Time in Moscow. Idaho, not Russia.

Moscow, Idaho
Robinson County Park

After lunch at Cracker Barrel we headed west for a 4+ hour drive to Moscow, Idaho.  It is home to the University of Idaho.  It's not a place we'd normally choose to stop at, but the distance and direction worked for us and a friend of ours from Arizona went to college there.  Shelly gave us a few recommendations for the area and we found a nice county park to camp at.

It was a pleasant drive with no huge grades to worry about.  It took us past tiny cute towns and follows the Cark Fork River.

 

Moscow is in an area where thousands and thousands of acres of wheat fields just go on for ever.

 

Robinson County Park is just outside of town and has 5 sites.  It's all paved and the sites are quite long.  No one was there except us for most of the week.  The campground is laid out like a wagon wheel making sure every site is quite spaced out.  A huge soccer/baseball field is behind some of the sites.

Site #2.

Our front yard with plenty of grass for Hurley to run around on.

Enough room for the rig and the truck.

We had 50 amp but no water at the sites.  There is a central water spigot to fill up with and an outhouse.  There is no dump at the campground but there is one at the fairgrounds in town and they only charge $3.

Just loved all the red maples in the campground.

Wonderful campground but not sure I'd like it during the summer?  There were several yellow jacket traps set up around the campsites and they were very full.

 

Our first night we were excited to have a fire as the evening temps were much warmer than in Montana.  No fire rings, but we have our propane fire pit we can use.  It was nice to just sit outside and relax by a warm fire after a fairly long drive. 

One day we spent in the cute town where the large Farmers Market was.  We filled up on plenty of goodies.  Even though it's late in the season, there was still plenty out there.  We had various tomatoes, baked goods, cheese, potatoes, onions, garlic and the biggest varieties of peppers you ever saw.

Later we checked out Hunga Dunga Brewery and had an appetizer.

On the way back Steve spotted this giant "potato" on a flatbed truck.

 

We drove through some of the beautiful campus at U of Idaho to have some coffee and then walked through the Arboretum and Botanical Gardens.  We weren't too sure what there would be to see without many flowers, but it was full of color just the same.

There were still a few roses blooming.

The maples were on fire with color.  Blankets of leaves covered the grass and paths.  It was fun to kick up the leaves as we walked and hear them crunch under our feet.

 

We absolutely love it when we come across a wedding.  This has happened several times over the years we've been fulltime.  What a cute couple and flower girl.

What a sweetie!

 

A drive up to Moscow Mountain is one of the things Shelly said we should do.  Moscow sits at 2579 and the road to the top climbs to 4983 feet elevation.

The drive is very pretty as you climb up from the open wheat fields, through the hardwoods and into the pines.  From up top you can look over the Palouse.  We learned the "Palouse" is a 4,000 square mile region of rolling, asymmetrical hills that stretches from Lewiston to almost the southern end of Lake Coeur d’Alene and across the state line to Colfax and Spokane. There are no peaks and valleys in this area, it is more like random sand dunes.

Our last day we drove south towards Lewiston to check out the grade and grab some geocaches.  Guess what?  Lots more wheat fields!

 

 

I have to say there is a beauty to it.  The homes are very spread out.  Miles and miles of gold, recently harvested winter wheat.  Now and then there was some brown where they were tilling or black where some burning went on.

You could see all the wheel marks of the tractors that made some striping in the gold fields.

We wanted to check out the grade on the way to Lewiston and see the viewpoint without the trailer.

The view from the top of Lewiston Hill

This ten mile section of highway 95 climbs 2,000 vertical feet of the Lewiston Hill to 2756 feet.  Three miles of this grade is 6%, followed by 4 miles of 7%.  While it looked intimidating, out truck did just fine geared down to 3rd with our exhaust brake.

This is what part of it looked like on our gps.

We had a few sprinkles on the way down, but the sun came out and the rest of the day was nicer.

Farms and barns.

We came across a historic church while looking for a geocache on one of the back roads.  Cordelia Lutheran Church was built in 1880 and attended by Scandinavians.

There is a small cemetery out back with a few graves

There was a his and hers outhouse to the side of the church.

By time we got back into Moscow it was getting late.  We watched a pretty sunset and chose one more brewery to try. Rants & Raves was along the way and

Steve agreed that they brewed some damn good beer.

The food was good too.  Some yummy pork and pasta dishes.

 

Lucky for us the weather up in the mountains in Joseph, Oregon is still nice.  A little on the cold side, but doable. We'll have full hookups in the state park.