy taken care of, it was back home again to finish packing and wait for Len to come home from work.

 Then we were off across the border, we did find more snow down south that we had at home but we left the snow behind when we turned to head to Tri Cities. We were both tired so we decided to stay in Kennewick at the Days Inn. We were lucky to get a room as they were having a big soccer tournament. We were both surprised as it seemed kind of early in the season for soccer but It was 62 degrees there.

After a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast we headed off. While driving on I84 down the Columbia River Gorge, I found the attraction Stonehenge. It turns out it is a war memorial in Maryhill, WA across the river. The Stonehenge Memorial was built by entrepreneur Sam Hill as a tribute to the soldiers of Klickitat County, Washington, who lost their lives in World War I. This Stonehenge is a full-scale replica of England's famous Stonehenge in Wiltshire and since we won’t be going to England any time soon, we figured this would be fun to see.

 

After that we travelled on Highway 14 in Washington, stopped to see an old locomotive from the Great Western Railway and then back across the river to The Dalles and the Columbia River Gorge Interpretive Centre. 

 

 

 I have wanted to go to this museum since the first time we went to the Oregon coast and we finally got there. We did find out some interesting information. During the Ice Age the gorge was formed because Ice Dams in Canada would break and flood the gorge forming what we now know as the Columbia River. We also learned some more about Lewis & Clark. They might have been the first government overrun. Turns out they were only supposed to spend $2500 on their expedition but turns out they spent over $50,000.  The picture  is an exhibit of settlers on the Oregon Trail.

 

 

After the museum we headed up the old highway and ended up on the Rowena Crest, where the views of the river were amazing, The road was very windy, hard to believe that they built the road in 1929 and it is till holding up pretty well.

View from the Crest

Our next stop was the Bonneville Dam and Locks. We got searched by a very nice dam guard and then preceded to the Visitor Centre.  We got to see the fish ladders but very few fish this time of year. They have also built a new lock; this one will hold a grain barge with 5 floats. The old one only held one barge and one float, so now it only takes one time through the lock instead of three, which saves almost an entire day of travel. There was also a map that showed all the Dams in BC, Washington, Idaho Montana and Oregon.  It is amazing how many dams are in this area, there was over 40.

                                    






                     







   The Fish Ladders

After the dam it was a quick trip through Portland, over to Beaverton and then over the Sunshine highway # 26 into Seaside. Not sure why they call it the sunshine highway as there was no sunshine, just rain on and off. We got checked into our room unpacked and time to relax. We are in a one bedroom with a Murphy bed in the living room and we are located on the backside of the resort. We can see the ocean from the balcony so that is fine. They did finish the construction on the balcony so we have a barbeque and can sit outside.







We did wake up to Sunshine on Sunday morning so it will be a good way to start our time here.

We did get an update from Ann on Lindy, she had her surgery around 9:00am and the vet said the surgery went well and she is doing fine. They put a morphine patch on her yesterday and she is comfortable. They are keeping her until Monday so they can monitor her pain and administer meds as needed. Ann & Lloyd will pick her up on Monday. Ann says that either she or Lloyd is home all the time so she will be well looked after. It would have been harder if it happened while Len and I were working and no one was home during the day. So they are going to give her extra love and attention.

October 1, Harrison, St Maries and Worley, Idaho

Well today I was feeling better so we decided to take a tour around Lake Coeur d Alene to Harrison, St Maries and then to Worley and the Friday night seafood buffet at the casino. Bring on the king crab legs. We had the top of the jeep it was a beautiful sunny day and the GPS was loaded with Geo Caches. There were a bunch of easy ones all the way around the route. About half way around the lake is the town of Harrison. It is a historical little town that had some neat little stores and a very nice art gallery. They were preparing for a homemade brewing competition but we were there too early in the day, they were just setting up for the weekend. While I was looking for a geocache I discovered the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes. This is a 72 mile paved bike path that can be ridden in three sections:

Plummer to Harrison: 15.3 mile ride downhill to Heyburn State Park on Lake Coeur d'Alene, across the Chatcolet Bridge and along the lake shore to Harrison, population 267

Harrison to Enaville: 31.8 miles of flat terrain from the Lake along the Coeur d'Alene River through the isolated Chain Lakes region to Enaville on the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River

Enaville to Mullan: 24.3 miles gradually climbing through a series of small towns that make up the famous Silver Valley, until Wallace, when the grade increases to a maximum of 3% as the trail follows the South Fork uphill to Mullan

There are interpretative sites all along the trail informing people about the history of the area, along with warnings about mine waste being present nearby.

