Pineapple Express Comes to Idaho Panhandle

     Called my neighbor Chef Jim back in East Texas yesterday and he said it was 101 degrees in the shade! I'm gloating OK. Here in the Idaho Panhandle, it's mid-40s at night and mid-60s and overcast during the day. I've been wearing wool socks. I suppose this is a Pineapple Express.

I'm camping on the Pend Oreille River (click here for map location), a place called Riley Creek Campground.

Yesterday, took a walk with my camera.

This is a peaceful and quiet campground.

A wood fern in the middle of beautiful slender-leaf ferns.

Yellow iris (below).

It's cool, beautiful and relaxing here.

The campground has many hardy old cedar trees with wonderful bark.

Not even a woodpecker condo seems to hurt them.

Today however it's raining, but not complaining. I'll take a Pineapple Express any day over a heat wave.

Idaho Panhandle

     Last weekend, because of expected scattered rain for a couple of days, I decided to stay at Dent Acres, a campground with electricity (electric heat to banish dampness). The road there was mostly a dirt road from Orofino, Idaho. It's only 19 miles but it took me almost two hours to get there. See all those squiggly lines!

     I figured few rigs would attempt that mountainous squiggly road and I'd have the campground to myself. So when I got there, I was surprised to see about forty large rigs! and I also saw this . . .

Uh oh, a handy bear trap! So I asked Alice, one of the campground hosts, about it.

     She told me a Black bear wandered into the campground a few days ago and sat on one of the picnic tables (in broad daylight), so just in case . . . . .  To be safe, I asked if I could buddy-up with her on her daily hike.

We saw lots of wildflowers.

     I've probably traveled up through eight plant zones since leaving Texas in April, so every week further north I get to see a bonus of spring wildflowers. 

The campground is located on the Dworshak Reservoir.

Alice affectionately calls the steep up/down trail "Tough Little Trail"; she grooms and walks it almost daily.

     The 15-mile dirt road north of Dent Acres was more squiggly than the dirt road approaching Dent Acres from the south. Took me more than two hours to drive 21 miles to Elk River, Idaho, population 125.

View of Dworshak Reservoir from a look-out.

     The further north I drove on Idaho Panhandle's roads, the more accustomed I got to this view . . . .

     At another paved road, a large section had dropped about four inches -- will probably completely slide away during the next heavy downpour. The road in photo below is along Lake Coeur d'Alene.

     The problem is the rock formation under the roads; it deteriorates and cracks easily with freezing wet weather.

     And on slopes, it tumbles down when it deteriorates. I hope the head honcho of Idaho's Transportation Department sleeps well at night. Don't think I'd like that job much.

More wildflowers . . .

More Idaho roads to savor!

     Spent a night at a boat launch area along "Medicine Lake" which is remote and peaceful. Even the White Pelicans agreed it's a good spot to rest.

     The Lake Coeur d'Alene Scenic Byway is spectacular. Lake Coeur d'Alene is resortish with many homes, condos, and lodges built on its steep hills overlooking the large bodies of water. See the boat slips? They too can be rented or purchased at a steep price.

I took a walk on a trail near "Beauty Bay" on the Lake.

Also hiked the short nearby Mineral Ridge Nature Trail.

It's not technically a boreal forest, but it's close!

I love the texture of the pine tree bark.

Deep luscious pink . . .

I've determined that I'm partial to hikes in boreal forests or almost boreal with huge "old growth" cedars or pines.

I wondered about this "structure" on top of a mountain, in below photo.

     I suspect the residents of swanky Lake Coeur d'Alene said "Let's build and erect a cellular tower that looks like a pine tree". Anything else would look monstrous, eh?