The morning came early. 4AM to be exact. We left the Walmart parking lot to catch a sunrise in the Palouse. We were lucky to find a great spot on a dirt road to photograph, making the early wakeup worthwhile.

Now we deserved a great breakfast and that we got at the Top Notch Cafe in Colfax. This cafe could have been on Route 66 with its booths, barstools and milk shake mixer. The food was plentiful and really good. Pete, the owner, had lived in a number of different states and had bought this cafe from his nephew about 10 years ago. A good number of locals had their morning coffee, chatted and teased each other about the size of their combines.

Next stop was Spokane, a beautiful city bisected by the roaring Spokane river. Two hydroelectric plants dating from the early 1900s provide power to the city. A riverside park has gondola rides across the falls, an Imax theatre, sculpture of runners and an old carousel ride among other attractions.

The drive from Spokane to the Grand Coulee Dam was mostly through the plains and we had 40 degree temperatures. The early morning wakeup caught up with us so we stopped at a rest area for an hour long nap.

We reached Grand Coulee Dam in good time, parked in the shade to keep Pepsi cool and visited the information centre to learn about the three powerhouses at the dam. A very informative video explained the geological processes that created the spectacular basalt column formations we were to see later on in the day.

We had a swim at the Steamboat Rock State park before heading further west.

All of a sudden it seemed that Hwy 2 had taken us to Bavaria, with alpine mountains, painted houses and schnitzels. The now busy town of Leavenworth had been a logging town that had fallen on hard times and had reinvented itself as a Bavarian themed tourist destination in the 1960s. We just had to stop for a schnitzel dinner at the Baren Haus.

A forest fire 8 km away had closed Hwy 2 and prevented us from continuing and the detour on a winding and narrow road at night didn’t seem advisable so we stayed at the lovely Alpine RV campground for the night.