Fall 2025 Road Trip; Idaho, Oregon, Washington & Western Montana

A view from the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park. (click to enlarge)

This is a continuation of my series of posts about my recent fall 2025, across the U.S. and back, road trip primarily following Route 66 west.  Our trip continued as far north as Spokane, Washington and then we drove U.S. Route 2, 'The High Line," east.  If you are interested, you can read my other posts and see some of the photos I made about this adventure here, here, here, here, here and here.

After touring Manzanar, we left California just as quickly as we could.  That’s not to say California isn't an interesting place and many of its inhabitants aren't good people.  Our decision was strictly a financial one.  Everything was far more expensive in California than anywhere else we had visited all the way from the east coast.

Now THIS is a hot dog!  At least a foot long, 50% larger in diameter than a regular hot dog and
filled with chili and cheddar cheese!  I'll confess I could only eat about 1/3 of it at most.
(click to enlarge)

We continued our drive north on Route 395 to Reno, Nevada and spent the night at a casino/hotel.  It has been a long while since I have been in a casino and I rarely have reason to visit since I am not a gambler.  But the rooms were a decent price and the experience gave us a couple more stories about which to talk.  The two remarkable things I will take away from the stay in the casino was a) the biggest hot dog I’ve ever seen (we all thought we were ordering a regular sized hot dog) and b), the view out of our room window—the gorgeous scenery from our ‘luxury’ room.  We didn’t stick around long in Reno, not even for breakfast the next morning.

This was the view from my ‘luxury’ room at one of the hotel/casinos in Reno, Nevada.  I guess
it pays to ask during check-in about minor things such as this. (click to enlarge)

After leaving Reno, we drove north to Boise, Idaho.  I had flown into and out of Boise in the past but never stayed there.  I found Boise to be nice.  We ate dinner at Papa Joe's Italian Restaurant.  We had an excellent experience.  We were treated like family.  The food was great and the entire experience was like going to a friend's house to have dinner.  I have no financial interest nor any other interest in Papa Joe's, but I wanted to relay an extraordinary experience I had there.  From my experience, I would recommend the place.

During the entire month long road trip, we had only four days of rain.  Mostly light rain.  This
was made through the windshield traveling on I-84 in Oregon.  It certainly isn't 'photography'
weather. (click to enlarge)

After Reno, we drove north on I-84 with our next destination being Spokane, Washington.  Instead of staying at a hotel, one of my companions on this trip is retired from the U.S. Navy and he called Fairchild Air Force Base to see if they had three rooms available.  They did and we had a very nice stay there.  We actually stayed for two nights in the Survival Inn, which is where the USAF officers stay when going through survival school.  The rooms and place reminded me of a nice college dormitory, except there was a queen size bed in each room instead of two twin beds.  The price was right as well.  Also, as a bonus, we got to do our laundry for free!  

After our two nights at the Air Force base, we took Route 2 out of Spokane and headed to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho.  We stopped at a nice breakfast restaurant and had a good breakfast—except...  When I got my bill for breakfast I was shocked about how much they charged me for a side dish.  I wrote about that and posted it just before this post.

From Coeur D'Alene it was on to Kalispell.  It is a beautiful drive.  Gorgeous scenery and little traffic.  We thought we would stay in Kalispell as we decided to visit Glacier National Park.  We thought about staying in Whitehorse but when we checked on lodging, we found the rooms were very expensive.  So, we thought Kalispell would be less expensive since it was farther away from Glacier.  We were wrong.  The rooms were also extremely expensive being only 33 miles from Glacier National Park.  We eventually found a motel (notice I didn’t write hotel), if you can call it that, which I now call the "Motel from Hell."  It had to be one of the two worst hotel experiences I’ve ever had and I’ve stayed in literally hundreds of hotels.  I'll write a separate post about that as well as my experience is almost beyond belief.

In Kalispell, we ate dinner in "The Forge" restaurant.  The note on the internet said not to let
the exterior of the building fool you.  Go in.  You won't regret it.  We didn't. (click to enlarge)

The place was full of energy.  The staff was attentive, funny, engaging and quick.  Most of all
the food was excellent!  I can recommend this place if you are in Kalispell, MT. (click to enlarge)

The next morning I could not get out of the motel fast enough!  From Kalispell we drove to Glacier National Park.  It has been a place I've wanted to visit for a long time.  I’ve visited every major national park in the continental U.S. but never quite made it to Glacier.  The first time I booked lodging in the park the wild fires raged through the park and much of it was closed.  I canceled.  The second time we had a pandemic.  Canceled again.  In fact, my wife and I were talking about a road trip out to Glacier for next fall.  However, just before this road trip, when I tried to book a room anywhere nearby for a reasonable price for next September, I found it impossible.  I'm glad I didn't now.  You may ask why?  

Well, the lodging costs are outrageous, the traffic is bad, there were few if any glaciers to be seen and it was overcrowded.  This, despite it was 'shoulder' season (after vacations are pretty much over and children are back in school) and you need a day pass to enter.

The Going to the Sun Road was thrilling.  I'll give you that.  But most of the pullouts to be able to stop and see the scenery were filled with cars.  We only found a few places to pull over, get out and enjoy the scenery.  Also, we wanted to spend some time in the visitor's center on Logan Pass.  Nope.  The parking lot was completely filled and there were about ten vehicles trolling around and around waiting for a space to be vacated.  Oh well.  I'm just glad my wife and I didn't drive five days from the east coast to visit.  That would have been a major disappointment.

After Glacier, we resumed our journey on U.S. Route 2.  Many people don’t realize the east of Glacier national Park and all the way to the North Dakota border, Montana is relatively flat and is semi-arid with nothing but miles and miles of farmland and grasslands.  Oh!  If you think Colorado is all mountains and beautiful scenery, the eastern half of Colorado is the same—prairie.

Next: Eastern Montana.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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