Подмосковные вечера

Не слышны в саду даже шорохи,
Всё здесь замерло до утра.
Eсли б знали вы, как мне дороги
Подмосковные вечера.

In the garden, not a sigh is heard
All is gently stilled 'till the dawn
If you only knew what they mean to me,
These peaceful Moscow nights
  -- Mikhail Matusovsky, translated by blokh

For a beautiful version of the song, Moscow Nights, sung in Russian, but with an English translation on the screen, click here.  Or to hear the song the way it was introduced to American audiences at the height of the Cold War in 1962, here's the Chad Mitchell Trio's version.  Awfully gutsy of them to sing it in Russian, don't you think?  But the trio started out as a group of singers from Gonzaga University, and Spokane isn't all that far from Moscow, after all.

Sunday morning, November 15th, I got out of bed with Kevin saying, "If you're going with me, you'd better hurry up."  He wouldn't say where he was going, but I'm not one to turn down a road trip, and in this case, I suggested a few places I'd like to see, including the east side of Lake Coeur d'Alene and the town of Moscow in neighboring Idaho.  Knowing that when Kevin makes up his mind to hit the road, there's no time to lose, I forewent my morning coffee and breakfast, showered, dressed, and grabbed my camera and Idaho highway atlas, and jumped in the passenger seat of Kevin's truck.

Now don't get the idea that I did without breakfast.  I knew that Kevin would be stopping at the Conoco station in town, and that's the best place to get breakfast on a Sunday morning in Plains, Montana.  So, after eggs, hashbrowns, sausage and coffee, we headed out for Paradise, St. Regis, and Interstate 90 heading west.  The weather was warm, for mid November, and Lookout Pass was clear.  We turned off I-90 at Idaho exit 22, turning south on Idaho Highway 97 to follow along the eastern shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene.    This is not a speed way.  There are places where the suggested speed was 20 mph and Kevin said that was too fast for his F350.  He remarked repeatedly that the highway department must hate plowing this road.  We could catch glimpses of the lake, and the occasional marina, but no good photo ops presented themselves (partly because of the overcast sky and dull light), with one exception.  We passed one turn out where I could not only see the lake below clearly, but even saw a speedboat leaving an "s"-shaped wake behind it.  A perfect photo, missed.  That was the one that got away.

The Harrison Community Baptist Church

Harrison, Idaho

11/15/15

Near the southern end of the lake sits the town of Harrison.  With a population of 203, it was one of the larger towns we drove through.  Well, actually we stopped.  Kevin wanted to pick up some snacks at the Trading Post and I took advantage of the delay to snap some photos, including the church shown above.  It was Sunday, after all.

South of Harrison, Idaho 97 merged with Idaho 3, the road I had taken a couple of weeks earlier, and we drove on into, and ultimately through St. Maries.  There were some pictures I wanted from that town, things I had seen on my earlier trip, but not photographed, so we took the time to visit the town's rail yard.  Last trip I had seen a locomotive and a caboose bearing the name of the St. Maries River Railroad, a name I had not heard before.  We were able to find the caboose easily enough, but the locomotive eluded us.  I can't believe it had been moved as none of the rolling stock we saw appeared to have budged even an inch in the last twenty years.  But while on the prowl, we stopped long enough for me to photograph the station.  Originally built in 1908 by the Milwaukee Road, the station apparently was a great disappointment to the people of St. Maries.  If you look at the stations the Milwaukee has left in places like Missoula, Butte, and Great Falls, Montana, you will find beautiful buildings, easily among the most visually interesting pieces of architecture in those cities.  This is, I gather, what the locals expected in St. Maries.  You can see below what they got, but hey, the building was built in 1908, and the 1910 census counted 869 people in St. Maries.  Talk about Great Expectations!

The St. Maries River Railroad Station

(Formerly the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Station)

St. Maries, Idaho

11/15/15

Leaving St. Maries, we continued south on Idaho Highway 3, passing through Santa and Fernwood, as I had two weeks previously, but then we crossed back into Shoshone County, passing the town of Clarkia, the south-western most town in the county.  Boy do these folks have a long way to drive to get to their county seat--and they have to pass through two other counties before getting there.

