Smith Creek Falls. Back to Bonners Ferry.
Inland Empire Travelog #8
Bonners Ferry, Idaho - Sat, 15 May 2021. 1pm.
We're back in Bonners Ferry having just finished lunch here. This morning we traveled up north to near the border with Canada to hike Copper Creek Falls (previous entry) and then hunt for Smith Creek Falls. I say hunt for because Smith Creek was another wild goose chase courtesy of inaccurate directions and lack of field proofing in Prof. Smedley Q. Boredom's Very Dull Book of Waterfalls. Though this time we drove around until we caught the damn goose. By which I mean we did find the falls.
Smith Creek Falls was only a few miles and a wrong turn from where Smedley said it was. And the falls were on private property marked with copious "no trespassing" signs (there was even a big one on the bridge in the scene above; I cropped it out) so we admired them from the shoulder of the road.
I've written before that sometimes wrong turns can be serendipitous. In losing one thing and seeking to find it, sometimes we find another, too. Today we found, and enjoyed, this view of the Kootenai River valley:
By the way, the left edge of the picture above is Canada. I mentioned we were close to the border... that's how close we were.
Our plans for the rest of the day are all well south of the border so we drove back down to Bonners Ferry. It was a good time for lunch, anyway, and Bonners Ferry is the first town of any size.
While noshing on barely tolerable burgers at a local joint with a nice outdoors table I was amused by this view across the street:
Yes, it's just a gas station. But the price is under $3 per gallon! And it's not just this one station; it's most of them. Meanwhile, back in California, the cheapest discount stations near home are about $3.79/gal and the name-brand stores are all over $4.
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/60872.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]
Bonners Ferry, Idaho - Sat, 15 May 2021. 1pm.
We're back in Bonners Ferry having just finished lunch here. This morning we traveled up north to near the border with Canada to hike Copper Creek Falls (previous entry) and then hunt for Smith Creek Falls. I say hunt for because Smith Creek was another wild goose chase courtesy of inaccurate directions and lack of field proofing in Prof. Smedley Q. Boredom's Very Dull Book of Waterfalls. Though this time we drove around until we caught the damn goose. By which I mean we did find the falls.
Smith Creek Falls was only a few miles and a wrong turn from where Smedley said it was. And the falls were on private property marked with copious "no trespassing" signs (there was even a big one on the bridge in the scene above; I cropped it out) so we admired them from the shoulder of the road.
I've written before that sometimes wrong turns can be serendipitous. In losing one thing and seeking to find it, sometimes we find another, too. Today we found, and enjoyed, this view of the Kootenai River valley:
By the way, the left edge of the picture above is Canada. I mentioned we were close to the border... that's how close we were.
Our plans for the rest of the day are all well south of the border so we drove back down to Bonners Ferry. It was a good time for lunch, anyway, and Bonners Ferry is the first town of any size.
While noshing on barely tolerable burgers at a local joint with a nice outdoors table I was amused by this view across the street:
Yes, it's just a gas station. But the price is under $3 per gallon! And it's not just this one station; it's most of them. Meanwhile, back in California, the cheapest discount stations near home are about $3.79/gal and the name-brand stores are all over $4.
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/60872.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]