The First Day of the Rest of our Year

As commented upon in the previous post, we spent New Years Eve in Wallace, Idaho...a small mining town in the Silver Valley of about 900 peoples. We left Spokane yesterday and drove the hour and a half to lovely Wallace where we checked in to the Brooks Hotel. It's clean, it's cheap, they don't know what four stars means...and that fine.

We got ourselves settled in and then took off to explore the town. It's the perfect time of year for exploring as the temperature was around 9 degrees. In Wallace, you walk as everything you want to see is within a few blocks of wherever you are.


We were most pleased to discover that the Jameson Hotel has reopened. We have stayed there before and really like it. I think I have described it here as the most authentic reproduction of what an old west hotel must have been like. There are six rooms on the third floor. There are bathrooms down the hall. there are no TVs and no telephones. The telephone is no biggy in this day and age because everyone already has one with them at all times. The no TV thing can be a problem.


Fortunately, the Brooks has TVs and we used ours after our night on the town. More about that to come.


We had a drink at the Jameson and then walked over to the Wallace Brewing Company. It is a local micro brew establishment and the bartender was locking the door as we walked up. He reconsidered and let us in. We only had a beer so we didn't keep him long. It was seven and he hadn't had any business for an hour and this twenty something clearly wanted to get his New Years Eve under way.

We finally ended up eating at the 1313 Club and stayed there until about ten. They were actually shutting down and I'm not sure what other bars stayed open until midnight in Wallace.

We walked back to the Brooks and drank screw drivers and mamosas for the rest of the evening. Once the ball in Timesquare dropped, we fell asleep.

We woke up this morning to a report that it was 4 degrees at Lookout Pass. We got up there about ten and were surprised to find a relatively empty parking lot. The sun was out and we got in nine runs throughout the day, which is good for us.


We hit the road about 2:30 and amnaged to roll home and enjoy the hot tub for a nice long while. This is the time of year when it is great to have a hot tub.