Spokane - Coeur d' Alene - British Columbia - Alberta - Glacier National Park - Kalispell - Spokane...whew

Kate and I went on a little trip recently. Well...not so little in scope but definitely little as far as timeline. We went through 3 states and 2 provinces in 3 days. It was a teensy bit tiring, but fun all the same.

Our first stop was Spokane. Here we are on of the 17 historic bridges that can be found in the middle of downtown Spokane. They span the Spokane River, this bridge in particular is the perfect spot for viewing the Falls.

The waterfall is super powerful and if you stare into its eyes long enough you end up in sort of a trance. It made me sleepy; the sound of water always does though.


The Washington Water Power Co. has been around in Spokane since the late 1800's. I think this building is pretty cool. And this goose and his friend just would not stop posing for pictures.

Built in 1990, 26 tons of steel and reinforced concrete, 12-foot-high, 27-foot-long Radio Flyer Wagon. It can hold as many as 300 people. - this is 'The World's Largest Radio Flyer Wagon' and it is in the middle of Spokane located in Riverfront Park. I stupidly decided it would be fun to slide down the slide. I don't want to admit it but I might be getting a wee bit old to slide down slides, I ended up coming to a skidding stop and somehow tweaked my shoulder.

Spokane Temple

This is what much of the area surrounding Spokane looks like, it is very pastoral.

Next stop on the trip was Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. It is a very pretty little town with a nice little lake in the center as well as several bronze Moose and Mouse statues throughout the town. Here we are in front of one of them.

And another. I can't remember their names, something like Midgy and Mudgy or whatnot. They are setup in a loop designed to send the kids on a walk through town searching for them.

Some other things to know about Coeur d' Alene are that it is home to the world's only floating golf green (I did see it but did not photograph it), and the world's longest floating boardwalk (I did walk on it but did not photograph it).

On this trip we saw a lot of wildlife, mostly of the Elk and Deer variety and mostly during the twilight and night time hours where we were in fear of the little buggers darting in front of our car. We saw hundreds of them, and I do not exaggerate on this point. This group is located somewhere in the neighborhood of Bonners Ferry, ID. Where incidentally we ate at a place called Chop n' Chic and had deep fried chicken and deep fried pork chops. They use something called a Broaster, something I had never heard of, but from what I can tell it is just a deep fat fryer with a fancy Idaho name.

We then traveled up through the panhandle of Idaho into British Columbia, where we were greeted in Sparwood, B.C. by the World's Largest Truck. Who knew, we would see so many World's Largest, Longest, Only, etc. things on this trip. I sure didn't.

This is the Titan 33-19 and was used to haul up to 350 tons of earth in mining operations. I believe that it was used in a Coal mine around Sparwood but in the early 90's the turbo charger failed and the repair costs were too expensive for them to continue using the truck, so it was retired to a parking lot right outside an A&W. This makes it a convenient stop when one needs a root beer on a road trip. One more note of awe before I move on, when elevated the Titan's box stands at 56 feet high.

There are also some saucy British Columbian prairie dogs living next to the Titan and the A&W.

The country between British Columbia and Alberta through the Canadian Rockies is spectacular...and on this particular day - COLD. Seriously though, I would love to come back in the summer, it soooo pretty in this area.

Canadian Border Control Guard: What is your purpose in coming to Canada?

Me: Candy?

Ahhhh....my pretties.

We wanted to cross into Montana through Glacier National Park but that border crossing was closed due to snow, so we had to take a detour through Cardston where we discovered the Cardston Temple.

U.S. Border Customs Agent: What are you bringing into the U.S. from Canada?

Me: Candy and Chips

U.S. Border Customs Agent: (laughs)

More Elk, this time in on the East side of Glacier National Park.

There is a road (Going-to-the-Sun Road) that traverses east to west across Glacier National Park, but it was closed in the middle due to heavy snow fall. We were able to see about 10 miles of the east side of the Park and then we had to drive back and out and go all around the bottom of the park to get to the other side.

The difference in climate from each side of the park to the other can be seen in these two pictures. The top is the east side entrance and the bottom is the West side entrance. It was a full 20 degrees warmer on the west side, for which we were grateful.

My good friend Wikepedia has this to say...

"The western side of the park, in the Pacific watershed, has a more mild climate, moderated by its proximity to the ocean and the warm Alaska current. This location also makes the western side of the park wetter on average. The eastern side of the divide, more sheltered from Pacific storms, but exposed to cold fronts from Canada, is drier and colder than the west side."

The obligatory self portrait that we can never get quite centered, but I kind of like them when they are off center.

I had a small mishap when I was hiking back up the trail from those beautiful waterfalls in the pictures above. The trail was covered in ice and I slipped and fell sort of and then just kept sliding. Kate tried caught me but she was tenuously holding on to a smallish twig and we were laughing so hard that I couldn't quite get back up. We finally managed to get back up to the car where I proceeded to change my clothes right on the side of the road. No harm done, except my poor little camera must have hit the ground when I slipped because it has a dent in the front now and it won't quite open without a little coaxing. Sadness.

This is my attempt to use the stitching feature on my camera. This is Lake McDonald which is the largest lake in Glacier National Park and it is beautiful. In this picture I was trying to show that on the left side of the lake it is still lush and green, but on the right side of the lake it is still dead and brown from the 2003 fire which burned 136,000 acres.

Something else I wanted to note about the park is that there are supposedly over 300 Grizzlies that live in this park, and many of them live in the area of this lake according to the reading material. I wanted to see one really, really bad (from the safety of my car of course), but alas no such luck.

We saw this beautiful eagle sculpture on our drive from the park to Kalispell, MT. We actually ended up seeing many such sculptures in this area of the state. I think this one is very beautiful.

All in all it was great trip...and I hope I get to do it again sometime but maybe in July next time.

The End.

* Be grateful I didn't post all 109 pictures. *