A lot of friends and family keep asking me about the area where my dearest First-born lives with her charming husband in America. I always say how lovely it is, but decided to do a post for everyone to see once and for all how blessed she is now surrounded by so much beauty.
Lanette and Ben lives in a small city with a big town atmosphere, called Spokane. It is roughly in the centre of Washington State, close to the Canadian border and a couple hours’ drive from Seattle.
I visited before starting my blog, so this is long overdue. I am inviting all of the lucky people living there to correct me where wrong and to expand where I miss out!
Beauty is always best described through pictures and here it starts:
Spokane River is the heart of the place.
On our first visit they took us to a magnificent place in the Idaho State forrest, driving through gorgeous little sleepy villages, which I always enjoy more than the city bustle. We stopped for a cup of coffee or a snack in a few and enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere of life in Small-town America.
Here’s another one.
One thing I absolutely loved, is the fact that they have rest areas every couple of miles. This has picnic benches, clean public toilets and always lovely green surrounds. Here we enjoyed Lanette’s mean carrot cake for our picnic – she makes the best ever!!
We arrived at our destination for the night. Beautiful log cabins and main buildings in the heart of this huge pine forrest. This is where I had ‘biscuits and gravy’ for breakfast, first time in my life. Believe me, you can’t imagine this menu item without having experienced it first-hand – nothing like what we South Africans would come up with at least…
The next morning was time for the main attraction – hiking through the unspoiled bush to the sweet spot…
This is a natural hot spring absolutely in the middle of nowhere. There are 2 of 3 of them scattered around the river. If this was SA, Forever resorts would have had a massive resort set up here. But there, it is kept in it’s natural state, free for all to enjoy.
We changed to swimwear behind the tree and just lounged in the lovely warm water as the sun was coming up, nobody else around, except for the deer that gingerly came out of the bush to investigate and then fled the scene!
On our way back, we unexpectedly came upon this canyon-like area in the middle of very arid (Karoo-like) landscape.
The second visit, was me alone, without my husband. Lanette met me in Seattle and the two of us spent a few days hanging out there. This was sunrise over Lake Washington, opposite our B&B.
Just a few steps up the road…
We were fortunate enough to be exaclty in time for the Scagit Tulip festival – what a sight! We drove North towards a gorgeous little place called Mount Vernon – a dream retirement destination in my view – where all this beauty assaulted our senses!
Colour as far as the eye could see!
The red ones were my absolute favorites, shining in the sunlight like sheer silk.
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