Couer D’Alene, ID

 Tuesday evening we ventured to Couer D’Alene, ID to see what the town was like.  We walked the floating boardwalk that went around the marina as you “walked in the lake”.  Here is a sign about the stats of the boardwalk.

Some pretty pics from the boardwalk.

  We walked the Main Street and had beer and dinner at the Biergarten.  Dave liked the beer, the meal was good and got a good sense of the town.  

Wednesday we went back into Couer D’Alene (or as all the signs say CDA) to sip, hike and explore some more.  We started out at the Couer D’Alene Coffee Company.  They had delicious blueberry turnovers.  The other nice thing was all proceeds from the CDA Coffee Company go back to the community.  We got to sit outside and enjoy the great weather.  The high for the day was low 80s with a slight breeze.  They also had these beautiful hanging flower pots all around town.

We then hiked the Tubbs Hill Trail.  The hike ended up being a little over 3 miles.  There were lots of rocks you could go out onto to look at Couer D’Alene Lake, a couple beaches and the summit.  The summit was more so you could say you made it to the summit.  The views were mostly blocked by gorgeous, huge pine trees.   Enjoy the pics.

Summit

Summit

Proof we made it to the summit

Some views from the rest of the trail

Baby Deer and momma

Rock with a view

After the hike we had our picnic lunch at the very large park they have.  There is a large pavilion, a splash park for the kids, a huge playground, a dog park and lots of open grass to play whatever you might want to. There are some decorative elements (sundial, statues, art) and a walking and biking paths.  There are these Moose statues around town based on a Children’s book that a resident of CDA wrote.  Find the various moose statues and learn the story.  

Next stop was Main Street where we got Dave a new pair of hiking shoes, as his other ones started separating from the heel during the hike today.  Then I got ice cream.  It was called coconut explosion and it was delicious.  It was coconut ice cream with chocolate covered almond pieces mixed in.  (Almond joy fans would have really enjoyed this — Leslie).  

We saw early in the day that there was going to be a farmers market starting at 4:00 on 2 blocks of the downtown.  So we went and got Dave a treat at the Buoy Bar and enjoyed the sparkly view while waiting for the market.  

The market ended up not really having anything of interest to us, so we headed back to the camper for the evening.  

Today was one of those great to be outside days.  

This is for Leslie, Kathy and Brett: today’s steps = 25,669.   You are going to miss me during the next walking challenge.

Last 2 days in Great Falls and catch up

Saturday Morning we went to ride on the Rivers Edge Trail again, but in a different area.  As we were riding, we came across a Farmers/Craft Market, so enjoyed walking around that and seeing the different wares.  We split a huckleberry lintz and bought some huckleberry jelly.

We then rode back to the car because we wanted to go to First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park.  Short bike ride, but a pleasant surprise finding the market.

First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park visitor center had a display about the jump and then we did the 3 mile hike to see the “jump spot”.  The Native Americans used every part of the buffalo for something they needed.  They considered the buffalo sacred, for without them they could not survive.  In this particular area the way they “hunted” the buffalo was to entice the herd over the cliffs.  Any that did not die, they were able to easily kill because they were injured.  

One of the Native Americans, the Buffalo Runner, would be draped in a calf robe and make noises like a lost calf to bring the herd to the cliff.  The way buffalo work is there is a lead female buffalo in the herd and basically wherever she goes, they all follow.  So the buffalo runner would get this lead buffalo to go toward the cliff.  By the time the buffalo realizes there is a cliff it is too late.  Even if other buffalo realize, the push of the herd behind them does not allow them to stop.  The buffalo runner has a spot that they jump to right before the cliff or a rock right near the top of the cliff to get out of the way as the buffalo fall over the cliff.  Sometimes they would move the herd many miles to get them to the cliff.   Once they were over the cliff, the work began of using every part of the buffalo for survival.

It is hard to show in the pictures, but at the top it is flat plain for as far as we could see and then suddenly there was the cliff.  I find the ingenuity fascinating.  

We also saw a cool rock formation on the trip and a caught a bee in a flower.

The final day in Great Falls we went to see the Great Falls, the only fall we didn’t see on our bike ride.  There was a walking bridge to an island park (Brian, I thought of you with the “swaying bridge”) with views of both the falls and the Missouri River.  

I have to say driving around to the various activities that we did, I can see where the phrase “amber waves of grain” comes from.  Miles and miles and miles of fields.

We then traveled to Missoula, MT.  We got to go to Big Sky Brewery which makes Moose Drool beer.  Dave first tried Moose Drool beer when we went to Yellowstone National Park many years ago.  He simply tried it due to the name, but enjoyed it alot.  When we saw how close we were going to be to the brewery, we knew we had to go.  

