The Grand Coulee Dam & Spokane, WA

Well, there are so many shots of Glacier National Park, that I'm still working through them, however, I have finished working on shots of the Northwest so let's get them up here!

After staying in Glacier National for a night we headed back to Missoula, MT and then on to Seattle, WA. That's a heck of a long drive though, so we decided to stay in Spokane, WA on the way. Then we figured we may as well hit the Grand Coulee Dam on our way out of Spokane the next day.

First we had to drive through a bit of Montana and through the top of Idaho.



This is the entire town of Haugan, MT, I believe:



We did not get any potatoes:




We made it Spokane, Washington, no problem. It's a very pretty little city.







Another beautiful carousel, who knew that so many cities had one?



They have a gondola that's not really worth doing, I would say.



Now, would you believe that Spokane, WA has a hotel that is considered to be one of the world's finest and certainly most ornately and lavishly appointed? Well it does, the incredible Davenport Hotel. Check this baby out.





Every surface is encrusted with decoration and carvings:



Infinite mirrors:



The lobby:



Before leaving the next morning we hit up Frank's Diner, which is in an old railroad car and is awesome. If you go, get the biscuits and sausage gravy, they do them AWESOME here!



The Grand Coulee Dam is a biggun'. Here's what Wikipedia says about it: "Grand Coulee Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. In the United States, it is the largest electric power producing facility and the largest concrete structure. It is the fourth largest producer of hydroelectricity in the world...The Grand Coulee Dam is almost a mile long at 5223 feet (1586 m). The spillway is 1,650 feet(503 m) wide. At 550 feet (168 m), it is taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza; all the pyramids at Giza could fit within its base. Its hydraulic height of 380 feet (115 m) is more than twice that of Niagara Falls. There is enough concrete to build a four-foot wide, four-inch deep sidewalk twice around the equator." It was built between 1933-1944, as one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's public works program. Check it out --





It's a huge dam, but not super interesting to look at...plus the car was smelling like it was burning oil so I was anxious to move on and get to Seattle. The Grand Coulee is seriously in the middle of NOWHERE and in case something happened to the car that's not where I wanted to be stuck.



On to Seattle!