Sandpoint, Idaho

As we left Sun Lakes state park this morning, we stopped just short of getting on the highway to take a picture (through the window screen):

A bit farther along the road we stopped at the Sun Lakes/Dry Falls Visitor Center.

The bluffs you see were formed by hundreds of trillions of gallons of water cascading over geological features and eroding away any soft material.  You can still see that the low area roughly in the center still doesn't have much topsoil on it. The water came from melting glaciers at the end of the ice age and it is estimated that the water was some 300 feet above the top of the bluffs that you see in the picture. These bluffs are called "coulees", hence the name of the area.  Imagine water pouring over all of those cliffs and then imagine that the coulees ran for miles in every direction.  The visitors center explained that this area was home to the largest waterfall in the history of the world.

We rolled into Sandpoint ID this afternoon about 4 after about 176 miles from the Coulee City area.  A friend that we met in Arizona the first of this year lives in Sandpoint, and we've come to visit for a bit as we tour Hwy 2 east across the US.  When we got near Spokane, we stopped for lunch and made some phone calls about a place to stay...oops!  Every place I called between Coeur d'Alene and Sandpoint was full for the weekend.  I was on the phone trying to talk one rv park owner into letting us dry camp in his front yard while Donna was calling the last number on our list. I was not successful, but she was, and so we find ourselves in the Travel America RV Park in Sagle, ID, about 6 miles south of Sandpoint.  It's an older park without any amenities, but the sites are all grass, it's clean, and there is a gas station in the front with diesel for "only" 3.95 a gallon.  We went to dinner this evening, and noticed a dozen or so rv's in the local WalMart parking lot.  Should have tried that.

We had a wonderful mexican dinner at a restaurant named Fiesta Bonita, in Ponderay, ID, just a few miles north of Sandpoint on the Cut Bank Cutoff Rd.  We had to take pictures,

I ordered "Pollo a la Diabla", a spicy dish of sliced chicken, onion, mushrooms and spices.

And Donna ordered "Tacos al Carbon", one of her favorites.

Both meals were outstanding!  I hope we make it back this way sometime....

When we came out of the restaurant, I noticed that most of the trucks in this part of the country have big heavy bars attached to the front.  May have something to do with all of the wildlife that's out and about after dark......