Our inflatable kayak is a well-inspected water craft. We had to have it inspected when we entered the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, and now again in Montana, USA. At each place we got a certificate of inspection that is supposed to be in the boat when we are on the water.
Our stop at the wildlife refuge yesterday in Bonner's Ferry didn't result in seeing any wildlife. But the helpful ranger gave great travel advice. She recommended the route we are taking today so we can stop to see two great Montana roadside attractions. Our first stop is in a parking lot large enough for the motor home at Kootenay Falls.
The picture above is the normal view that most people will see with this stop. It's a good hike all the way down to the river, and Denisa is that red dot standing a respectable distance from the powerful waterfalls. But of course, Mark usually likes to get as close to the waterfall as possible. He managed to climb onto the rocks to the right, and you can see him as the small blue dot beside the smaller waterfall in the picture below.
But then he saw that a little rock hopping . . .
would get him right beside the big waterfall.
Then he could take the close-up picture of Kootenay Falls that the normal tourist doesn't see.
So Denisa still stays the normal distance away from the water, so she can take the pictures of her abnormal travel partner.
A new walking bridge across the Kootenay River was just completed last month, so we went to check it out.
We were surprised to see that the old suspension bridge has already been removed. After walking across it with a group of junior high boys, we can report that the new bridge seems very strong and can withstand a good amount of running and bouncing.
While we stood beside the bridge talking to some locals, we witnessed an osprey dipping into the water and coming out with a fish in his talons. We turned the camera in that direction to get this blurry white dot of a bird with another blurry thrashing fish under him. It's hard to see, but it's right in the middle of the picture below. Not exactly wildlife photography at its best?!?
We appreciated the ranger's advice for that stop. It was a great roadside attraction! Now we loaded up into the motor home for our second stop of the day. That will be Ross Creek Giant Cedars, a few more miles down the road. Traveling in a motor home takes a little more planning, as Mark had to find a place big enough to park and leave it. Then we unhooked the car for the last four miles of winding narrow road down to the old-growth cedar forest.
This forest of 500-year-old cedar trees was a cool place to hike--in more ways than one. As we entered into these tall canopies, the temperature dropped ten degrees. This is a nice level one-mile trail that took us to some interesting trees. The tallest tree in this grove is 175 feet tall! Some times we found twins . . .
and even triplet trees.
We even found hollow tree trunks still standing at Ross Creek forest.
A dry creek bed in the forest has become a forest of rock cairns.
Denisa added a few rocks to the cairns herself.
We have truly wandered into more than one of God's wonders today! After wandering around looking up at the tops of those tall trees, it was nice to sit down and rest our necks.
This was another great Montana roadside attraction on our trip today. With two stops, our 90-mile trip from Bonner's Ferry to Trout Creek took all day. We checked into a great site at the Trout Creek Motel and RV Park--another half-price Passport America find. We like these locally-owned campgrounds that usually provide us full-hook-ups at a very affordable price. We are now camped in the shade of some very big trees here as well.
The campground owners have run this place for 16 years, and they provided good advice for our three-day stay in Trout Creek. They had first-hand knowledge about even more of Montana's best roadside attractions.
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