1000+ Miles

 

We left Post Falls in Idaho on the 5^th of July and on the 10^th of July we reached Billings, Montana! We not only covered a lot of miles we stopped at a lot of tourist and historical sites along the way.  My dad would have called this, “Taking the Scenic Route”! All these stops provided a great contrast to just driving straight through. We stayed at all different kinds of campgrounds including State Parks, City Parks, Cracker Barrel parking lots, and outside the gates of our reserved and paid-for RV resort when we arrived after the security gate was closed! Fortunately they allowed overnight parking for late arrivals. In the morning we were greeted by the resident horses, as we were actually in the pasture!

Our driving has brought us along a beautiful 99 mile stretch of mountain road along a river, up and down winding mountain passes, along lakes, through prairies and pastureland, and beautifully irrigated fields. We have seen many deer along the highways and near our creek side camp site at the Washoe City Park.

We have toured the Montana State Prison and Auto Museum, (yes they are in the same tour) in Deer Lodge. In Billings we toured the Moss Museum (built in 1903), home of PB Moss who helped found and plan the city. Also in Billings we toured the DanWalt Gardens, a privately owned home where the garden is open to tour, (or to have weddings or events). We went to Montana Tech and enjoyed their mineral museum and views of the city of Butte from the campus. We saw amazing underground caverns at the Lewis and Clark State Park. We have enjoyed murals depicting the Lewis and Clark exploration in Whitehall Montana; in Anaconda we saw a one hundred year old brick smokestack on top of a hill that was 585 feet tall. That is taller than the Washington Monument!

Also, a little known fact about Steve is that if there are kids with a roadside lemonade stand, we drive around the block to buy a cool drink.  We saw two girls on a very hot day, standing in the sun right along the main street in Deer Lodge in front of a business and even though we had the trailer attached we circled the block and found roadside parking just in front of their stand. They also had some really delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies! Steve doesn’t miss an opportunity to encourage young entrepreneurs!

On Sunday morning we drove from Billings to Wapiti, Montana and enjoyed a great teaching and fellowship at a local church, where all the ushers wore cowboy attire, and when they took the offering they “passed the hats!” They obviously knew that we were visiting by our “Southern California Casual Attire!” This week has added over a thousand miles to our Adventures on the Road?  Overall it has been a full week of driving, sightseeing, visiting museums and learning local and regional history. We have not had very reliable cell service and we have had almost no internet. While this is nice to be disconnected and unplugged, it does make blogging more difficult. So that is why this blog is more of a summary of the week than our previous blogs. Below are some pictures, not in chronological order, for you to enjoy!

 

 

 

There are a couple of dragon flies in this picture!  Can you find them? We saw so many of these insects on our walk around Winchester Lake.

Idaho, and a bit of Washington!

Happy Independence day to you all! We enjoyed the holiday here in Idaho, still camped out at the home of our friends, Duff and Bonita!

We heard a great sermon this morning, entitled "Love that Frees Us", at the church that Duff and Bonita attend here in Post Falls. The message was an uplifting reminder from Ephesians Chapter 1:3-5, reassuring us that Before God made the world, that He loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy. He decided in advance to adopt us into His own family, through what Christ has done on the Cross for us.

Our drive from Montana after Father's day, took us through Troy where the highway follows the Kootenai River. A good sized pullout and parking area allows for a hike to Kootenai Falls and to a suspension bridge that crosses the river. This provided a nice break from the drive, and gave an opportunity to stretch our legs and to enjoy lunch before continuing into Idaho.

 

Sitting beside the Kootenai Falls and watching the river churn past us was a sight to behold. Having grown up in semi-arid Southern California, the sheer size of this river was mind blowing to me. It makes no sense in my mind that this volume of water can be flowing past me continuously! And this was just one river we saw in the Northwestern States. I am sure that there are larger rivers, but this was very impressive to me!

