Holy crap it was a relief to get out of Walla Walla. That place is more of an armpit than Pocatello, and that is saying something!
You know what, that was mean. Pocatello is fine, it just needs waaaaay more breweries to be somewhere I'd want to stay long-term.
Within 3 hours of Mike seeing the last patient on the last day of his rotation, we were back on the road towards Bozeman. The trailer was not quite winterized yet, and we didn't want our water tanks or pipes freezing in the chilly air of Montana, so we stopped off in Coeur d'Alene for a few days to explore and stay (relatively) warm. However, we had both had a rather tiring day, so we only made it to a rest area a few miles west of CDA before stopping to sleep for the night. It was still better than staying one more nanosecond in Walla Walla.
I do not know how I ever functioned in life without Google maps. To find a place to put the trailer while wandering around on Saturday, I zoomed in on the satellite map and found a parking area with big trailer-size pull-through spots south of downtown, and thence we proceeded on Saturday morning in search of breakfast and internets.
The parking area was next to the City Hall and library, and also serviced a large park with a fenced doggie play spot, brightly colored playground and picnic pavilion, all within spitting distance of Lake Coeur d'Alene to the south. It was really quite lovely, and we walked the dogs around for a few minutes, taking in the wonderful non-inversioned air of not-Walla Walla.
Hm, we thought to ourselves. There's something about this place.
After breakfast at Bakery by the Lake (recommend) Mike went to the library to continue interneting and I went for a shopping spree at Costco, because we hadn't had access to one in W^2 and the dogs had been out of their Costco-brand chow for a solid 3 days. (Not that they were terribly broken up about it -- their backup food is white rice and boiled hamburger, which they adore.) What does it say about me that I feel deprived by not being able to shop for economy packs of folding chairs at a giant wholesale store for a couple of weeks? 'Murica!
Then it was off to the nearest bike shop to ask about area trails. I went in to Coeur d'Alene Bike Co. to find a super cute flannel-and-beanie-clad blond girl at the front counter, and proceeded to speak in standard mountain-biker lingo, with many "sick"s and "epic"s and "rad"s, presently gleaning much good beta.
Super Cute Shop Girl asked, in order to determine what trails to recommend, if I was an advanced rider, and I replied, rather equivocally, that I liked to think so. What is that about? Why can't I just say yes, I am solidly in the 'advanced' category? I mean, I'm not really up to huge drops or gap jumps just yet, but I've ridden some decent gnar. Note to self: own it next time.
Since I had a good feeling about the shop, I also mentioned that I didn't notice any bike-related jewelry on display, and perhaps they would be interested in carrying some, more specifically, mine. She said the owner would probably be interested, but he had just gone out for lunch and I should come back after 1 or so.
Roger that.
Back to the trailer to figure out where to put all of the 10-pack family-size Nutella jars I had gotten from Costco.
Mike returned from facebooking studying at the
library, and we took the pups for an explore around the Tubbs Hill hiking area,
which has a trail that runs along the lake with excellent views of the
surrounding hills. It was a glorious
day, if a tad chilly, and at the first opportunity Paddington got into the
water to cool off. Ellie, after some plying with a sufficiently large tree
branch thrown into the water at a reasonable distance, also swam for a
bit. Although we had finally gotten her
to jump/stumble off of a dock on a pond in Pocatello last summer, we were sadly
unable to convince her to launch into the water off one of the many boulders on
the shore, which would have been wonderfully entertaining and not a little
harrowing. We made it to a miniature peninsula and chased each other around on
the beach briefly, took the obligatory “us” selfie, and then decided that we
had accomplished enough exercise to reward ourselves with beer.
But first: back to the bike shop to do some schmoozing and
selling.
Success! The owner,
Chris, was indeed interested in the earrings, and took twelve pairs on
commission.
