June 19, 2019              Day  11           Miles          322           

Begin Walla Walla, Washington            To Quinn’s Hot Springs, Paradise Montana

Roads Traveled  WA 20 to WA26 to WA 272 to ID 6 to ID 3 to I-90 to MT 135

Slept at Quinn’s Hot Springs in Paradise Montana

Tennis  6-1

The view in Walla Walla is partly windy windy! We enjoy our last Hampton Inn complimentary breakfast. We must be in health conscious country—fruit smoothies and fresh pressed juice are part of this spread. We take some banana and apples for the road before we check out. 

This is the last of the 5 Hilton property stays. All were free using my Hilton Honors points! We took advantage of good credit card offers that gave us 200,000 Hilton points. I watch the offers and sign up bonuses. I get happy when I can do what we have done on this trip—5 free nights with free breakfast at nice hotels with points left over. I wrote a post about a couple of resources for doing this.

Where to find a tennis court in Walla Walla? Whitman College has six. We head that way, only to discover the fine folks of Walla Walla are doing tennis clinics on all courts. One of the instructors suggests the high school, where she says the courts have just been resurfaced. So, today, 2nd time is the charm for discovery. Whoa…..the wind! Bub fares better than me with a quick 6-1. At least we’ve gotten some exercise before we hit the road.

Google maps wants us to go up to Spokane and through Coeur d’Alene and across I-90. Bub’s paper maps offer some roads less travelled and an opportunity to go to Princeton and Harvard! We are in no hurry and traffic on the little roads is minimal. The biggest delay was when we got behind the truck that said, “Wet Paint. No Passing.” We followed him at 20 MPH for about 20 minutes and then, finally, they pulled off. A light sprinkle of rain began. We could see bigger, darker clouds looming in front of us.

We drive entirely across Idaho enjoying the view of rolling hills of grain. The wind and wind generators were still prevalent. You could see the wind—and I’m not a pig—as the wheat rippled.

Route 3 eventually takes us through Idaho to Montana on Interstate 90 with 75 MPH speeds. We had sprinkling, drizzling, downpouring and raining all day.

At St. Regis, we turn off onto a two lane road, MT Route 135, beside the river. It’s nice to see fire danger signs that don’t say “extreme.”

After thirty minutes of tall trees and river views, we arrive at Quinn’s Hot Springs Resort. We will be here for two days. It’s our 5th visit, back to the days when I was doing e-PRO and RPR presentations for the Montana Associations in summers past. It is a historic property that was established in the 1880’s . Every time we return, they have added cabins and meeting and event facilities. Since last summer, there is a new reception area and care has been taken to make sure that every part of the property is in great shape. We have an upstairs king room in the Glacier Lodge built in 2001.

There are 5 soaking pools here. The water comes out of natural mineral springs at 125 ° and they add cold to bring it down to several more comfortable temperatures, from 101° to 106° and then there is the ice pool at a chilly 60°!

It’s about 58° out with rain, but that doesn’t deter us from going into the pools. After all, this is what we are here for. 

The Harwood House Restaurant that is part of Quinn’s has been serving fine meals for 70 years! Bub loves their Prime Rib. We are ready for another exceptional dinner. How lucky are we?

The people at the table next to ours were eating the shrimp appetizer and it looked amazing , so we started there. 

Bub had Prime Rib with mashed potatoes and was not disappointed.

I had the Breast of Duck. It was two large pieces of breast unlike any duck I’ve had before with tasty accompaniments.

We celebrated Bub’s birthday with a chocolate lava cake and he got to make another wish.

Okay….done for the day! Another to be grateful for!

Life is good.