September 30, Spokane

On Thursday morning we decided to take a trip into Spokane and check out Harbor Freight. I wanted to get some rotary cutting blades. I had tried a package and they fit my quilting rotary cutter, but these carpet cutting blades work out to about $1.00 a piece instead of $8.00 a piece. I picked up all the packages that they had. I should be good for the whole year. Len also found out that there was the big sidewalk sale on Saturday, so we grabbed a flyer and decided to come back later. We then went across the street to Hancock Fabrics and I picked up some awesome deals. They had a bunch of clearance tables and some of the fabric bolts were 75% off. I am not sure what I am going to use it for but at that price who cares, I will find a project to use it on. We didn’t really have much else to do so we headed back towards Idaho. We stopped into check on the new Walmart in Post Falls and then checked out Cabelas to see if there was anything new. We did find a Television for my Uncle Stuart, but we will wait until we go back to Walmart in Spokane because they don’t charge sales tax to people from BC, might as well get the best deal that we can. Since we really didn’t find anything new we decided to go back to Coeur d Alene and go see a movie. We didn’t really see anything at the local theatre that we wanted to see so we decided to watch one of the new movies that we had picked up at Walmart. Then as usual it was a great dinner and early to bed.

Sept 28 & 29 Coeur d Alene

Our last vacation in the motor home was part of my four days off and we decided to stay close to home because the electricity still wasn’t working properly. We also had to make sure that we had power so we decided to camp at the Blackwell Island RV park in Coeur d Alene. It is a nice RV park just off Highway 95 on the way to Moscow, Idaho. We were going to stay at the Alpine RV Park out by Hayden Lake but they were only open until Saturday and we wanted to stay until Sunday, it turned out that the Blackwell Island site was closer to everything so we didn’t have to do as much driving. I had got a bad cold on the Monday before we left and basically lost my voice, so since I couldn’t work we decided to leave after Len got off work instead of waiting until Thursday morning, I figured I could be sick in my lawn chair recuperating in the sun just as well as I could lying on my couch watching TV. Len got off work at two and we headed south. I slept almost the whole way.

We got to the RV park, got signed in, setup in our spot and I promptly fell asleep in my chair reading a book. We went for a walk around the park in the evening, it is a very nice location, quite big, I imagine in the summer that it is extremely crowded.

Well we got up early on Wednesday morning and decided to go and check out downtown Coeur d Alene. We parked in the downtown lot and went to explore the shopping by the Coeur d Alene resort, because that was the only place that was open this early. As we were walking along we found a very cool toy store, here we found some very interesting educational toys for the grandchildren and a couple of cool games for us. We also found a local book about Mudgy the Moose and his playmate Millie Mouse. They are characters in a book written by a local author and the story takes place throughout the area. There was also a statue of the two characters just outside the store.

We then found an antique consignment store that took up over four stories. It was open on our way back to the car. Earlier in the morning we saw a little dog that was sleeping on a chair in the window, it was black and white and looked just like Lindy and Emma when they were puppies, it looked so lifelike that we both had to look twice to see that it wasn’t real. So since the shop was open we decided to go in and check to see how much that doggie in the window was. It was a bargain at just $4.00 so we got in and found a few more items. Now the puppy sleeps quietly on the arm of the chair where Emma used to sit and watch the neighborhood. After this store we drove out towards the golf course along the lake shore. We stopped for a couple of easy geocaches but I was pretty tired, so we headed back to the campsite. We spent the rest of the day reading and napping.

September Long Weekend, Lockhart Beach

Well it was back to working weekends for me, while Len had them off, so this weekend he headed down to Lockhart Provincial Park. He was there for the Saturday and I joined him for Sunday dinner and then for a few more days. We decided to do a couple days of geocaching.

We headed down to Riondel and did an earth cache at the old Blue Bell Mine and then we did Quintessential Kootenay Lake Cache which was a hike on the Pebble Beach Recreation trail. It was quick walk to the lake, a great view and a slightly longer walk back up. The weather wasn’t the greatest but it was worth the hike.

The next day we headed up the gray creek/Kimberly pass, there was four caches all along the pass, unfortunately the weather was very wet and it had been raining for a couple of days and the caches were a hike in from the road. This meant we would get totally soaked. We were having some problems with getting the motor home to recharge so that meant we couldn’t turn the heater on because that would mean we had no lights, so neither of us was very keen on getting wet. It was neat to travel up over the pass though; I had never been over it. The road was in a lot better shape that we thought that it would be. We got back to the campsite and had a huge fire to warm up. All in all it was a great weekend; mom and dad even joined us for dinner. In fact it was so much fun Len decided to do it again the next weekend. He and Lindy had a great time. It was a little cold but he had a great time fishing, reading and just general relaxing.

August 28, Home Sweet Home

Today we got up fairly early, packed up and headed north to Canada. We cleared the border just after lunch, pulled into the yard, got unloaded, started the laundry and had everything put away before supper. It is great to be on holidays but it is also nice to come home.

