Jazz Festival Day 1

Today was our first time to use the Doto Expressway to Tomamu and it sure makes it faster. I can't wait until the section is open to Yubari. It will make the trip to Sapporo a breeze, but it will probably hurt JR Hokkaido pretty badly. I guess it won't if gasoline prices keep climbing and JR can keep ticket prices pretty much the same.

The route from Tomamu we took was through Furano because we haven't been that way in several years. We stopped for lunch at a pizza and pasta place in MinamiFurano. The pizza is made in a stone oven and it was really good. They also had a lasagna that looked, but I will have to try it next time.

After Furano and on the way to Iwamizawa we stopped at a place called Sandantaki. It is a very beautiful place and when the water is higher it must look really spectacular. This was our only other stop before we got to Iwamizawa and did some shopping.

The campground wasn't very crowded and we had a pretty good spot. It didn't take us too long to get set up. We wanted to keep it simple, so we decided to have yakiniku and use paper plates. We had bought a small BBQ grill that worked just fine for the two of us. After getting done with dinner we headed to a hot spring. There is a nice one on the main highway coming into the city.