A few miles further south, we crossed into Latah County, heading toward the town of Bovill and Idaho Highway 8 which would take us into Moscow.  About the time we crossed the line, Kevin noted that he was hungry.  By our watches it was almost 1:30 and breakfast had been several hours earlier.  I said I didn't know whether we'd find any place to eat in the few small towns ahead of us, but Kevin was willing to wait for Moscow.  Bovill, population 260, was founded by an Englishman named Hugh Bovill, who started ranching, then built a hotel with a store and post office.  As the town grew, according to Wikipedia, it became too wild for Hugh who took his wife and daughters to more civilized climes.  There is a building in Bovill on the National Historic Register, but I didn't see it.  I did see the building below, which I thought was a church, until I read the sign in front of the structure.  Back at home, with the internet at my disposal, I learned that the White Family Heritage Library was originally St. Joseph's Catholic Church, but the building was purchased and refurbished through gifts, largely from the family of Grace White Ryan who had grown up in Bovill.  The name on the sign made me think this might be a genealogical library, but according to the web, it is actually the Bovill branch of the Latah County Library District.

The Bovill Branch Library

Formerly St. Joseph's Catholic Church

Bovill, Idaho

11/15/15

Halfway between Bovill and Moscow, we passed through the town of Troy.  On the west side of town, up a steep hill from the highway, we saw a huge building that looked abandoned.  I had Kevin drive around the building, and I feel I can be excused for thinking at first that this was some sort of Roman Catholic institution.  Crosses in the United Methodist Church generally have three letters inscribed on them  "IHS," which we are taught stands for "In His Service," but actually is a stylized way of putting Jesus on the cross--a crucifix as it were, without the naked body.  And the I is often larger than the H and S, and placed between them, HIS.  Next to the ornate, two story brick building seen below was a greenish quonset hut shaped building with a monogram on the end.  HTS  It finally hit me that I was looking at a capital T, not a cross or the I of my youth, but rather the monogram of Troy High School.  And sure enough, this morning I called the Troy School District and learned that the building below was the former Junior/Senior High School, replace by a new structure in 2003.  I was also informed that the building is now owned by a private party.  Whether that party has plans for the structure, I have no idea.  With a total school population of 262 (including elementary, junior and senior high students), it's hard for to imagine how children ever filled this institution.

The Former Junior/Senior High School

Troy, Idaho

11/15/15

Ten miles west of Troy lies the city of Moscow, home of the University of Idaho.  Established as the territory's land-grant college in 1899 (Idaho became a state in 1890), the school has grown into a prestigious institution of higher education.  With nearly 12,000 students, the school is smaller than its cross state rivals Boise State and Idaho State (22,000 and 15,000 students respectively), but the faculty and students have an advantage in Washington State University, less than 10 miles away in Pullman, Washington.  The question that Kevin and I both had, and for which I have so far been unable to find a truly satisfactory answer, is why Moscow?  According to Wikipedia (and we all know that we can trust everything we read in that cyberpublication, right?) Moscow was chosen as home to the new institution as a sop to northern Idaho residents when Washington statehood approached in 1889.  Feeling closer to Washington than to Boise, residents of the northern panhandle tried to break off from Idaho territory and join with Washington.  "Here, if you stay with us, you can have a University," I hear the politicians saying.  And why Moscow?  Because, again according to Wikipedia, it was the second largest community in the territory at the time.  I have no way of corroborating this as the 1890 census figures for Moscow are missing.  By 1900, Moscow was, indeed, the second largest community in the new state, with just a few more residents than Lewiston, and half the population of Boise, but in 1880, Moscow counted 97 residents.  It must have grown a lot if it was second to Boise by 1889.