 

Northern Idaho

As you can see this area of Idaho has mountains, rivers, forests and as we would find out, really large lakes, Pend Oreille Lake being the first one we enjoyed in Idaho. (Flathead Lake in Montana was incredible large and beautiful as well.)  To further enjoy the lake we booked a boat tour of the lake that would take us to hopefully see some birds of prey.  We did see some eagles' nests and some eaglets with their parent enjoying a view of our boat from the edge of their nest.  Very awesome, but my camera couldn't capture the birds in the nest so I can't show it to you. Sorry!

Sand Point was a sweet little community on the edge of the lake. It had a nice walking downtown area and a great beach and park along the shore of the lake. The arch way is made of fish cut out of metal signs, so colorful! 

The picture below is a bridge over the river that has been converted into shops and restaurants, very cool!

 

 

 

Some more travel brought us down to Post Falls and Duff and Bonita's home. We parked our trailer in the driveway and have been enjoying there company from our "base camp". (Also they watched over our truck and trailer during our little breakaway to come back to California.)

 

Steve and I enjoyed exploring Coeur d'Alene with a hike around Tubbs Hill, which is in a great park along the shore of the Lake Coeur d'Alene. 

Someone had left this little scripture reminder along the trail! Some of you may remember when we did a rock painting outreach at CCFR called "Jesus Rocks!" Fun to find these little truth rocks along our way!

After our California detour we returned to Post Falls and enjoyed a ferry boat tour of Lake Coeur d'Alene, giving us a reverse view of Tubbs Hill from the water!

Check out this house built on a Rock!

Steve and I enjoyed an evening in Spokane, Washington, about 45 minutes from Post Falls. We had a really great dinner overlooking the Spokane River at a restaurant called Clinkerdagger. Then we walked to Riverfront park, which has a couple of places where the river runs through it! It had great play grounds, a skate park, basketball courts, splash pads and a fountain! I think it even goes into a shopping area, but we ran out of time to explore it! It was a beautiful place to stroll around in the evening after dinner!

Historic Towns and Silver Mines

We very much enjoy visiting Historic sites and finding out about the history of the area. When we heard about a town that is pretty much unchanged for the past hundred plus years we had to go check it out! The town sits along the South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River and was founded in 1884. This area of the Idaho panhandle is in a valley of the Silver Mining district. This town remains mostly unchanged because the town devised a way to avoid being demolished when Interstate 90 was planned to pass through the town. The solution? Get the entire town onto the registry of historic places. Well, it worked and the I-90 passes beside the city on an elevated section of roadway which hugs the mountainside! The architecture of the town is very beautiful. 

Even the pubic stairways that lead to upper streets and neighborhoods were on the national registry!

 

Another interesting feature of the town of Wallace, is that in 2004 the Mayor of the town proclaimed Wallace to be the Center of the Universe, (because it can't be proven otherwise, rather strange logic); there is a manhole cover at the designated intersection marking the exact spot of the Center of the Universe! The town even celebrates this proclamation yearly! Who knew!

Wallace is also famous for its 100-plus year run as the world's largest silver producer, making it the richest mining town still in existence. We took a great tour of the Sierra Silver Mine. A third generation miner with 18 plus years experience in the mines in the area gave a great 1 hour tour, during which he demonstrated mining equipment and explained how silver was mined. 

 

 

 Steve is holding a core sample which has been split to reveal the silver rich content...what they are all trying to find!

 

 

 

Sadly, we also learned the tragic story of the neighboring Sunshine Mine disaster of 2005, in which 91 men died, leaving 77 women widowed and 200 children fatherless. It was quite sobering to be in a silver mine while learning of how the industry was changed after this tragedy. A nearby memorial honors those who perished.

Another tragedy in the area was the Big Burn of 1910, a raging firestorm that killed 87 people, mostly firefighters while it burned 3,000,000 acres of forest and some structures. So much history to ponder in one small area.

 

We are getting reading to leave Post Falls and head south to new sites to explore in Idaho on our Adventures on the Road!  Thanks for taking time to read our blog and enjoy the pictures. We are praying for all of our family and friends and so appreciate your prayers for our safety and health and enjoyment during this time!