Pullman

After we left Yakima, our next big stop was Pullman, Washington to visit Linda and Danny, who were my neighbors in Florida. They had a cool dog named Duke who played with my dog Rocky.

Linda works so I planned to get to Pullman on a Friday and visit her Saturday. On the way there we planned to stay one night in a little town named Othello and one night in Palouse Falls State Park. The stay in Othello was uneventful but there were no RV sites at Palouse Falls so we pressed on to Pullman and decided to stay at the local Walmart until Saturday when Linda would be off work.

When I called Linda to tell her of this change in plans she offered to come to Walmart so we could follow her to her house. We gladly accepted the offer. Linda is no longer married to Danny but she still has Duke and he is as cool as ever. When Maguire decided to bark in Duke's face Duke remained calm and defused the situation. Linda has another very sweet dog named Lucy that she is fostering from the local shelter where she volunteers. The shelter has an awesome state-of-the-art off leash park, over 2 acres, separate areas for big and little dogs, airlocks, agility equipment, and plenty of poop bag stations. Another innovative part of this dog park is that it is "pay for play". Dog owners pay a yearly or quarterly fee for the use of the park (around $60/year). Linda says the community has been very supportive of the dog park.

Linda's house has a fenced yard and a nice back porch where we spent many hours watching the sunsets and the dogs playing. Matilda and Maguire had not been off leash for a long time and they appreciated the opportunity to be off leash. Linda makes a killer strawberry/rhubarb pie. Huge thanks to Linda for your hospitality. It really felt like being home.

From Pullman we headed north towards Coeur d'Alene. On the way there we stopped at a huge beading store near Plummer, Id. Shirley would be proud of us.
Coeur d'Alene is a nice progressive town,  population about 44 thousand. It sits right next to a huge lake and the city park includes a beach. It is a college town and there are plenty of young people. There are bike trails and free city shuttle bus. The people are very friendly and helpful. Both Diane and I think this would be a good place to live.

From Coeur d'Alene we headed East on I90 to Osburn, Id, the longest we have been on an Interstate during the trip. We got to ride our bikes on the Coeur d'Alene bike trail, a converted railroad which spans most of the Idaho panhandle.

If everything goes according to plan we will cross into Montana tomorrow.  Stay tuned.