Ben and Alonna » 08.09 – Coeur d’Alene

Northern Idaho Road Trip

Alonna — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:04:14 +0000

I’ve already posted about some of our activities in and around Coeur d’Alene. But we also had a fun time along the way. Here’s two google map snapshots of our route, and some photos of the trip:

A = Boise B = Grangeville C = Coeur d’Alene D = Route of the Hiawatha E = Moscow

Montana-Idaho border: River along Hwy 95 near Riggins:

South of Grangeville:

Hell’s Canyon lookout point (you can’t actually see the river from this spot, unfortunately):

Coeur d’Alene – Day 3

Alonna — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:57:42 +0000

Ben, Beth and I rode a “rails-to-trails” bike ride in Northern Idaho called Route of the Hiawatha. It’s an old train route in the mountains, going through 10 tunnels and over 7 trestles (bridges). The coolest part was a 1.66 mile long tunnel! The tunnel was pitch black (bike lamps required), and super cold. It was damp and only 40 degrees F inside. We were warned ahead of time to go slow, because if you go fast you’ll get mud splashed in a straight line up your back. Sure enough, a few guys sped past us and they all had thick mud streaks right up their backs! Anyway, the scenery was gorgeous and we had a really fun time. The trail is 15 miles long downhill, then you take a bus back up to the top. Here’s a few photos from the ride.

Start of the adventure: The view:

Tunnels:

Trestles:

Coeur d’Alene – Days 1-2

Alonna — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:21:11 +0000

Last weekend Ben’s sister Beth came to visit. We decided to take a road trip to Northern Idaho, an area that Ben and I hadn’t yet explored. There’s a popular destination called Coeur d’Alene which is on a lake in a mountainous area. Also we heard about a cool rails-to-trails bike trail that we were really excited to try out.

We drove 7-hours Friday night and Saturday morning to get to Coeur d’Alene. The drive was long, but really pretty – windy mountain roads, rivers and canyons, golden-colored wheat fields, and small towns. After arriving, we had the afternoon in Coeur d’Alene, so we took out the kite to take some photos… you can see a few of those in Ben’s last post. Here’s another good one, and also a photo of our reward after a long day of driving and kite-flying.

Later that evening we hiked around Tubbs Hill, a hill near downtown Coeur d’Alene which juts out into the lake

Sunday we had a full day in Coeur d’Alene and we wanted to see more of the lake. So we rented Kayaks in the morning and paddled around. We didn’t get very far – it was windy and the water was pretty choppy, plus it turns out that kayaking is tiring! But we found a cute little beach to park at and eat lunch. Here’s some photos from that adventure.

Later that evening we drove a scenic road around part of the lake, looking for something fun to do and photo opportunities. At one pull-off, we found a beach full of perfect skipping rocks and we couldn’t resist…

At another pull-off we noticed a nice breeze… so we sent our kite up towing the camera. If you haven’t flown a kite since you were a kid, I suggest trying it sometime. It’s surprisingly fun! The sun was low in the sky, so we got some pretty sky photos too.

We were also lucky to catch a beautiful sunset over the lake that night.

I’ll post about the rest of the trip soon – including photos from our bike ride!

-Alonna

Kite Aerial Photography #3 – Coeur d’Alene

Bullet-Point Ben — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 04:14:13 +0000

Location: Coeur d’Alene Lake in Idaho
Same attachment set-up as the last few times. Eventually I’ll put together something fancier…
Assistants: Alonna and my sister Beth
Two cool pictures. Beth is in the second one
Trying out another new kite: a 6 foot Delta
- Actually more like 5 feet. Made in China.
- Cost less than $20 on the Internet.
- Looks like a passenger-less hang glider when it’s in the air.
- It seems to fly almost straight up, unlike the flowform which has a really low flying angle.
- It was unstable close to the ground, but letting about 50 feet of string out and just kind of pulling it into the air worked great.
Definitely could have let the kite go higher but we were nervous about seaplanes landing on the lake.
Both the kite and the camera attached to it drew a lot of attention.