On the road in Missoula Montana

Saw two oil trains on our way east through the Columbia gorge this morning. Noticed the sign for Mosier where an oil train derailed last week. The two trains I saw were on the other side of the river, the Washington side. The gorge east of the Cascades is kind of weird. Here we have this huge river and the hills on either side are covered with brown grass.
     Just east of Boardman we turned north. That road takes us through Kennewick and Pasco. Lots of traffic there and the road is very confused. We've been following highway 397, but in Pasco sweety's magic elf box tells us to take highway 182. 182 goes to Walla Walla. 395 takes a right off of 182 and I drove right by it because which road are we supposed to be on? 395 or 182? Never mind, the magic elf box takes us on a five minute  tour of a Mexican neighborhood and then puts us back on the road to Spokane.
    Spokane is booming. Traffic is heavy all the way to Coeur d'Alene. Once we get past town though it lightens up considerably. Here we are getting into the mountains and while the speed limit is 75, the road is twisty enough that I seldom reach the limit. There is also a medium long stretch of construction, it's uphill, one lane and there are trucks, so we are creeping along at 20 MPH for a few minutes. Then it's downhill for the next hundred miles. There are still turns that are tight enough to warrant reducing my speed, but there are straights where I am comfortable doing 80. I get passed by a full size Chevy crew cab pickup truck doing at least 90. He isn't slowing down for the turns at all.
    We're staying at the La Quinta and it's pretty nice. There is a stream running between the back of the building and the Interstate highway. If you open the window you can even hear the stream over the highway noise.


I saw a bunch of swifts swooping over the stream. I presume they were eating bugs, but I didn't see any. No-see-ums, maybe. The first 25 seconds the camera didn't focus.

    Saw a couple of small, home-built looking welder's rigs on the road today, and I got to wondering if anybody ever built a fancy, custom welding rig. My question was answered when we pulled into the parking lot here.