14 September, Monday

Before departing Missoula, we return to the Hob Nob Cafe for another round
of their sourdough blueberry pancakes. We exchange travel tales with
the young waitress who has spent time in the East working in an
ecological field. She finds our tales entertaining enough that she
rewards us with a free cranberry white chocolate chip scone. While we
are eating our pancakes we are further entertained by a young man who
stops in for breakfast. He is eating at an outdoor table as he has a
rather large puppy with him. He leaves the puppy tied to the table
and comes inside to refill his coffee cup. We see the puppy look
forlornly in the window to see where her master has gone. Then we see
the puppy with paws on the table diving into Master’s breakfast!  Two
young women, also sitting outside, rescue Master’s food. Everyone has
a good laugh.

We decide to head straight across Idaho on I-90 today and forgo the
scenic route. We plan to end up in Ellensburg, WA and take the scenic
route through the Cascades on our way to Redmond tomorrow. We cross
into Idaho and the Pacific Time Zone.  I-90 itself is quite scenic
through Idaho. Can’t wait to check out the really scenic route on another
year’s trip. We can’t say the same for eastern Washington’s scenery.
It’s colorless and boring on this cloudy day. As we approach
Ellensburg the terrain begins to get more interesting.

We have dinner at Ellensburg Pasta Company. They have much more than
pasta. We both have wild-caught salmon dinner salads and Quilters
Irish Death beer, made by the Iron Horse Brewery which has its home
here in Ellensburg. I’m not sure of the significance of the name of
the beer, but beer and dinner are both delicious!