Wed,Oct 6, 2010

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

After a good night’s sleep, everyone seemed content to sleep some more this morning.  Our room in Hamilton, MT was nice and the bed was super comfortable.  In some of the smaller motels that we stay in out west, this is not always the case so we took advantage of this luxury and lounged around for an extra hour or so.  Even Paris & Dodger seemed content to just move to our bed and go back to sleep instead of staring at me to see if I open an eye or move a limb which is their cue to tell me it’s time for breakfast.  So we all laid up in the bed like four pigs in the sunshine.  It was pretty nice.

After a good continental breakfast at the motel we left headed north.  Just outside town we hit some fairly thick fog.  Not bad enough to stop traffic but it did add interesting atmosphere to our first few photographs. Our first stop was just a few miles up the road in Stevensville, MT at Saint Mary’s Mission.  A beautiful old log mission it was the site of the first white settlement in Montana by several Jesuit missionaries who had been sent for by a tribe of Indians called the Salish. They had been told of Christianity by a group of Iroquois Indians who had come to the area as trappers and had stayed and joined the Salish tribe.  The original mission was built in 1841 but the building there today was built in 1866.

As we were leaving Stevensville we stumbled upon what must be a Halloween decorating contest with over 30 individual decorations lining a bicycle path just off the main highway.  I took a photo of just three of the thirty but they were all neat. 

From there it was on to one of our favorite drives on Highway 12 from Lolo, MT toward Lewiston, ID, the Northwest Passage Scenic Byway.  This route was used for centuries by the Indians and then by Lewis & Clark as a passage across the rugged Bitterroot Mountains. This ancient trail does take you back in time as once you cross over Lolo pass (heading west) you literally drop in elevation gradually for about 100 plus miles.  It winds thru the forests and the entire route, which starts out beside the Lochsa river until it joins the Selway and then they join the Clearwater River, stays beside a river the entire route to Lewiston, ID.  There are only a few signs of civilization along the entire route even today.

We made a number of stops along the way.  One of our favorite is the Devoto Memorial Grove which is a grove of old growth red cedars and fir trees.  This stop was established as a memorial to a local historian and conservationist, Bernard DeVoto who was a scholar of the Lewis & Clark Expedition.  It’s a very peaceful spot and sits beside the Lochsa river. 

From there we continued down the Byway with a stop at the Warm Springs crossing which is just one of several suspension bridges used to cross the Lochsa river either on foot or horseback to enter the Bitterroot Wilderness.  After a leisurely picnic on the river we continued our descent toward Lewiston. 

Several more stops included Fish Creek Trail, The Old Man Creek, and Tumble Creek Falls before we finally left the Byway with most of the day gone.  We took another river drive along the Snake River as we left Lewiston, ID heading for the Palouse region of eastern Washington.  There we made a quick stop just outside Pullman, WA to watch the sunset over the hills of the Palouse. 

We have a nice room in Pullman and will head out in the morning to try and photograph the rich rolling hills of this farming area of Washington. 

Once again the weather was perfect… after the fog lifted the sun came out for the day and the temperatures rose to the lower seventies where they stayed all day.  Again, all I can say is it was heavenly!

We are very well tonight and hope you all are too.

Peace, Hope, & Love

Donna, Charles, Paris & Dodger