A chill weekend...

We decided to take it easy this weekend. After last weekend and Thursday night, we were ready to just be couch potatoes. Friday night consisted of cooking some dinner and putting together a puzzle!

Saturday, we had planned to go to Coeur D’Alene Casino for a pow wow. There were a lot of vendors with their stuff for sale. Of course we browsed the merchandise! After seeing all our options, we decided to think on it and check out the pow wow. This is what happened most of the day…

After watching for some time, we decided to hit up the casino! When getting smaller bills, we were told that we could get $10 free money to play in the casino. Of course we took the deal and signed up for the club card. They took our picture and gave us a pin number for this car. It was pretty intense, but it’s a point system that gives you a few dollars back for every thousand that you spend…..basically worth nothing…except that we got $10 bucks to play with!

So we found some penny slots and started playing! Kitty Glitter won me $9.06! Woo! Big winner!

After our try at gambling, we went back to the vendors and did some shopping! I got two pairs of earrings, a ring and a dream catcher. Margaret got three pairs of earrings and two dream catchers. Success!

On our way back to Spokane, we stopped in the city Coeur D’Alene at a placed called Capone’s. We picked this place because it was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network. It was really good food! We also realized that we hadn’t eaten American food in a while. It seems as though everything in Washington is either Mexican or Asian.

Once we got back to Spokane, we went to Viking’s Tavern for some beer and trivia!

A pretty chill weekend for us two pharmers in Spokane, Washington!

St. Patrick's Day 2011

The night before, we headed to the mall to get some green attire for St. Patrick’s Day! I got a shirt that said “I wanna know where the gold’s at” and we both got some green nail polish. After a long day at work, we headed to an Irish pub to get some green beer!

I set the GPS to O’Dougherty’s. For some reason, it told us to get onto the interstate and then go almost to Idaho. We were confused, but we decided to let the GPS guide our way. Upon arriving, we encountered a couple leaving and they told us that they weren’t letting any more people in. So we turned back around and got back into the car. We found the O’Dougherty’s that was actually closest to us. This one was not as packed and we were able to get in and get a beer…or a pitcher!

The place was actually pretty fun. There were people our age and the music was great! These two random girls started talking to us. They were really drunk, but really friendly! They asked us why we were here from Florida. This was a question we were getting asked a lot. It is really complicated to answer the correct way, so we started saying that we had just moved here.

They were playing 80’s and early 90’s music which was awesome! Everyone started to dance, and so did we! Then some creepster came up to us and asked if he could dance alongside of us. He also mentioned that he didn’t want to cramp our style and that if we wanted to find other guys, to just let him know. Since we weren’t really looking for guys, we said we didn’t care if he was there….until he started to dance. He looked like he was being tasered! Then he was talking to Margaret and called us whores. That was that. We finished our pitcher and decided to head home since we had to get up early.

We were discussing how great our night out had been when we got back to the car. As we were about to get in, Margaret said, “Hey Lauren, there’s a condom on the door handle.” In disbelief, I went over to the driver’s side door….and there it was…

To make the night even weirder than it was, we got pulled over just a block away from the apartment. We weren’t sure why, since we weren’t speeding. The cop said that our headlight was out. I knew that it wasn’t as bright, but I was sure that it wasn’t out. But since he was a cop, I believed him.  The next day I went to get a new bulb. When the sales guy came out to install it for me, he said that my headlight definitely wasn’t out. I replaced it anyways since it was dull, but still that cop had no right to pull us over. He was just trying to get people since it was St. Patrick’s day…what a douche.

The Toilet Fiasco of 2011

Margaret came into the living room, and said, “Lauren, I think we have a problem, the water in the toilet won’t go down.” After peeing, Margaret had gone #1 and flushed. The toilet did a weird gurgling noise, upon which Margaret then flushed two more times. You would think that this would send the contents of the toilet down. But no, instead a sly little turd showed up in the bowl. We dubbed it the “salmon turd” since it swam upstream! At this time, we were both confused. We hadn’t used the toilet since Friday! Our next move, flush again! This time it sent everything down…for good!

A few hours later, we tried using the toilet again, to our surprise, it didn’t flush! Our roommate had come home in the middle of us trying to “fix” the toilet. Luckily, he had a plunger. We plunged the crap out of that toilet!