Be that as it may, by the time we reached Moscow, we were both hungry.  My main reason for coming to town was to take a photo of the Latah County Courthouse, but we were both so hungry that we decided to have lunch (at 2:30 local time) before seeking out the local administrative building.  Yelp suggested that most restaurants were on South Main, and I learned what a poor navigator I was in that I kept telling Kevin where I felt we needed to go, but he chose other routes.  Eventually we ended up on South Main and parked outside one of the places written up on Yelp, Maialina Pizzeria Napoletana.  Pizza's a safe choice, right?  Well, the three sheets of menu that we were given listed several offerings, none of which came at all close to Kevin's choice of meat lovers.  After consulting with our waitress, we decided to leave Maialina in search of something Kevin could eat.  Walking up one side of South Main, and back down the other, we ended up at La Casa Lopez where I had perhaps the best mole poblano I've eaten.  Unfortunately, Kevin ordered a burger which left a lot to be desired.  But then, who orders a burger in a Mexican restaurant?

By the time we finished lunch, it was getting dark.  Yes, we're moving toward winter.  Dusk at 3:30?  So be it.  We found the court house and I took my pictures.  There are many beautiful buildings in Moscow, Idaho, maybe not as colorful as St. Basil's Cathedral in that other Moscow, but still gorgeous examples of architecture.  Unfortunately, the Latah County Court House is not one of them.

We left town on US 95 heading north, then east on I-90 from Coeur d'Alene.  All told I took 65 photographs in the course of the day.  We got home around 8:30, roughly eleven hours after we left.  I didn't keep track of the miles we added to Kevin's odometer.   Because I've posted so many landscapes, I felt it best to concentrate on some of the interesting architecture we saw on this drive.  Stay tuned for more adventures on the road and off.

Donkey Riding

Willamette Steam Donkey Engine

John Mullan Park

St. Maries, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

Were you ever off the Horn
Where it's always nice and warm
Seeing the lion and the unicorn
Riding on a donkey

This version of the song comes close to the way I learned the song a million years ago.

The line separating the states of Idaho and Montana starts at the Canadian Border just west of 116 degrees west longitude, proceeds approximately 72 miles due south, to just south of the Clark Fork River, then follows the Bitterroot Mountains ridge line for the next 355 miles and the Continental Divide for the remaining 312 miles (totaling 739 miles).  Seven main highways cross this arbitrary line, from U.S. Highway 2 in the north to U.S. Highway 20 in the south.  All but two of these roads cross high mountain passes.  In addition there are seemingly countless minor roads crossing the line, including both of the passes I drove across yesterday (11/3/15).  Most of these minor roads are back country dirt roads, most likely put in by logging companies over the years.   Both of the roads I took yesterday were paved, at least in part.  Thompson Pass, southwest of Thompson Falls, was, for years, paved on the Montana side, but not on the Idaho side.  The second pass, which I'll call the Little Joe Pass (I'm sure it has a name, but it's not marked at the site, nor on any maps that I have readily available), is paved beautifully on the Idaho side, but most of the 17 miles on the Montana side is dirt/gravel, although exceptionally well packed down.

Leaving home around 9:30, a bit later than I would have liked, I set the car's navigation system to find the Benewah County (Idaho) Garage, one of three choices the car gave me for Benewah County.  Apparently, there are more than one such garages, because while I was trying to get to St. Maries, when I drove into that town, the navigation system told me I had many more miles to go before I reached the garage.  This was not the only time the nav system failed me.  Undoubtedly because most people prefer driving on the Interstate Highway System, the car tried to guide me east to Paradise, then south to St. Regis and Interstate 90.  This was not the way I had planned, so instead I headed west to Thompson Falls, then south and west across Thompson Pass and into Idaho.  I drove a good five miles west on Highway 200 before the car relented and routed me through Thompson Falls.  But even then, half-way up Prospect Creek, the car tried to get me to turn left and take a very rough dirt road up and over the mountains into Wallace, Idaho, instead of staying on the paved road I had chosen.  Twice more along the way, the car tried to get me into Wallace, when I was headed instead for Kingston, Idaho where I would finally meet up with the Interstate.  Now I know that Wallace is "The Center of the Universe" and at least until the 1980s the home of a well-known bordello, but I had no need to visit either on this trip, so I continually ignored the car's suggestions and followed the Coeur d'Alene River to Kingston, whence I hit I-90 and headed west into Kootenai County and the exit for Idaho Highway 3.

