I’ve not done much blogging for the past week, mainly because I’ve been working with some pictures from our trip around the International Selkirk Loop. Navigate to the picture album and I’ve put up several picture collections from the trip. I’ve at least one more set that I want to do of miscellaneous pictures. Maybe that’ll get done tonight and maybe not! I’ve got a new blog to get started for a favorite family member. More on that in a future post.

While we were on the trip, Nina remarked several times that the fridge didn’t seem to be keeping things very cold. We had a thermometer in the fridge that was registering between 40 and 50 degrees, in the acceptable range, but Nina’s temperature sense told her that wasn’t right. I tend to believe devices and gadgets. She tends to go on experience and in this case, the experience was right. When we got home, she brought the temperature gauge from the motor home fridge and put it in the house refrigerator. It said that our refrigerator was set at 20 degrees, definitely incorrect. So, I took the motor home in for service. They called to say that the control unit was not working correctly and a new replacement was about $1,000. I asked if they could please look to find a reconditioned unit. They’ve located one which is about half the price of the new unit. We will get the motor home back sometime late this coming week. That means we won’t be going anywhere in the motor home for another week or so.

The first camping trip of the year always brings out a list of things we should have brought with us on the trip. This one was no exception with the screen tent topping the list. When the motor home gets back, we’ll do some repacking to make sure the items we want to have with us are packed.

Also on the trip we were checking out gas mileage. Driving on the freeway around 55 mph towing the Tracker yielded mileage of around 9.2 miles per gallon. Based on the gasoline prices, that came out to be about $0.47 a mile just for gasoline. As I remember, we get about a half-mile more to the gallon without towing the tracker (we’ll be checking that out in a couple of weeks). Most of the time when we’re on long trips, we just tow the tracker without really using it except when we get to our destination. The plan is to take a couple of somewhat local trips without towing the tracker and see how that works as well as what mileage we get. It may be we can leave the tracker home and if necessary, rent a car at our destination. We’ll see how all that works out.

Future planned trips include going up to Spencer, Idaho (probably taking granddaughter Danielle with us) to an opal mine, a few days in Yellowstone Nat’l Park, a trip to Craters of the Moon Nat’l Monument, and perhaps fossil hunting near Delta, Utah or geode hunting near Dugway, Utah (we’ll probably want the Tracker with us for that one).

We arrived home about 9 p.m. this evening. We stopped in Blackfoot for dinner which made us a little later than I expected. The motor home is pretty much unloaded and most things have been put away. Email is checked, Twitter read, family blogs checked, so it’s time for a shower and bed. Happy 4th of July!

This morning we broke camp in Crawford Bay, British Columbia, loaded the motor home (towing the Tracker) onto the ferry, and made our way through Nelson and Salmo, across the border into the U.S., and then south through Metaline, Usk, Cusack, Newport, and into a campground on the outskirts of Post Falls, Idaho.

As we drove south the scenery changed and became much more like what we have around us normally in Idaho and consequently, less interesting. We bypassed the planned campground and a couple of others as they were just too rural. There was also no cell phone service and no internet service. That was just too isolated. So Nina went through the campground directory and found this reasonably nice campground in Post Falls, Idaho. We’ll be here tonight and tomorrow night and will start back home on Friday morning, the Fourth of July.

The border crossing back into the US was quite different than last Friday when we left the US and entered Canada. Going into Canada, the agent asked us where we were going and how long we were going to be there. He wanted to know if we had anything we planned to leave behind in Canada. After writing down the license plate number and entering it into his computer, we proceeded into the country.

Coming back home, however, was significantly more complicated. In addition to a series of questions, the agent went through the motor home and the tracker, had me open all the compartments so he could check them out, spent quite a while on the computer entering information, and then sent us on our way. We were there about twenty minutes. This must be Department of Homeland Security at work.

We’re glad to be in the land of $4 a gallon gasoline prices, though. It’s also nice to be in an area where we can quickly get to a store if we need something. That was never the case where we were staying in Canada! The local store closed at 6 p.m. in the evening.

We’re having a grand time and Nina’s now making a list of the things we need to make sure come with us on our next adventure. We’re also talking about where we want to go next and how soon we can make the trip. This has been a lot of fun!