Still, it wasn’t working! Then we tried Drain-O…nothing! We didn’t know what else to do except to get our roommate to put in a work order the next day while we were at work. He also was very adamant that we not use his bathroom located in his room. He said that it was too dirty and that he locked his room when he slept so we would have to wake him up to use the potty….basically, he was saying that his bathroom was off limits, even if it meant us pissing in the sink. Good news was that he splashed pee all over himself trying to plunger the toilet! Yes!

The only thing we could do about the situation was laugh at it. After getting into bed, we did our usual routine of playing words with friends. Margaret just happened to play a very fitting word, “dumps”. It was beyond histerical! I then realized that I too had a word for the occasion, “turd”! Oh man, we laughed for hours!

We went to work the next day, and hoped that we could come home to a working toilet. To our astonishment, it was just the way we left it! WTF! At this point, we were beyond pissed. With our preceptor in the room, I called the “emergency” after hours number. To put it the nicest way I possibly can, the woman was a complete bitch (that’s the nicest I can be). She basically said that our situation wasn’t an emergency since there was another working toilet. She also told me that I HAD to call during business hours. I then told her that we leave at 7am and don’t return until 6pm (the office hours are from 10am to 5pm). I then asked her if she would put in a request for me since I could not do it on my own. She then said that I should call during my break, if I had one. I then politely responded that I couldn’t since I don’t get service where I work. This, she did not understand, what a freaking idiot. She refused to help me any way possible…and she kept calling me Laurie! My name is not Laurie! It’s Lauren! Ugh…my blood is boiling just remembering the events from that conversation!

That night, I was pissed about not being able to pee that I tried to plunge that sucker again! Nothing came of it except this picture…

The only other possible solution to our problem was to write a letter to the land lady and stick it under her door. We told her why we couldn’t get in touch with her during her business hours and that we really needed that toilet fixed ASAP! Our preceptor had also called the land lady Monday night and left a message about the whole situation.

Our efforts paid off! We got a phone call from our roommate around 8:30am saying that the toilet was fixed! The maintenance man had come in around 7:30am and snaked it! WOOO! The problem: waxy poo. Never in my life have I heard the term waxy poop. I even googled it, but nothing came up.

Finally, a fixed toilet!

Weekend 2: SUNDAY

HUNGOVER! We nursed ourselves awake, checked out of our Secret Garden Room and got some breakfast at Sandy’s. It was a dreary day, which didn’t help the hangover, but by the end of our breakfast, it started to snow!

Snow has such a calming affect! So after breakfast, we ended up walking around the town and checking out all the shops. We found the village pharmacy!

After about an hour, we were ready to hit the dusty road and go back to Spokane.

.....but first we had to get the snow off my poor car....

We were happy to be back and the apartment and we were ready to relax before work the next day. But in walks the TOILET FIASCO OF 2011!

Weekend 2: SATURDAY

It’s Saturday and we are ready ride some snowmobiles…but first it was breakfast at the Old European Breakfast House! That place was AH-MAZING! Really great food with tons of choices! I ended up getting some pancake balls filled with blueberries, huckleberries (which are native to Spokane) and sausage with havarti cheese. Margaret got a strawberry stuffed waffle. So good, I definitely recommend it!

It was about a four hour drive to Mountain Ridge Lodge for snowmobiling. On the way, we were traveling through mountains and stopped for some pictures of the scenery. It was just beautiful, even though it was raining.

We arrived at Mountain Ridge Lodge and we were ready! …..Then we got the waiver. Basically, you had to sign saying that they were not responsible for anything broken, including yourself. It was very intimidating and made us both a little nervous. We also bought the $10 insurance coverage, because apparently nothing on the snowmobile is less than $10 if you break it (including the tail lights). We then got fitted for our gear. Who would have known that onesies were coming back into style!

I kind of felt like that kid from A Christmas Story that was so bundled up that he couldn’t put his arms down! We were then given gloves, helmets, boots and goggles for me since my head was too small for the helmets that had shields on them.

All bundled up, we had our guide, Jack, take our photo!

Jack gave us a one minute introduction to our sleds and we were on our way! Snowmobiling is the BEST! We took a trail up the mountain. It was a little scary in some places since the turns were pretty sharp and the banking was steep, but we made it to the top and stopped for the view. Breathtaking.

You could see for miles! It was so peaceful out there, just the three of us out in the middle of a mountain, no noises except for us. After a few more photos ops, we were back on our sleds. Wait, Margaret’s sled stopped working! It kept stalling, so Jack finally got hers to work and ended up riding it back while she rode his. Whew, a close call.