The impetus for this trip was to visit Benewah County, the county in North Idaho I knew the least.  In point of fact, while I had driven across the county twice (once north to south and once south to north on different highways), I had never actually stopped and gotten out of the car in that jurisdiction.  I also hoped to drive home along the St. Joe River, and I had no idea how long any of this would take, so I set my sights on the Benewah County line and didn't stop anywhere along the Coeur d'Alene, beautiful in its fall coloring, to take pictures.  Once off I-90, however, I stopped to study (and photograph) the information sign for the White Pine Scenic Byway, AKA Idaho Highways 3 and 6, which I would be driving for the next several hours.

I seem to have caught their attention

Rose Lake Elk Ranch

Rose Lake, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

Almost immediately after getting back on Highway 3, I passed a field filled with elk.  I did not realize, at the time, that this was a commercial elk ranch.  Indeed, the elk filled the fields the way cattle normally do, and apparently that is intentional.  While I do not approve of the commercial raising of these majestic animals, you can read more about the ranch on their web site.

A few miles further south, I pulled into a marked Scenic Turnout and admired (and photographed) the scene to the west, including what looked to be several miles of horse fencing (are we suddenly in Kentucky?), much grassland, water and mountains on the western horizon.

Kootenai County Ranch Land

Eastern Kootenai County, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

Back on Highway 3, I first entered the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation, then Benewah County.  As is the case for so many native reservations, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's land is now only a fraction of their aboriginal claims, and is located in southern Kootenai and western Benewah Counties.  Roughly half of Benewah County is within the reservation, but only 9% of the County's population claims to be Native.  The town of Plummer is the home of the tribal headquarters.  The tribe also operates a casino at Worley, north of Plummer in Kootenai County.  In 1991, the tribe sued the State of Idaho over ownership of Lake Coeur d'Alene, a trial that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court which dismissed the suit citing the Eleventh Amendment.  A subsequent suit against the state was initiated by the U.S. government, acting as trustee of Indian lands.  This time, the Supreme Court ruled against the state of Idaho.  While at the time, there was much controversy and, yes, fear, as to what the ruling would mean, in practice what has happened is that the Tribe has been instrumental in cleaning up the lake and the area rivers of mining waste from the Silver Valley.

After stopping for lunch in St. Maries, where I duly photographed the County Court House, I headed west on Idaho Highway 5 to Plummer, passing through Heyburn State Park, ostensibly the oldest state park in the Pacific Northwest.  Land taken, need I say, from the Coeur d'Alene Tribe.  There were a good many turnouts on the seventeen mile drive where I could stop and admire the scenery, but my photographs are all hampered by the trees that line the highway.  Or, I suppose you could say, the pictures are enhanced by the trees.

The Saint Joe River connecting Chatcolet Lake and Round Lake

Heyburn State Park, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

Once in Plummer, I headed south on U.S. Highway 95, which runs parallel to the Idaho/Washington State Line, passing by the town of Sanders (2 miles off the highway to the east), and through the town of Tensed.  I didn't have a chance (or didn't take the time) to ask a native if the town's name is one syllable or two.  South of Tensed, I passed De Smet, site of the Jesuit mission built after the Tribe left the area around Cataldo, where the same Jesuits who built St. Mary's and St. Ignatius Missions in Montana built the first mission in what is now Idaho.  (According to Wikipedia, Tensed started out as De Smet, but because of the nearby mission, which had its own post office, the town changed its name to Temsed--De Smet backwards--which the Post Office then mispelled.)  To the west, along the Washington State line, is Mary Minerva McCroskey State Park, Idaho's second largest.  This large section of Palouse was acquired and set aside by one man, Virgil T. McCroskey, who gave the land to the State of Idaho in 1955.  The State, however, chose to look this gift horse in the mouth, figuring that no one in his right mind would want to travel to remote northern Idaho (it was another twenty years before the state improved U.S. 95 to the point where it wasn't such a challenge to reach the area from the more populous southern part of the state).  Accordingly, the State accepted the gift only with the provision that Mr. McCroskey would single-handedly maintain the property, at his own expense, for the next fifteen years.  McCroskey, then 78 years old, agreed, and fulfilled his commitment, dying just weeks after the fifteen year period had passed.

