We woke up to a high overcast with the sun threatening to make an appearance. The weather forecast, which we last saw 3 days ago, suggested that today may be the last of the better weather for a while, so we decided to head out on what the tourist guide classes as a Scenic Byway.
Before we started the tour proper we headed off just down the road to the Cataldo Mission. This is a Jesuit Mission built in the 1850’s and as such is the oldest free standing building in the State of Iowa (I think my Grandparents house was older than that!).
It is built on some high ground with a commanding view of the surrounding area.
From here we headed west on the I-90 towards Coeur D’Alene for about 15 miles before turning off to the south onto the scenic byway. It probably sounds boring to you that we just drive around the area, and my writing will certainly not do justice to the scenery, so you’ll just have to trust me when I say it was a worthwhile trip. The route followed the shores of Coeur D’Alene Lake, which seems to be the week-end home of the wealthy set, although quite where they come from is not clear, the nearest city of any size is Spokane Washington about 60 miles west. Anyway, there were a number of very nice homes built on the shore, or the bluffs overlooking the lake. As we progressed we climbed higher, and got some spectacular views.
We had missed our morning coffee, it was approaching lunch time and the route was going to be a lot longer than anticipated. Unfortunately, not only were we in the land of no electrons, we were also in the land of no anything, then as we turned the corner on a hilly road we saw an old trading post.
We picked up 210 calories worth of a hunger reducing devices each (KitKat and Snickers), as well as a small coffee each. The small coffee was 575 ml (so was the medium and large), “don’t worry” says the assistant, we only sell one size and it only costs $1. It was good coffee as well!
Further around the route we found a small loop that was a wildlife tour, so we headed off along it. Not too long after that Lyn spotted some “swans” in a lake, but they didn’t quite look right. Through the binoculars (and my new camera zoom lens!) we could see that they were more like pelicans than swans, except the only pelicans we had seen before were brown. Back at the trailer we checked the bird book and sure enough they were American White Pelicans.
Further around the loop we saw a number of very large nests atop wooden hydro poles, nothing really unusual about that, except these nests were occupied. Again, reference to the bird book identified the occupants as Osprey
We continued the tour back to the trailer, in places the land changed from mountainous forests to ploughed fields, grazing for dairy cattle and some horse farms. There was no sign of any industry though.
Our luck with caches changed on this trip, and we managed 3 for 3.
After a late lunch back at the trailer, the 2-hour tour took 4 hours, we headed out for a walk along the bike trail into the local town just over half a mile away. The town consists of two restaurants (one for sale), a gas station and a post office.
Back at the trailer I decided I really had to start waxing an polishing the beast. After that the three-day old forecast proved to be right, and the rain started.
We are surviving without the internet so far, although I feel there may be trip to MacDonalds in the offing tomorrow, purely for the coffee you understand!