We chatted with him and TJ
and Syd (Super Cute Shop Girl) for a solid hour, learned more about biking
around CDA, played with Syd’s puppy Beemer, and commiserated about the
unsuitability of Cannondale lefty forks. When we asked about places to take the
trailer for camping, Chris told us to just park it in the lot behind the shop,
which we did almost immediately. (When
you’re a gypsy, you learn to take every opportunity like this. I sometimes
wonder how serious people are when they offer space or showers or whatever, and
whether they are surprised when I take them up on it. Let this be a lesson to
all: don’t offer unless you mean it.)
 |
| Bam! |
Jewelry hawking and accommodations thus accomplished and
established, respectively, it was actually now time for beer and food. There
were several breweries quite nearby, but we were charmed by the name of Daft
Badger brewing, and went there first. It
was quite busy, as befits a Saturday evening, and when we sat on two of the few
open stools the gentleman next to us asked us if he could get us something,
adding that he was the owner of the establishment. Once again, we jumped on an
unsolicited offer like Ellie pounces on unfortunate rodents (clumsily, and
without regard for personal safety or decorum).
I found myself
assuming that this was meant to be an opening for socializing, and with great
effort tamped down my natural shyness and conversational awkwardness and
pretended to be a normal human being who can talk normally to other normal
human beings.
The owner and his wife (Darryl and Val) were extremely cool,
terribly nice, and wildly informative about the population, activities and
merits of CDA. We learned that the cost
of living is fairly low, the outside opportunities are endless, the ski/DH bike
areas are close and world-class, the winters are manageable and the beer is
right up there. It got to the point
where I had to ask: what’s the catch?
The catch, Darryl said, is that the town is still very very
conservative. “Narrow-minded,” he said.
Ah. Well, that’s nothing we didn’t already live with in
Pocatello.
But, it stands to reason that as CDA attracts more under-30
folks looking for adventure and less expensive housing, it will naturally turn
a little more purple. At least that’s what I like to think.
Anyway, the beer was good and the food was great at Daft
Badger, and I certainly recommend it to all.
It was only 8pm at this point, but since it had gotten dark
at 4 it felt much later, and we made a stop at Slate Creek brewing for a couple
tasters before going back to the trailer and crashing out early like the party
animals we are.
Unfortunately for us in that particular situation, but not
necessarily in general, downtown CDA apparently has a bit of a nightlife, and
also apparently most of the participants in that nightlife like to take a
shortcut through the parking lot of the bike shop to the bar on the other
side. The lot is ostensibly surrounded
by chain-link fence on 3 sides, but we observed the following morning that
there is a large gap at one corner through which people avoid going an extra 20
feet to the intersection and around the shop building. Starting at 10pm and continuing until 3am,
loud voices permeated the supposedly insulated walls of our so-called
winterized trailer as though the owners of said voices were right in there with
us. At one point we heard, very clearly,
some apparently amorous male declare “I just want to snort cocaine and fuck fat
bitches.”
Indeed.
In the morning, detritus of the previous night was scattered
over the parking lot in the form of a Styrofoam container, deposited improbably
under the very middle of the trailer, and bits of burrito everywhere else,
which Paddington kept trying to scoop up as we walked her to and from the park
by the lake.
The nice weather of the day before had, sadly, not
continued, and a gusty rain greeted us.
The plan had been to go riding, but here’s the thing about living in a
camper: nothing ever dries in here.
Ever. It’s a hermetically sealed box of four respiring and perspiring
organisms with no air flow. So, if we
were to go out riding in the rain and bring our nasty damp selves back inside,
we might as well throw our clothing in the trash because it wouldn’t by dry
again until Christmas.
Also, I’m a big wimp about being wet and cold. So, instead,
we took the dogs for a hike on the Canfield Mountain trail system, which was
supposed to have good riding. Like total jerks, we hiked up the down-only flow
trail, but as there were no vehicles at the trailhead with the means to
transport a bike, we figured it was pretty safe. The trail was cool, and the
dirt was impressively non-sticky after a day of rain, which we were told is the
norm for the area (and also helped by a very dry summer).
The following day’s weather was the same, which meant
another hike, this time at Beauty Creek.
When we arrived, we must have just
missed a departing hunter, because right there next to the trailhead sign was a
pile of very fresh deer guts. Miraculously, we found the pile before the dogs
did, which meant we could prevent them from rolling ecstatically in it as they
most surely would have done otherwise. We spent a moment dispassionately identifying the organs in the heap, then began to make our way up the winding trail.
