June 10 Vernon, Naxusp, into Idaho

 Sunday, June 10

49 degrees at 6:45 this morning.   We head east on 97 to Vernon and stop at a McDonalds for coffee and breakfast.  Apparently, this is also known as the Vernon senior center, as there are a couple dozen grey-haired folks here laughing, chatting and nursing coffees.  We’ve noted this in many small towns.

We continue through fertile valleys and see many signs for fruit stands. 

 Lots of fruit trees and many are espalliered (sp?), like these apple trees.

We stop at one stand just to see what they have – answer: not much.  Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers…the lady there says except for the peppers, it is from California this time of year.  Local strawberries are due in a week or so and then lots of peaches, apples, cherries, etc. later.

More beautiful flowers along the highway.  These lupine look like bluebonnets on steroids!(They are related.)

We pass some very nice homes and many trailer homes with junked cars, etc.  Quite a mix.  Horses and a few cattle look  a little despondent in the rain.

We get back into forests and more logging operations as we come to the Needles Ferry.

 There are some logs in the river, so apparently they can still move them this way.  We understood that this was no longer allowed in the US.

 We wait about ten minutes for the ferry and cross the river in just a few minutes.  There are about a dozen vehicles and they probably could squeeze in a few more.

From here, we follow the highway north to Naxusp, along long, long Arrow Lake. 

 Lakes in this part of the country are very large, sometimes 30 miles or more! I believe that most are formed by dams these days.

We stop along main street  in Naxusp, and  ask a man passing out bananas to a car load of kids where we might get something to eat in town.  His first choice is closed, another is too expensive, so he sends us up a hill to a golf course with the Hilltop Diner.  (I should have asked him how you pronounce “Naxusp”!) No one else is there, but we chat with the waitress and the cook and they only serve breakfast on the weekends, so we have another breakfast!

The golf course looks lovely so we send a picture to Bob, Julie’s golfing Dad.  We have seen quite a few courses since Jasper, most, like this one, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but nicely kept.

After a while we take 3A, then 3 which will take us over Kootenai Pass at Creston.

 It is still raining lightly and as we ascend the temperature drops and we can see frost on the trees above us.  The trees look like the frosted pines from the train set landscapes of years ago. 

 I'm getting a little nervous.  As we reach the summit we are at 33 degrees and the light rain has become light snow, creating a whole different world!  (But the roads are fine.) Really beautiful!

 Then we begin the descent.  At the bottom, it is 49 degrees and the sun is shining!

Not long after, we approach the US border.  Pleasant officer asks a few questions and we have to turn over our oranges.  Some told us later we should have peeled them and taken the fruit with us….note to self!

We are now on US Idaho Route 1 and getting tired.  On our map, we notice a National Forest to the west, so when we see a “Sportsman’s Access to NF” we take it, thinking we’ll boondock in the National Forest.  We take a narrow paved road past a few farms, then turn onto a gravel road into the forest.  We pass Elk Mountain Farms, which are experimental tree farms run by an Anheiser-Busch company.  See some wild turkeys.

Following signs for some trailheads, we turn onto a rough dirt road for a few miles and decide this is a good place to stop.

 We haven’t seen any traffic, though one truck does pass us later in the evening with fishing gear showing.  We are next to some huge western Cedar Trees and  a few other towering evergreen types. The air smells wonderfully fresh and clean and we have a quiet evening with sandwiches and wine.

This sign is just up the road from us, but we see nothing but a few birds.