We were hoping that we were going to be allowed to really open the snowmobiles up and gun it, but since we were on this windy trail, it was a little difficult. As soon as we got to a straight away, we gunned them! We only got up to about 35 miles/hour, but still, it was a thrill!

Snowmobiling was definitely the best thing that we have done in a really long time! It was so much fun! We were all smiles afterwards.

On our way back to Leavenworth, we stopped at a random store in the middle of nowhere on the mountain. It was called The Alp’s. Holy crap! We walked inside and there was so much stuff! Sauces stacked high on the walls, candy filled the center of the store, and fudge lined the back wall! We must have spent at least an hour wandering through the store checking out all it had to offer. There was mustards, pickles, BBQ sauces, salad dressings, jams, marmalades, at least 30 different kinds of fudge and 4 rows of candy! $50 dollars later, we were ready to finally get to our hotel!

We arrived at the Inssbruker Inn and checked in at the book store downstairs. It was a really cute hotel. All the rooms (all 22 of them) were book themed. We lucked out and got the The Secret Garden room! After booking the room a few nights before, we realized that it was a movie that we had both loved as kids! The room was decorated to the tee. There was gardening supplies, a fence with vines, tea sets and floral everything!....and the best part…..a back door that led us straight to drinking!

We ate dinner at Café Christa. Yay German food and beer!

Once again our dinner for two was extremely romantic. We had a window seat overlooking the street. After we ate, we were determined to do what the Germans do…DRINK! We walked on over to the Old Post Office, which we were told was a great place to go. It wasn’t. We had three or four drinks there…but Margaret got charged for 5 drinks. We tried to inform the bartender of her mistake but she was a super bitch and called us liars. Unsatisfied with our level of drunkenness, we hit up another place where we were also told was a good place to go. The place was empty…but the staff was super friendly. And to top it off, there was a guy playing an accordion-type instrument which put is back in good spirits.

We stayed there for a beer and then decided to go to another hoppin’ spot. But wait! I really wanted to go down the little hill, but how? I didn’t want to go down on my bottom and get my pants all wet, so my drunk self had a perfect idea! A cardboard box! Restaurants have those! So I went back into the downstairs restaurant (with the really awesome people) and they had one box left after tossing the rest! YESssssss!

Onto the hill we went! The following is a video of what happened on that hill. At first, we decided not to show this since it is highly embarrassing, but then we thought, why not! It was an adventure!

To warm up, we headed up to the Loft. Woah! This place was packed! And they also had karaoke and a beer named Irish Death (of course I got it!).

The karaoke set-up was a little odd. You just stood in the middle of tables and sang. You also had the karaoke host as your back-up singer. To me, she looked like a tranny, but I couldn’t be positive. All I know, is that I got Margaret to sign up, but after an hour, we got tired and left. For Margaret, it was a close call...I almost popped her karaoke cherry!

Weekend 2: FRIDAY

Two weeks down! Six to go!

When planning our weekend adventures, we had to be smart about what activities we wanted to do and what weather we needed to do those activities. Number one on my list was snowmobiling! After researching a few areas that offered snowmobiling, along with other opportunities for stuff to do, we finally found our destination for weekend two! LEAVENWORTH! No, not Leavenworth, Kansas with the prison, but Leavenworth, Washington with the German town.

Within a few days, we had set up our snowmobiling tour with Mountain Ridge Lodge and our hotel stay at the Inssbruker Inn.

Friday night was pretty chill for us. Everyone kept telling us to eat at this restaurant on the Spokane River. We thought it sounded good, so we drove on downtown to Anthony’s. Anthony’s was really nice and we were definitely underdressed, but the food and view was excellent.

After sampling a few different beers on tap, I settled on an IPA and Margaret toasted me with a margarita. Then came choosing what to eat for dinner! The menu was 99% fish and I had no idea that Margaret only liked salmon. Of course the salmon was the most expensive thing on the menu. After much debate and a lesson on fish from our waiter, we took the plunge and ordered fish that we had never tried before. My fish of choice was the Alaskan Ling Cod cooked in a white wine and cream cheese sauce…..holy cow was that good!  Margaret took a leap of faith with the Idaho Rainbow Trout, breaded and fried to perfection with delicious dipping sauce! YUMMMM-O! The perfect meal for our romantic dinner for two on the Spokane River!

Since we were right on the Spokane River, we had to take some pictures! The glare was pretty intense from inside, so we braved the cold winds outside of the restaurant and snapped some greats pics!