That night we stayed at a Harvest Host Farm. Here are some picks of the farm.  

We also got a “tour” in the morning about soil and what they are doing to improve the soil.  Carbon, phosphorus, worms, fungi, bacteria…it was very interesting.  Proves I have some research to do when I try to improve my garden in Florida.  They also raise Pheasants for people to come and hunt them.    He says they charge $500 for the experience.  He also told us about a class he had on property where they trained hunting dogs to detect rattle snakes to protect themselves and their owners.  So many things in our country I had no idea about.

Today we travelled to Couer D’Alene, ID.  

I hope you all are finding this interesting.  If there are any suggestions of how to make it better, please let me know in the comments. Thx.

Exploring Great Falls

Yesterday we ventured to 3 different attractions in Great Falls - River Edge Trail, Malmstrom Air Force Base Museum and the Montana State Fair.  We had to catch up because the first couple days we were in this area the high for the day was over 100, so we didn’t do much outside.

River Edge Trail is a walking and biking trail that runs 58 miles.  We rode our bikes on about 8 miles of it seeing four of the five Great Falls Waterfalls.  This is a little deceptive because one of the waterfalls is under water.  They showed you where it was, but obviously it didn’t look like anything.  Since we are here in the middle of summer, the falls are not as full as they are in the spring.  Two of the falls we saw have dams.   We enjoyed the ride and the scenery.

These are Black Eagle Falls

Rainbow Falls

Crooked Falls - as you will see there is not much water flowing at this time.  However, we did see a deer walking around down on the rocks.  The other animal that we saw that I had never seen before were white pelicans.  They were too far away to take a picture, but they had a huge wing span and the typical pelican beak.  

Lastly these were fun metal figures of Lewis and Clark on the trail

Malmstrom Air Force Base

The first interesting fact about this base is that the first year they were open, they realized that the winters were very harsh and trying to get the planes warmed enough to fly was a huge undertaking.  

Their next mission was the lend/lease program with Russia.  This was part of the allied effort against Hitler.  This base processed approximately 8,000 planes for this program.   They flew them from Montana to Alaska, where the Russians picked them up.  

The next and current mission of the base is being part of the minuteman missile mission.  They house over 3/4s of the current active missiles over 13,800 miles of Montana.  They use helicopters, not planes to support this effort.  We learned about the squadrons and how they are at a site for 4 days at a time and are a family in and of themselves with each having certain responsibilities.

We spoke with a gentleman who was retired military and ran the museum.  He had done tours in Iraq and Kuwait.  One of the things they stated was that the missile shifts are 24 hours.  I asked isn’t it hard to stay awake.  He said they can nap in shifts, as there are two people on duty in the cement bunker at all times.  However, he said from his time in the military it is fairly easy to stay awake for 24 hours or longer due to your duty assignments.  We learned about how the missiles work, the process if they were needed to be used, and that the best defense is the threat.  It was informative but also a little scary to think about the possibilities.

I am not as fluent in military speak as Dave, as many who know me know I like to live in a news free bubble.  It is interesting and I appreciate their commitment but I don’t necessarily need to know the details. 

Here are a couple of pictures of planes they had outside.

                                                            This is one of the missiles

I did find this Graphotype Machine interesting.  It was used to make dog tags.  After WWII, the base became a military transportation hub for equipment and people assigned to Alaska.

Our final destination yesterday was the Montana State Fair.   Rides, animals, food, displays, etc, etc.

These are my highlights as we are not ride people.

We had cowpies for dinner.  They are burgers with various fixins’ surrounded by dough and deep fried.  They were good and not greasy like you would expect.  We also had ice cream.

We saw a schoolhouse that was built by a rancher for his children to go to and then neighboring ranchers children went as well.  To preserve the schoolhouse his Dad built, the son restored it and donated it to the fairgrounds.  

There was a traveling piano player going around the fair.  The piano was literally on wheels.  We couldn’t figure out how he controlled it, but he moved and spun around.  He played all kinds of songs and was enjoyable to listen to him whenever he scooted by.

It was a beautiful night in Montana to walk around a State Fair and see all the people and offerings of a very different part of the country.  My best example of that is they had a Nature exhibit, which was fresh cut pine trees (think Christmas trees), live snakes and lots of taxidermy animals.  I preferred the live bunnies and goats myself.  (Kathy Butler,  there were no chickens.  I think your rooster warned them not to get taken to the fair on the first day and left for 7 days.)

See you after our next adventure.