August 24, 2012...

You can't judge a book by its cover.  It's travelin' time.  We got up in the wee hours of the morning and headed out.  This was a new territory day for us, we drove the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway.  Half awesome, half awful.

After we left the trees and gorgeous rocks behind, we headed into country that looked very much like the badlands.

Then it started to look like desert.  Where did all the trees go?

Then it looked like Wyoming although we were in Idaho.

And then back into the hills again.  We finally stopped for the night at Burley, Idaho at a Best Western and this is the book and cover thing...This Best Western was gorgeous, the landscaping was the best we'd ever seen in a hotel, the lobby looked like the Vanderbilt's drawing room.  But...and this was a big but...the room was really uncomfortable.  First, and for me the worst, the desk didn't have a plug for the computer or a light.  In fact, there wasn't a light anywhere near the computer desk.  I had to move a floor lamp from the corner to the desk and find a plug under the entertainment center for both the lamp and computer.  When you put the chair under the desk, you couldn't walk past it.  There were two easy chairs stuffed in the corner but no place to put suitcases.  The sink was in the room and you know how I feel about that.  We gave points for a comfortable bed and pillows but the sink didn't have any towels or washrags and the bathroom was only as deep as the width of the door.  The door cleared the toilet by .5" and just missed the tub by .5".  No place to put your clothes or your toiletries. But the very worst part is just because a hotel announces free WIFI doesn't mean it's high speed.  I couldn't even download pictures that were part of my e-mail so no blog update and I went from 2 bars to 4 bars and back to 2 bars again.  I also woke up at 2:00am and couldn't go back to sleep - bummer.