With food in our bellies and the glee that comes with a Friday night, we headed home with great plans in mind. We asked our roommate about bars in walking distance so neither of us had to worry about drinking in driving (Washington is super duper strict on DUIs). His recommendation was a place called Double Dribble that was a ¼ mile down Division (the road we live on).

In flip flops and light coats in 40 degree weather, we trudged up the hill to Double Dribble. After walking for 15 minutes without any sign of this place, we pulled out our nifty phones with GPS. The phones told us to keep walking south for half a mile, then turn left. So we did! After another 15 minutes, we stopped and though, something just isn’t right. Once again, we checked the GPS and to our astonishment we were about a mile PAST Double Dribble. Damn technology! So we walked back the way we came. By this time, my toes were numb and our faces burned from the cold winds, but we kept on going. We were determined to get that beer! We approached the area in which Double Dribble was located, finally! But wait! There was no sign, no building, NOTHING! No Double Dribble….WTF! I logged onto my phone, GPS’d it, and this is the phrase it gave me: “Permanently Closed.” Disappointed and cold, we walked the ¼ mile back to the apartment. We almost gave up, but then Big Foot’s Pub and Eatery called out our names!  We got into the car and sped over to Big Foot’s! With a pitcher of Kokanee and touch screen games, we were in heaven!

for future classmates...

Where you will be living!

Weekday adventures!

For the last few years, our preceptor, Dr. Jordan, has tried to get every student to see a moose. The last few months have been disappointing and the moose were nowhere to be found. One lucky Tuesday afternoon on our way out of the reservation, we saw TWO moose!

In order to get this picture, we had Dr. Jordan slam on his breaks and release the window lock on my back window!

As you can see, there isn't much snow of the ground Tuesday afternoon. Below, you will find a picture of what it looked like at lunch on Wednesday. I would say about 6 inches of snow in just 5 hours. Pretty intense for a Floridian!

Wednesday was the last day of clean undies for the both of us...so it was off to the laundry room! But first, we had to find quarters. This was a more difficult task than we imagined. After cleaning out the quarter supply at Zip's Burgers and Fish, we were still short a few coins. So we thought: let's go to Wal-mart and get a few dollars in quarters. Wal-mart has everything! NOT! They do have unpleasant, rude, pasty white jerk who would only allow us to get $2 dollars worth of quarters. We believe he was lying. It's freaking Wal-mart, they take back used clothing without tags or a receipt! All we wanted was an exchange of currency to do some damn laundry! Irritated, we marched out of Wal-mart to go and eat our Zip's back at the apartment. To our amazement, we were suprised to find that a full load of laundry took $2. Thank goodness Zip's gave me $4 worth of quarters! We were set! No more dirty laundry!

Meanwhile, as our clothes were tumbling away in the dryer, we felt the immediate urge to build a snowman. I guess what we built is considered a snowman, but we think he looks more like a snowpenguin. His name: Blue eyes.

Our snowman definitely wasn't ideal, but it will do until we find more snow!

Please note the sweet Wal-mart hunting gloves!



Spokane!

It was rough. We experienced hunger pangs, extreme physical fatigue, mental tiredness and 6am mornings....but we survived!  Our first week in Spokane working at the Wellpinit Indian Health Service was complete!

We felt like going back to elementary school days.

Throughout the week, we didn't really get a chance to do much. Our schedule was: 6am-wake up, 7am-leave for work, 7pm-home from work, 7:30pm-dinner and 9pm-sleep. So since our week was uneventful and tiring, we decided to explore Spokane and rest up for our first weekend in Washington!

We started our weekend with a celebratory dinner at Sowgun! A hibachi-style restaurant that was pretty neat and entertaining. From the outside, this place looked like a dump in a back alley, but upon entering, we noticed it's true beauty. When you walk in, you walk over a wooden bridge with a waterfall to your right and a pond to your left with fishes in it. The best part of the entrance was when Margaret enthusiastically hit the "gong". Luckily no one else was around so it wasn't too embarrassing.

I also met my future husband!



Continuing our streak for eating at places where we were the only ones there, we ended up at a huge hibachi table alone! Exactly what we wanted....a romantic dinner for two! In honor of our first week, we bought fancy cocktails.

Mai Tai and Japanese Pina Colada

The reason why we even chose to order the cocktails was because across the room, we saw a couple with these really fancy drinks. So we just had to get them!  Then we saw the same couple being attacked by their server and forced to put on these silly hats and costumes. They then sang them happy birthday, even though it was their 3 year anniversary!