We have really enjoyed our time on the Canada side of the International Selkirk Loop. On our way back to the motor home after a full day of sightseeing, we started listing the things we really liked about this part of our visit. Here’s my list:

* Going to Church at the Kootenay Lake Branch. It was a great experience and one that we will remember for a very long time.

* Riding the ferry across from Kootenay Bay to Balfour and back. So far we’ve made three round trips and tomorrow we’ll take the motor home (towing the tracker) across. The ferry is “free” (paid for out of gasoline taxes) which is a good thing as most of the places to go were on the other side of the lake.

* Visiting the Glass House, a house constructed from empty embalming fluid bottles. It was definitely one of the most quirky things we’ve seen in quite a while.

* All the really little villages along the route. We have really enjoyed these little towns and Kaslo is a particular favorite. These little towns have real character and charm.

* The really friendly people. Everywhere we’ve been the people have been friendly and helpful. They also have an accent that’s fun to listen to.

* The waterfalls. Along our drives have been an abundance of waterfalls. There have been so many, in fact, that Nina finally got enough pictures of waterfalls for this part of the trip.

* The mining towns. We’ve stopped at a couple of old mining towns and have learned some of the history of the mining past in this area. I had no idea that there have been so many silver, lead, zinc, and gold mines in this area and many are still operating.

* The rock murals in Salmo. These were very interesting murals and pictures will eventually show up in the picture album from our stop in that town.

* Mars candy bars. For some reason, we don’t have these candy bars in the United States. The Mars Caramel bar is especially good.

* Much cooler temperatures than in Pocatello. The high temperatures here have been in the mid to upper 80’s. In Pocatello they’ve been in the mid to upper 90’s. I like these temperatures better right now, although I suspect in the winter it gets to be bitter cold here.

* The much longer daylight. We’re about four hundred miles north of Pocatello and the sun is up at least an hour longer than at home. That means more time to play before I realize how late it is.

There are probably many more things, but I’m tired and the fireworks are going off not far from here. It’s time to publish this and pay attention to other interesting things.

According to the meetinghouse locater on lds.org, the closest meeting to Crawford Bay was in Riondel, a very small hamlet about twenty minutes further north on the east side of Kootenay Lake. The first meeting was Sacrament Meeting scheduled for 10 a.m.

We arrived about five minutes before the scheduled start time. There were three other cars in the parking lot, all pulled up under the trees behind where I’m standing to take this picture. We went inside and found a small chapel to the left with a fellow at the Kawai piano/organ, two women, and one other brother. A short time later another sister and another brother (unrelated to each other) showed up. That was the entire congregation: eight adults. According to the woman who is the Relief Society President, their normal attendance is eight to ten people, but the Branch President and his wife were out of town. Sacrament meeting ended about 10:50 and Sunday School started at 11 for almost an hour. Because it was the 5th Sunday of the month, Priesthood and Relief Society were combined. So, both Nina and I sat in the same seats for the entire three-hour block.

The members were very friendly and outgoing. The discussion in Sunday School and in Priesthood / Relief Society was lively and everyone participated. After the meeting, Nina gathered everyone together so she could take their picture on the front steps of the building. That picture will make it onto her blog or into her picture album at some time in the future. After the meeting we wandered around the grounds taking pictures of the wildflowers. Nina visited with a couple of the sisters for quite a while after the meeting as well. As best we could determine, there was only one couple there (we made the second couple). The other two brothers and two sisters were there by themselves.

This has to be the smallest Branch I’ve ever attended. I was in some smaller meetings in Vietnam, but those weren’t branches but rather Servicemen Groups. We had a great time and will long remember our visit to the Kootenay Lake Branch in Riondel, British Columbia.

After Church and lunch at our motor home, we boarded the 2:50 p.m. free ferry across Kootenay Lake and took a short drive north on the west side of the lake. We caught the 5:20 p.m. ferry back to the east side and came back to the motor home for dinner and to catch up on Internet things. I’ve downloaded my pictures and have put some more into the picture album. Tomorrow we’ll cross on the ferry once again and do some more sightseeing on that side of the lake including some time in Nelson, BC, probably the largest community in this region at about 10,000 souls.

We learned after arriving here that July 1st is “Canada Day“, somewhat akin to our Fourth of July. That means most businesses and such will be closed on Tuesday. We’re making some adjustments in our plans to accommodate that unexpected holiday.