Originally Posted by Knalus
I just did this drive last week. And twice before in the last year, going a different way each time.
If you are looking for a change of scenery, go south through Cardston, then across to Glacier Nat'l Park, through the Going To The Sun Highway. Awesome drive. Beautiful scenery, but a bit of a challenging drive, as it is a narrow road, and can be busy. The road is famous for being a beautiful road. This detour is totally worth it, but adds 2-3 hours to the trip. This makes it a 10 hour drive to Spokane instead of a 7 1/2 hour drive through the Yahk crossing.
I would not recommend going south around the park instead of through it. The road to St. Marys is a very twisty, hard road to drive, with decent scenery, but much worse driving. The pavement on that road is really not great, whereas through the Nat'l Park they re-did the paving last year.
Once into Montana, there are three ways of going as well, of which I have done all of them. The most direct one is also a nice drive. The two best (in my opinion) are south of Kalispell. One much longer route goes through Polson and south to the I90 near Missoula. This route will add about an hour or less to your drive. The I90 is an interstate, but a windy one. The best reason to go thorugh this route is the ridiculous "Miracle of America" museum in Polson. Kitchy, fun, ridiculous museum built out of one man's collection of stuff. If this isn't your thing, then a better drive is through Plains. On the Flathead Lake, take the highway 28 west of the little town of Elmo. Head south to the 200, either west to plains, or south along highway 382, either one is good, no difference there that I know of. Take the small highway 135 through the mountains, and even though it is slower, it is shorter, and a nicer drive in my opinion.
You could take the alternate, and that is going west through Libby to Sandpoint, but there is little reason to do this over the Canadian route, in my opinion. It's also somewhat longer by about a half hour.
The I90 is a really twisty interstate. not the easiest driving, and lots of speeders and traffic. Wallace is a nice enough town, I guess. Lots of antique stores.
Coeur d'Alene is a very nice town. It has an awesome restaraunt, Jimmy's Down the Street. We will plan our path based on this restaurant alone. My wife loves their crepes. I like the chicken fried steak. (get the Texas Breakfast). Note, hotels in Coeur d'Alene are hard to come by, and are expensive. This goes for the entire Idaho Panhandle. I have tried, but never gotten a room in Sandpoint. Spokane isn't much better for price, but availability is better (still hard). Spokane is a nice town. If you are looking to do an American shopping trip, it is almost as close as Great Falls, and a much better place to spend some time. Great Falls is a hole.
West of Spokane the terrain gets really flat, there is a pretty big stretch of open prairie for about 3 hours. The basalt flows in the area are also pretty cool for a rock nerd like myself. Lots of columnar Basalt.
The pass to Seattle along I90 is pretty good. Not a hard drive. Snoqualmie and North Bend are cool, if you like TV, Twin Peaks was filmed here. We stopped at a diner for a coffee, and it turns out it was the one on the show, and they had a map for sale of places where the show was shot.
If you choose to take a different route through the mountains, here's a tip. Taking a detour through Mt. Rainer is NOT a quick side trip. It's a cool mountain, but the path through it is a lot slower than the already slow highway 12.
If you are going to Portland (and I recommend it), take the highway south to Richland/Kennewick, and take I84. The gorge is beautiful. Multnomah falls is right close to the highway, so stop there. We thought it was a bit of a drive in from the highway, and it was late, only to be disappointed when we could glimpse it from the highway.
Interesting thing - there is a fish hatchery at exit 40 near Cascade Locks where there is a 70 year old Sturgeon. If you are ending up in Portland and then heading home, it is barely longer to head to Canada through Spokane straight from Portland than it is from Seattle. The hard part is getting through the cascades, and I84 is the best way to do it, even better than the I90 or the Coquihalla.
I also took a drive through Bend and central Oregon to Pendleton and Lewiston. Not much to mention about that route. It's very empty. The John Day fossil beds were cool to a rock geek like myself, though.
I have more opinions than this, especially about things on the coast itself.
|