After the show at Showgun, we were exhausted so we called it a night! But first, we had to jump into a random pile of snow off the side of the road. Thankfully there was a grocery cart available to play with too!

We slept until 10am on Saturday. It was just what we needed after such a long week. We actually didn't do anything until about 1pm. Margaret needed some new shoes that didn't kill her feet at work, so we thought, hey, Spokane has a mall....but first, we must eat!

Bronchi's cheese steaks and subs is where we decided to eat. Pretty tasty subs! Then we mosied on over to the Northside Mall where we browsed the three levels and found Margaret some shoes. The mall had a movie theater in it, so we looked at what was showing and decided to catch a flick. Our flick of choice: Beastly. It was better than I thought it would be, but I'm still not sure how I liked Venessa Hudgens in it.

Later that night, we decided we needed to explore the city a little bit more and see what the night life had to offer. We chose Viking's Tavern. It was a pretty small place, a few tables, a pretty big bar, a few pool tables and a fire pit right in the middle! The place reminded me a lot like Stubbies. It had a wide variety of beers from all over the world, plus a lot of options from microbreweries. My first beer for choice: Moosedrool. Margaret's choice: Tangerine Wheat. The beer selection was excellent and we both tried things that we haven't had before (like Great White). I really enjoyed the atmosphere and they have weekly trivia! We didn't know that until we got there, and we arrived a few minutes shy of signing up, but we still played amongst ourselves anyways!

Sunday we decided to drive half an hour up to Mount Spokane and ski! 

About halfway up the mountain, I realised that I forgot to fill up the ole gas tank. This really freaked me out since there was no gas station around. Good thing going home was mostly downhill so I could let gravity to its job!

Upon arriving, we bought our lift tickets and got fitted for our skis and boots. Finally, we were ready to hit the slopes!

 One trip down the "bunny" slope, we realized that skiing is just like riding a bike! On the way up the mountain, we decided to film this treat for you guys!

The view was excellent and the snow was falling....very picturesque

All alone on the very long and high ski lift:

We hung up our snow skis and taught the people who worked at the rental shop how to make purple drank.

On the way home, I was a little tired and was still getting used to the area when I made a mistake. The left turn signal was red and I stopped. Once all the cars passed, I turned left. In the middle of the turn, Margaret asks: "Are you really turning left on a red?" in which I replied: "Yes, yes I am". Oops!

All in all, a great day! But wait! We HAD to celebrate the end of one week in Spokane with a champagne toast!

Wellpinit Clinic

Our first rotation is at the Wellpinit clinic on the Spokane reservation. From out apartment in Spokane, it's about a hour drive. Even though the drive makes the day that much longer, the drive is beautiful. You go through the mountains, see lots of deer and get to see the Spokane river.

The clinic is pretty big. There are 9 exam rooms, 1 "emergency" room where they can do small surgical procedures, an X-ray room, a lab and a pharmacy. There are 3 doctors and 2 nurses. Our pharmacists are Dr. James Jordan (the preceptor) and Rebecca (she just graduated from Pharmacy school in 2010).

At 6:45am Dr. James Jordan picks us up from out apartment. We usually arrive at the clinic aroudn 8:00am. Our day consists of verifying prescriptions that come out of the robot, restocking the robot and counseling each and every patient. The last part of the job is what we enjoy the most. The patients are awesome. They all know that we are students and they really enjoy having us there. It also feels good to feel like you are truly making a difference in these people's lives. We also do a lot of research during the day, mostly for projects that we have to present throughout the rotation, but also for doctors. The doctors in the clinic come to the pharmacy often and ask us quick questions. It feels really good to be able to answer them and feel important.

The Script Pro robot.

Lunch is between 12:30pm and 1:00pm. There is a really nice lounge with everything that you would ever need, plus, it has a great view. The first few days it snowed all day and it was surreal to sit and eat lunch while watching it snow outside. Out first day we didn't bring our lunch, so we went to the Trading Post. The Trading Post is the grocery store for the reservation.

Rebecca, our pharmacist.

The pharmacy officially closes at 4:30pm, but we stay open until we fill the prescriptions for the last patient seen. The first two days, we didn't get out of the clinic until 6:30pm. Usually, we get out of clinic around 5:00pm, which gets us back to the apartment at 6:15pm.

