Vacation 2010 - Day 8

Today we continued with our vacation road trip. We left Aberdeen (WA) and took State Route 12 east to the 101. We followed US Route 101 west trough Olympia (WA) until we merged with I-5. We followed I-5 north through Tacoma to Seattle (WA). Once we got into Seattle we really hit traffic. The last 2 miles, until we were supposed to get off the I-5 to see the Space Needle, took us about 40 minutes. Once we got off the freeway our GPS got a little confused. It tried to lead us in circles. After the 3rd wrong information from the GPS we turned it off and followed our instincts. A few turns later we were pretty much in front of the Space Needle and found very quickly a parking spot. We went over to the Space Needle and took pictures and lots of video. The little fair in front of the Space Needle was definitely not Daisy's friend... as she didn't like the noise and commotion too much.
After Kenny had recorded his daily video blog in front of the Space Needle we hit the road again. While getting back onto the I-5 again Kenny and I had a difference of opinion. I wanted to take the I-5 north and Kenny wanted to take the I-5 south. The GPS agreed with me and it turned out to be the right direction. We took the I-5 to the I-405 north. Once we reached the junction with State Route 522, we followed it west until we reached the junction with US Route 2. We took US Route 2 east until we reached the town of Leavenworth (WA) It's a recreation of a Bavarian (German) Town. It really comes pretty close to a Bavarian town. We walked up and down and took lots of pictures and video. We stayed to watch the Folk Dance Group perform. It's definitely a neat place to visit.
By about 5 pm we left Leavenworth, followed the US Route 2 to the junction with the US Route 97. We followed it east until we reached Spokane. Eastern Washington looks nothing like I thought it would. The freeways are almost straight like a line, the land is flat like a pancake and the forests, Washington is famous for, are nowhere to be found. I can say one thing for certain. I love western Washington, western Washington on the other hand is not really for me. It's too flat and reminds me way too much about the Mid-West.
In Spokane we stopped around 9 pm and had dinner at a Panda Express. After dinner we got back onto the road, since we weren't able to get a hotel on Spokane and surrounding areas, since there were 2 major events going on. At least not for a reasonable price. The only hotels we would have been able to get our hands on would have been in the price bracket of 300+ bucks... and I'm not really willing to spend that much on a hotel room. So we got onto the I-90 and headed east. We managed to take a little video and some pix of the Idaho State Sign. Then we passed through Coeur d'Alane and headed further east. Kenny was still driving, although he had been driving for the past 6 hours... why he got behind the wheel in Spokane again beats me. There was no reason to do so. And driving the sometimes narrow and windy I-90 east through Idaho is just a bad idea. Around midnight we crossed the State Line into Montana and a couple of miles later we put into a rest area. This was the last rest area before we getting of the I-90 altogether and we were both sure that there wouldn't be a single rest area before reaching Kalispell at the entrance of Glacier National Park. So we decided to stop for the day and sleep in the car and drive the remaining 150 miles or so the next do. So today we managed to drive 500 miles.