Ritzville, Washington, United StatesDays Inn by Wyndham Ritzville
1513 Smittys Boulevard, Ritzville, Washington 99169, United States - off I-90
I was really hoping to find a campground for my last day before reaching Portland.
I checked the map and found 2 tent sympbols off I-90 along my route to Portland from Glacier NP. I saw a sign for a campground about 10 miles before I expected and I drove around a lake following signs until I reached a "resort" of RVs with lots of tchatchskies outside them all crowded together on a hillside. That did not seem appealing. Then I got off at the expected exit with a campground sign at a state park. I followed the signs until I ended up at a T-intersection with no signs. I googled the name of the state park and got two entries one 23 miles away and the 45 miles away. I was ready to be there or nearly be there because the sky was getting dimmer by the moment, so I tried Hopper and booking.com and ended up with the Days Inn at Ritzville WA which was 21 miles down the road. And it is not a bad place - the manager was very cheery and even held open the door for me when I brought in my first load of bags. Today that cold Big Sky IPA hits the spot. Anyway, I am jumping ahead of myself.
Wyndham seems to have taken over all the budget chain accommodations. When I left the Travelodge in Katispelll MT, I had made a pot of coffee in my room. There was only one package of things to go with the coffee and there were only 2 pkts of creamer in it. I tried the little carton of milk I had bought and carried around but it had indeed gone bad so I dumped it. For the second cup, I decided to go down to the lobby and see what thety had for milk/creamer. They had a sign that they do not offer breakfast but they did have coffee. They only had creamer. I poured some of what little was left in the container into my cup and stirred it in. I stirred and stirred but it would not dissolve so there were lumps of it floating on top. I sipped some. It tasted horrible, so I left it. Luckily, this town had all sorts of modern stores in the CBD and I found a Starbucks with a very perky baristo?? I felt bad I had nothing left to leave as a tip. I got a large mocha latte and a chocolate croissant to make up for the severe lack at the Travelodge.
I had enough gas to get me quite a ways so no need to stop after that until I needed something else.
From Kalispell, I followed two secondary roads for quite awhile. The scenery was great. As the ND hiker/farmer had said, western Montana is different. It is more green and farmers irrigate and it is hillier. There were very Western looking ranches with fences and barns and some resort areas as well. I can't remember which road was which now, but I went through a mountainous curvy road for awhile. I had to laugh - only in MT I think you would have speed limit signs of 60 mph for the curves. I felt pressured into going faster than I wanted and often looked for pull-outs to let the faster cars/trucks pass. Some of the pull-offs offered photo ops of the hills, cliffs, or fields. At one point I was following the Clark Fork - or Clark River Fork, a tributary to the Columbia River - which was very scenic. There were a few very impressive train tressles in the landscape as well. Another reminder of how integral to this Western life the railroad still is.
I saw one train with tons of black cars and wondered what they carried.
Earlier on, the traffic slowed down in a work zone. I was probably in the first dozen cars waiting. Cars came from the other direction. A bunch would come, maybe 5 -12 or so, then a gap, then another bunch, and so it went, on and on, for a half hour, I swear. I turned off the engine, drank some of my coffee, tried to think of what I could do that would be productive. I sent a few photos out, answered a few of Sharon's msgs, then sent her a photo of the line and how I was waiting for half an hour. Just as she replied with a comparison to the LIE and the Hamptons, the lead truck pulled out and we were ready to go. When we got to the other side, I counted around 85 cars/trucks heading in my direction. It seemed inefficient to me, but, so it goes....
One of my longer photo stops was a hill with several stacks of hay bales, round and rectangular. I spent a lot of time with those bales and was disappointed with most of the photo results.
Being bright sunlight, evebn thoush it was filtered by the smoke haze, it was still hard to capture the golden gleam of those bales. I do love hay bales!! So let's see, the hay bales, the Clark Fork, some of the flats of the landscape and some of the mountains, and there was the town - now what was it - started with an S - where I got off to find the state park and instead found the old grain elevator and the car junkyard, but what a car junkyard - old vintage cars! It was amazing!!
I traveled the last 20 miles or so to this Days Inn as quickly as I could. I even passed several vehicles along the way. The motel is right off the interstate so it was easy to find. And as I said, the desk clerk was very pleasant and cheerful. When I went out to get the wifi password (which turned out useless since for some reason, although I connected with the wifi, there was no wifi), a young man got out of his truck and said, not many people drive a stick-shift anymore. I asked how he knew and he said, he could it see it when he looked in. We agreed we preferred stick shifts. When I got to my room, he was coming out of his and wished me a good evenign. I said I wished him one too and he said, he was planning on having one! He had a very strong southern type accent - maybe he is not from Washington State. Not sure what kind of accent local people around here have. The desk clerk had more of a Spanish-sounding accent.
So I uploaded my photos and may go back to my book on George Bird Grinnell, founder of Glacier NP. He was recounting his first visit to St Mary's Lake....where I actually was....and there is a photo that shows Goats Island that looks very similar to the one I took yesterday. Pretty amazing!!
2025-05-22