After we got dropped off, we have just enough energy to eat dinner, watch a little TV and check e-mails/facebook. We are hoping as the weeks go on, we'll get used to the 3 hour time change and the 12 hour work days so we can explore Spokane. So far, we've eaten out twice. Rancho Chico was our first restaruant. We had excellent service, since we were the only ones there! I guess no one goes there Monday nights at 9:00pm. On Wednesday, since we got home at 6:00pm, we decided to try out a restaraunt that Margaret had seen on Food Network, the Elk Public House. It was pretty good. We new it was fate for us to eat there since there was a sign that said "Drugs" over the door on the inside of the restaraunt! We definitely have a long list of restaraunts that we want to visit, along with a desire for trying out all the local beers.

Gainesville, Florida --> Spokane, Washington: Day 3

Feeling refreshed with a "free" continental breakfast of biscuits and gravy, pancakes, suasage and bacon, we felt good as new!  Day 3 of our roadtrip:
Departing conditions:

• Time: 8:56am Sunday, February 27, 2011
• City: Casper, Wyoming
• Temp: 11 F

At this point, we knew we only had a 12 hour drive! (Compared to the last two days which consisted of 14 and 15 hour days). Luckily we had gotten gas the night before and was able to get a good start to Day 3. Just like with Kansas, Wyoming didn't have that much to offer when it came to the amount of cities, so we had to get gas where we could.

Stop 1:

• Time: 10:29am Sunday, February 27, 2011
• City: Buffalo, Wyoming
• Temp: 23 F
• Gas: $24.88/8.585 gallons
• Miles driven: 2,101.2

For the rest of the morning/afternoon time, my job was to get the most sleep and Margaret's was to drive like hell. We really wanted to get to Spokane at this point. We were living in my car, tired, aching from sitting and trying to sleep in the car and was getting extremely tired of fast food. We desperately longed for a nice, cool, crisp, earthy salad....so we stopped and got one.

I'm excicted to stop and get out of the car!

Stop 2:

• Time: 12:52pm Sunday, February 27, 2011
• City: Billings, Montana
• Temp: 31 F
• Eating place: Applebee's
• Gas: $19.09/6.364 gallons
• Miles driven: 2.263.3

This is when we started to get a little stir crazy. We desperately wanted to be out of the car, but we knew we needed to get to our final destination. We could feel it. Washington was so close. With the Rockies in sight, we felt teased, but wanting more. That was our motivation. Driving through the mountains the entire day was uplifting and exciting. With excitement filling the air, we took a video that captured the moment.



Stop 3:

• Time: 4:01pm Sunday, Febrauary 27, 2011
• City: Bozeman, Montana
• Temp: 27 F
• Gas: $19.00/6.336 gallons
• Miles driven: 2,411.8

It was now my turn in the driver's seat. I felt extremely refreshed after sleeping through Wyoming and half of Montana and was ready to bring us all the way to Spokane, WA! Our goal was to only stop if necessary, and peeing wasn't on that list.
Stop 4:

• Time: 7:02pm Sunday, February 27, 2011
• City: Missoula, Montana
• Temp: 21 F
• Eating place: McDonald's
• Gas: $23.30/7.618 gallons
• Miles driven: 2,614.1

Driving through the rest of Montana in the dark, in the SNOW, was an interesting task. I thought the best way to see while driving on the curvy, dark mountain roads was to use my brights. Interestingly, the snow formed a weird octupus-like design in the bright light. It took a while to stop looking at the "vortex" of snow coming at you, but my brights were definitely needed since I had no idea when the road was going to turn. The snow began to get heavier and coat the mountain roads. By now, semi-trucks were stopping to wait out the flurry or to put chains on their wheels. We just kept on going, no big deal, I've only driven in snow for 10 minutes!  The Idaho sign crept up on us, forcing me to slam on my wet brakes. Eventually, I was able to stop, but it was past the sign.  So we did what any other logical driver would do, get out of the car and take the dang picture!

Yay, we're in IDAHO! Do you also see the octopus-like image the falling snow creates? Creepy, but entrancing.

By the way, she is still wearing flip-flops!

After the nerve-wrecking drive through Idaho, we made it into Washington!

Stop 5 (HOME!)

• Time: 9:54pm (pacific time) Sunday, February 27, 2011
• City: Spokane, Washington
• Temp: 36 F



View from our apartment.

We met up with our preceptor, Dr. James Jordan and got ahold of the keys to our new home for the next 2 months! After traveling so long, we were exhausted and ready to plop down onto our new beds and sleep the night away so we could be up at 6:00am and report for duty at the Wellpinit Clinic on the Spokane reservation!

Our route. Miles driven: 2,818.6!