The road trip. Day 9: The Miracle of America
As we got further and further west, and closer and closer to our final destination, we were running out of things to do and the motivation to do them. At this point, we were both tired, and pretty ready to just be in one place for a little while. Thankfully, a classic American oddity had presented itself to Lia during our pre-trip planning, and it wasn't horrendously out of the way.
We began the day with some great toast at a cute cafe in Missoula, MT. Some surfers were having fun on the Clark Fork River we crossed over.
Coffee shops with great toast, a paper shop where I bought a cool Father's Day card... What more do you need?
The Miracle of America Museum was run by two very old people, one of which had just had her deafness cured by a hearing transplant. But that wasn't the miracle, oh no. The miracle was that one man could own so much stuff.
The evolution of the motorbike, or "Iron Steeds."
In addition to the alien spaceships and two headed calves we'd expected to see, there were rooms and rooms full of memorabilia and a backyard with even more.
One early 20th century car was being offered as part exchange for a old steam tractor. Man must've really wanted that tractor.
There were full sized American tanks, and military jeeps, and uniforms, and dozens of vintage cars, and a full sized train, and a barn of tractors, and a barn of old snowmobiles, and multiple helicopters, and Native American artefacts, and a recreation diner, and a menagerie of taxidermy beasts, and dozens of shacks stuffed with relics, and a workshop where he was restoring - among other things - a duck boat.
Who needs to go to Cuba when you can just go to Montana for a little vintage car porn?
It turns out the Miracle of America Museum is primarily a military museum, and boy, did the owner love this country. He loved freedom, and God, and America.
Me, getting brainwashed by the museum's political leanings. AMERICA IS GREAT.
There were also some things he didn't like, which he hadn't hesitated to write down on notes left around the building. Some things he didn't like were the persecution of white people, the government, and the song chopsticks.
Ah, built upon those religious principles. I thought they mentioned something about a separation of church and state, but I wasn't there. The museum owner was so old I think he was.
Feeling good and conservative by now, and exhausted from looking at so much STUFF, we got back in the car to press on. We took an evening pit stop in Coeur d'Alene - a lake town in Idaho where we found a pretty great food scene, and thanks to Lia's yelping skills, I found a pretty great burger - to be able to say we stepped foot in the potato capital of the world.
Idaho was windy, hilly, and short lived, as we shortly plunged into Washington, the final state of the trip, and into Spokane to our Airbnb for the night. It was advertised with an incredible view. Was the view incredible? You'll have to wait to find out tomorrow.
