After dropping Oliver off in Oliver our next destination was Coeur d'Alene. It's about a 5 hour drive and takes us past the Grand Coulee Dam which is a very impressive structure. There has been a drought in most of the Western United States but you wouldn't know it from this particular reservoir. I'm not sure how big it is but there are a series of gates along the top and the water was almost to the top of them. They aren't super water tight so it meant the water was leaking around the edges. Kerry and I both like the streets you drive through as you go past the dam. They are likely from the original construction and they make for a very quaint tree lined street.
Our route took us through Western Washington towards Spokane. I always think of the Seattle area when I picture Washington state however the eastern portion is more like the prairies of Saskatchewan with miles of wheat and grassland. It is very flat.
We had to leave later in the afternoon as Callie was taking her drivers test. We made it to our hotel in the early evening and checked in. Our hotel was not what we were hoping for. It is quite an old building and the room was apparently a pet room and quite dirty. We will have to do a bit more research on our hotel choices in the future.
The next day we headed to Silverwood which is a them park outside of Coeur d'Alene. It's in the middle of nowhere and is much nicer than you would expect considering most of the nearby cities are quite small. There is nothing like it in Western Canada in my opinion. We park across the highway and take a tunnel underneath. The park appears to have very good lawyers as I'm amazed at how many things seem to be a copy of Disneyland including some of the rides. They have 'Flying Elephants' that look suspiciously like Dumbo as well as a Avalanche Mountain and Thunder Canyon. (Matterhorn and Big Thunder Mountain.)
Luckily the tickets are not as expensive as Disneyland as it appeared that Callie and I were not too excited about going on many rides. We spent much of our time in Chrissy's Quiet Garden and in other shaded areas of the park. Considering this area is closed in the winter due to snow I was quite impressed with some of the plants they were growing. I would have expected them to be better suited to a warmer growing zone. I got a few ideas of how I could rearrange some of my existing beds.
To be honest I only went on one ride but it was a good one for the day. The temperature got up to 36 degrees in the shade so if I was going to go on any rides it needed to be a water ride. One thing I noticed about the rides at Silverwood is the lines are longer then you expect. I think they save money by not having very high capacity. For this ride, the tubes were very spread out. I think they could only have 40 people in total on the entire river. Carter and I got lucky because they were trying to maximize the capacity. They grouped several pairs together and brought us closer to the front of the line. It took me over an hour to dry off when we were done.
Kerry and Carter definitely got their money's worth and went on the majority of the big kid rides. They have multiple coasters and a few rides that I would absolutely never go on. The worst in my opinion would be the pendulum style ride that takes you completely upside down. No thank you. I still had fun wandering around the park and trying out carnival snacks. They weren't as good as I had hoped. The funnel cake seemed a bit heavy. Overall though it was a fun day. We did avoid the water park. It was so hot that was most people headed and it was a bit too busy for our liking. If you do go I recommend it though. It's very nice.
No comments:
Post a Comment