Destination: Coeur D'Alene, Idaho - Travel Day: September 28, 2012

Destination: Coeur D'Alene, Idaho

Travel Day: September 28, 2012

It’s cold as I walk across the dark parking lot to the motel coffee shop for breakfast, but I remind myself it’s high mountain country in late September. It’s also 0615. The place is empty so service is quick, and by 7 I am westbound in the brightening day.

Keeping in mind the long distances between service stops in Montana I fuel up before I leave Billings, and again a couple of hours later in a place called Livingston. Livingston is the kind of place where the gas station coffee is hot, though barely drinkable, and the street into town is lined with feed stores and the architectural bric a brac found only in places that don’t really feel the need to create a “pretty town site”.  I am humbled to see such places still exist.

At 1340 I stop in Missoula to get gas but my card is refused so I pay cash. A few minutes later I’m standing outside a McDonalds chomping on a couple of cheeseburgers and sipping a root beer, and wondering why the high school aged kids aren’t in school.

Montana gently gives way to some spectacular Idaho mountains. Tonight’s stop is in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho and I pull off I-90 at the appropriate exit around 1430 to fuel up for the next day. My card is again refused so I go inside to see the clerk. He tells me that the credit card company has flagged my card for being used in an automated way more than three times in twenty four hours, and they want the clerk to see me in person. Good to know, so he authorizes my card. I ask the clerk if there is a car wash close by and he directs me to an automated place a few blocks over. I drive by it three times before I find it. It’s an automated wash but I have to dry by hand. The unit’s dryers didn’t do that good a job.

I stop at a hole in the wall liquor store behind another gas station to see if they have any Plymouth gin, but I’m out of luck. What they do have is the other gin I have been seeking for most of my adult life, Boodles!!! Finally a bottle of Boodles!!! This whole trip has been about finding so many unexpected things. First the Plymouth in Key West, and now my personal holy grail of alcohol, Boodles! Something I was told wasn’t imported anymore. So how do you feel when something totally unexpected happens like that? I’ve always been fond of the term “gobsmacked”!

I check into the Motel 6, pay for internet access, and check out the room. It’s one of the newly renovated rooms, so I’m quite pleased. I head down to the laundry room to get some clothes done. I only have a couple of days left on the road but I don’t feel like doing them in the sink.

The desk clerk tells me of a few dinner options, but I settle on the Texas Roadhouse a few blocks away. The food at the one in St. Charles was quite good, though I hold out small hope that my server will be as funny and intelligent as Sam I Am. The place is crowded at 1815 with Friday night families and groups, so I sit at the bar with no waiting. I order a Drop Top Ale and the Prime Rib with a baked potato. I listen to the servers chatting behind the bar. Some of them are going to cosmetology school. I spend a few moments pondering what the job market is like for cosmetologists in Idaho.

I finish up what turns out to be a really decent Prime Rib and head back for a decent night’s sleep. Before I turn in I indulge in a small glass of Boodle’s over ice and think how sublime is my life that in the past 23 days I have had the privilege to travel so freely across such a large land mass.