Dandelions and Daydreams

“You’ve got to go see the sunset tonight…well not the sunset, but if you look to the east the moon is rising over the lake,” my husband called and said.

Without thinking about the cold, I threw on my jacket but forgot gloves, a hat, and a scarf. About 5 minutes into my walk to the city beach, I was feeling the cold in my fingers and my ears.

The snow squeaked beneath my feet. My fingers were painfully cold every time I pulled out the camera to snap a picture.

On the way back, I stopped and spent 10 minutes in a hotel lobby to warm up before I walked home.

But to watch the full moon rise in a purple sky over Lake Pend Orielle and the mountains–bliss.

God must have had Heaven in mind when he designed North Idaho. Living here is like living in a playground. If you like to hike, bike, hunt, fish, ski, sail, camp, or do anything outdoors, North Idaho is a great place to call home.If you like art museums don’t come here. We like the great outdoors.

On Friday, I took off for the lake right after lunch. The sun was shining and a nice wind was blowing.I put our inflatable kayak out on Lake Pend Orielle and paddled out to the middle of the lake. For the next two hours, I let the boat drift while I was reading and working on a writing project. Next time I plan on writing on the lake, I think I will bring my MP3 player/voice recorder.It’s hard to write when the waves are rocking the boat.

The next day, Brenton and I decided to paddle the thorofare to Upper Priest Lake. Upper Priest Lake is a scenic wilderness area with no roads in or out and no houses built on the shoreline. The three mile paddle from Beaver Creek Campground to Upper Priest Lake took us about 1 1/2 hours, but we were not in a hurry at all. In a few weeks, we are going to take some people camping at Upper Priest Lake, and we wanted to check out the sites.

The camping is primitive. There are four campgrounds that offer fire rings, vault toilets (AKA outhouses), bear boxes, and not much else. The view is perfect, and I really hope we can do some stargazing when we camp up there.

This kayak trip was special because it was the first time I was brave enough to bring my camera along. I intend to buy a waterproof camera eventually. For now, I double bagged the camera with zip-lock bags, and hoped it would survive the trip. The risk was well rewarded.

We saw quite a few ducklings swimming. On a sandbar, there was a congregation of Monarch butterflies, but the real highlight of the trip came on the paddle back down the thorofare. As we slipped around a corner, a moose broke through the brush on the bank not more than 50 feet in front of our kayak. Brenton held on to the bank while I was taking pictures. A minute later, her baby came out into the water with her and began nursing. We floated there, on the opposite bank, for probably ten minutes watching this pair as they went about their evening feedings. All too soon, we had to paddle on down the thorofare so we could get off the lake before darkness fell. We had to paddle across open water for about 1/4 of a mile at the North end of Priest Lake. The wind was headed right down the lake, so the waves had picked up speed and height. We went splashing over the waves and were quite thankful that our Advanced Elements Kayak is very stable. We took out at Beaver Creek Campground, where we had put in. At the end of the day we were both exhausted and hungry, but grinning from ear to ear.

Image via Wikipedia

With spring still being a bit temperamental, Brenton and I are taking every opportunity we can to get out and about when the weather cooperates. Yesterday the high was in the upper 70’s so we went out for a paddle in our new Advanced Elements Advanced Frame Convertible Kayak. We drove to Schweitzer Cutoff Rd and put in Sand creek at the bridge. Sand creek is a fairly well behaved creek with just enough speed to keep you moving (at least until you get close to Lake Pend Orielle).

Right beside the bridge is a nice parking area that can easily accommodate two cars. We were not the first to think of putting in there. A truck had already parked and was long gone down the creek by the time we got there. It turned out that our fellow boater was one of Brenton’s Co-workers, but that’s another story.

We scouted the best path to portage before we inflated the kayak. There’s nothing worse than getting all set up to go only to find out that you can’t get into the water because the bank is too steep. We had to hug the fence a bit to carry the kayak down to the waters edge, but we made it. The bank was a bit steep.

I went into the water first and WOW it was cold. We are still getting some spring melt from the mountains. The rocks were slick with alge and I thought I was going to take a swim once or twice as we were trying to get all situated.

We managed to get into the boat and head down the creek with no major events. Brenton paddled most of the way, I was just there to help around a few rough spots. It’s a good route for inexperienced paddlers, a few shallow places, a little bit of a current, but nothing too intense. Mostly the route is just flat, slow moving water.

It’s spring around here so we saw lots of goslings and ducklings. I have to say the ducklings are cuter than the goslings. We saw a long boardwalk along sand creek that was getting pretty old and decrepit.

As I was looking at the boardwalk, I thought about another time in Sandpoint, ID. This town has always revovled around the lake and water. Whether it was the timber industry or the tourism industry, Lake Pend Orielle is at the heart of Sandpoint.