August 27, 2010 Oasis Bordello Museum

Today we did a few more geocaches, we visited the memorial to the Sunshine Mine disaster. In May 1972, the Sunshine Mine of Kellogg was the site of one of the worst U.S. mining accidents, resulting in the deaths of 91 miners; as a result, every miner in the U.S. now carries a "self-rescuer" breathing apparatus, which gives the miner a chance to avoid death due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Eight days after the fire started, two men emerged from the mine. They were found on the 4800 ft (1463 m) level of the mine near a fresh air source. All others trapped in the mine had died.

We also found a second hand store in Kellogg where we found some kids books and a very cute teddy bear book shelf and then got directions to a new second hand book store that was located in the back of fish and tackle store in Osborne. After buying a few books we decided to drop the dog off and then head back to Wallace to go on a tour of the Oasis Bordello Museum.

The Oasis Bordello was a cat house that was open in Wallace, Idaho until 1988, yes that’s right 1988 not 1888, while Nancy Reagan was telling America "Just say no," the ladies of the Oasis were saying "Yes" to any man in Wallace with twenty bucks.

The Oasis operated quite openly in Wallace for many years, every so often they would get a heads up from local law enforcement that they should leave town for a couple of days because the Feds were coming. However in 1988 the FBI came to town and instead of staying only for a couple of days they were there for over two years. Seems that they were actually in town to investigate the local sheriff for corruption but the Bordello permanently closed. The current owners have preserved it exactly as it was on that night -- so the museum is also a time machine, providing a view of the late 1980s through the unique prism of prostitutes in Wallace, Idaho, right down to the J.C. Penney catalogs on the coffee table and the video store rental list taped to the kitchen wall.

Visitors enter the brothel the way that its clients did, up a creaking set of stairs and through a triple-deadbolt door. The first room on the tour is the Madame’s bedroom; there is shag carpet on the floor a feather hat/wig that she always wore and a school band uniform, the only thing that is not original in the place. The story goes that the Madame used to buy the local school band new uniforms each year and this was their way of saying thank you. Nearby, the brothel price list is taped to a wall for easy reference, written on a sheet of yellow tablet paper, broken down by sex act and timed to the minute. "Eight minutes, fifteen dollars, straight, no frills,” there was also an exchange rate for Canadians, it seems that the Canadian dollar was only trading at 70 cents on the dollar.

Next of the tour was the waiting room where the men would wait their turn. The green shag carpet was great. We then got to look at each girl’s room. They were all colour coded, there was the red, green, brown, blue and green rooms. Each room was decorated in those colours and they were filled with items that the girls had left behind, seems that when they used to leave they would only pack enough for a couple days because they would come back, but since they didn’t the rooms had a number of personal items in it, including underwear, books, perfume, hairspray ect.

In the bordello’s bathroom, there was a tub and a toilet but no shower or curtain and this was for all the women in the house. There were seven different medicine cabinets -- one for each girl, labeled in the colour of her room.

The kitchen at the Oasis was also its nerve center. There was a cash box for each room and a wind-up kitchen timers, one for each sex room. "When the bell rang, the maid knocked on the door and said, 'Time's up!'" Michelle explained. Then Michelle pulled open a drawer extra timers. "They were so busy they went through a lot of timers."

According to Michelle, a woman at the Oasis could make as much as $2,000 a week. That was after the Madame was paid her share and room and board.

In the broom closet, along with bottles of Scope and cans of Lysol and carpet cleaner were several dozen red light bulbs, still in their corrugated paper packages. Most of the bulbs in the brothel were red, Michelle said. "The red light gives you a nice glow." There was also a complete bar which the maids would sell the customers waiting at $8 a glass for a highball, which was almost as much as the sex was.

The bordello used to employ four or five local women, at least three a day to be the maids of the place. They were in charge of cleaning, making supper and coordinating the customers each night. It was known as being a prime job in town.

To show you how fast the women left, there was a bag of groceries left on the kitchen counter, peeling with age, revealed its contents: Minute Rice, egg noodles, and Campbell’s soup. The kitchen itself looked about half the size that you would find on a train. There didn’t seem to be much eating that went on as there was only one small table in the break room, not really big enough for everyone to eat at.

This was a very interesting tour and definitely gives you a realistic view of what life was like back in the late eighties.

After touring the museum we walked around town for a bit and then decided to go for supper at the local barbecue restaurant. Out on the street they have a smoker that is cooking all day long. We started off with an appetizer sampler which had pork ribs, chicken and beef brisket. It was amazing. Len had a rib platter with macaroni/cheese and coleslaw sides and I had the beef brisket with red beans and rice and macaroni and cheese. The food was fantastic; I would definitely recommend this to anyone who goes to Wallace.

After supper we headed back to the motor home to give Lindy her supper and relax.