Right away we discovered that the trail would be really
excellent for mountain biking. It had lots of little technical rock features
and tricky moves, and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. The sign at the
bottom said the top of Mount Coeur d’Alene was 8 miles away, which would make
for a decently burly out-and-back ride. We will definitely have to go back
there at some point.
That evening, we met Mike’s classmate Fallon at Mad Bomber
brewery and got to hear about some of the misadventures of the other ISU PA
students. Let’s just say, for all of my complaining about Walla Walla, the
clinical year has not been a cakewalk for most of these folks.
Finally, the next day, the sun broke through the clouds and
riding was back on the menu. At least it
was for Mike, because it was still too cold for me to voluntarily freeze my
hands off. I hiked the dogs around again
while he did a quick 1.5 hour loop at Canfield, ending on the flow trail we had
explored the first time. The verdict: thumbs up, even if it is easy to get lost
up there. On our way back to the trailer, we picked up a six pack of beer to take inside the shop as thanks for letting us stay in the lot. TJ was the only one there, but Beemer the puppy was also in attendance, so we got to play with him while we chatted with TJ. Another employee stopped by to pick up a paycheck, and the other owner, Alex, also came in briefly on some errand, so they joined us for a beer as well and we had a right nice conversation about this and that. Definitely a good community in CDA.
On Wednesday, it was finally time to get back on the road.
Our final destination was Bozeman for Mike’s third rotation, but as he didn’t
need to be there until Monday, we would make a stop in Missoula to hang out
with classmate Meadow for a few days.
She had offered to let us park the trailer at her house and use her
internets, shower and laundry facilities, and (are you seeing a theme here) we
took her up on it.
Meadow’s house is up on a hill south of town, with fabulous
views of the surrounding mountains. We rolled in just after dark, and she
immediately set about feeding us dinner like the badass mom she is (she and her
husband, Clint, have five kids between them).
Meadow was supposed to be in Walla Walla right after Mike, but he gave
her a heads up about how awful it was in time for her to find something else,
and happily she was able to get a hospital in Missoula to take her on so that
she could be with her family. We chatted with her about rotations for a while
that evening, and also learned some of the places we should take the dogs
exploring for the next couple of days.
On Thursday afternoon, having spent the morning basking in
the glow of central heat and fast Wi-Fi and doing a couple loads of
impressively stinky laundry, we took the dogs up Mt. Jumbo, just north of I-90. It was blustery and cold, but there was still
a surprising number of people out there at the same time. A guy was even up there getting ready to go
paragliding, but the wind was strong enough that we wondered what his plan
would be once he was 100 miles away five minutes after taking off.
Mt. Jumbo features a
large “L” on the west face, and we got to see it up close:
Because Mike is a huge bike dork, on our way past it he
identified the pattern of a Maxxis DHF tire, left by some brave or crazy soul
on the steeply inclined concrete letter:
We also had a panoramic view of Missoula from there:
Once I was sufficiently cold and cranky, I decreed that it
was time to turn around. Halfway down,
we looked back to see paraglider guy hovering gently above the ridge, even
though the wind was still valiantly trying to freeze my ears off. I do not understand how air works.
Once down, we went in search of beer, and found ourselves at
Kettlehouse Brewing, where we were greeted by a sea of beards, flannel and
Patagonia. I got the sense that Missoula is a good town to be single in: small
enough that it’s not overwhelming, large enough for a decent dating pool, and
outdoorsy enough that most people you meet will be into some kind of
interesting activity. The beer was pretty good, and the best one by far was a
10.5% Imperial Porter. There’s no food
there, though, so don’t go if you’re hungry.
We met Meadow and Clint downtown that evening for dinner at
Flathead Lake Brewing Company. Great food and beer—definitely recommend.
The next few days were more of the same: relaxing,
interneting, laundrying and hanging out with M&C. Their daughter Makenna
was very taken with Paddington and Ellie, although the resident dog there,
Pokey, was rather nonplussed by their arrival and attempted to mark his
territory by peeing on the couch. (This earned him a lot of laughter and
temporary banishment to the basement.)
I explored downtown and spent an absurd amount of time in a
bead store, as I tend to do whenever I find one.
Finally, it was time to say goodbye and drive the remaining
three hours to Bozeman, where there was a spot waiting for us at the KOA at
Four Corners.
Next up: Bozeman Part 2!
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