Shortly after passing the road leading to McCroskey State Park, I passed three signs mounted on a single post.  The first announced that I was now leaving the Coeur d'Alene Reservation.  Below that was the sign saying that I was now entering Latah County, and below that, a sign warning that "Zoned County Bldg. Permits" were required, presumably in Latah County.  Not planning on doing any construction, I ignored this last notice, and continued south to the town of Potlatch, a company town built by Weyerhauser's Potlatch Lumber Company in 1905.  At its heyday, the mill at Potlatch was the largest white pine lumber mill in the world.  I photographed a couple of large buildings, one of which I have not been able to identify, the second of which has a sign out front stating that the building is the Town Hall for the city.  I also photographed the station for the Washington, Idaho and Montana Railway, a rail line that despite its name, apparently never reached Montana.

Everything an Ivy-League Man Needs

Princeton, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

Today, Potlatch is mostly a bedroom community for nearby Moscow, Idaho and Pullman, Washington, homes respectively of The University of Idaho and Washington State University.  When the town, and more importantly the railroad, was first built, the nearby stations were given the names of Ivy League Colleges, and shortly after turning north on Idaho Highway 6, I passed through Princeton, and five miles later, Harvard.  I'm not sure where Yale, Cornell and Purdue are (or more likely, were).  North of Harvard, I re-entered Benewah County, passing through the town of Emida, past another sign pointing, this time westward, to Sanders, and took a side trip to Santa and Fernwood.  Not seeing Mary Hartman, and not wanting to wait around for the talk show, I turned around short of the Shoshone County line, and headed back to St. Maries.  From there, I turned east onto Idaho 50, and followed the St. Joe River through a spectacular mountain valley, until the road turned north and climbed the Bitterroot Mountains, crossing into Montana 88 miles east of St. Maries.  At the pass, as noted above, the pavement ended, and most of the next seventeen miles were on hard packed dirt.  The best photo I didn't get was of the animal leading me down the mountain for quite a way.  He was easily taller than my car, and sported a very respectable rack of antlers.  I had no intention of scaring him (or more likely angering him), so I slowed down and followed at a respectful distance until he found a place to leave the roadbed.  It was too dark by this time to get a good look, let alone a photograph, and I can't say for sure, but there's only one animal that large in this part of the world.  Had to be a bull moose.  Need I say that my nav system did not like this route at all, and refused to give me an accurate reading of how much further I had to go--since I wasn't following the prescribed route.

But I was able to get some spectacular photos along the St. Joe, including the scene below which I captured shortly after crossing from Benewah into Shoshone County,   Coming round a bend, I saw ahead a blaze of color coming down out of a very cloudy sky.  I stopped to grab that partial rainbow, and a few miles later, stopped again to get this image of a double rainbow, almost complete.  I guess there's double the luck there.

Double the Luck

Southwestern Shoshone County, Idaho

November 3rd, 2015

I arrived home at 7 p.m., almost ten hours after leaving.  I drove approximately 400 miles, and shot 78 photographs.  I saw a lot of beautiful country, most of it new to me, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  The one thing I didn't do, was stop to hunt for geocaches.  I can eat up a lot of time doing that, and it was important to me that this be a day-trip only, not a several day trip.  This is something, as my readers know, I dearly love.  I need to find a way to afford more of these trips.