Cross Country Trip (Day 2)

During my trip the weather was perfect going east.  Things changed a bit coming back home and I'll write about that later.

Day 2 of the trip was an early start to the "Blues" on the Wallowa Lake Highway.
After turning north on the Lewiston Highway I made a breakfast stop at a small rest stop overlooking the valley.

Rest Stop Views

The next stop a bit further down the highway was a beautiful overlook that looked down the the Oregon - Washington border.  It was a very steep drive and I kept the van in low gear all the way down.

View Toward Washington State

It was along this section of Washington highway 129 That I found the beautiful field of flowers.

Wildflowers Along Highway 129

It was this stretch of Highway 129 where I had to photograph things through an open window while driving as I had trucks behind me with no good place to pull off.

In Motion Photography

Descending down into the cities of Clarkston, Washington and Lewiston, Idaho separated by the Snake river on Hwy 129 and the many hairpin turns.  The Snake river is the border between Washington and Idaho.  I was recalling that I did customer training in Lewiston many years ago.  I found it to be a very nice small town.

Looking Down On Two Cities

There was a point on this trip that I wanted to head farther north to the Palouse area of Washington. It is a beautiful place to capture wonderful photographs of the rolling hills of green and I had to make a decision.  I decided not to take that fork in the road as I can always take the day trip up there some other time and I needed to keep on a schedule to give me time to see points that I felt were more interesting.

There is a popular overlook that many stop at along Hwy 95 to photograph the valley and I did also but looking west in this photo.

The Hwy 95 Overlook

While driving up Hwy 95 I noticed off to the right some beautiful green hills not unlike those that I hoped to photograph in the Palouse.  I pulled off and started to take photos and found this barn that was very interesting.  The satellite view is not as beautiful as the landscape photograph I was able to capture. 

A bit further down the country road there were some more interesting subjects.

I have to convey that my camera does not have GPS to show where these photos were taken.  I'm using both Google Maps and my memory of the route I traveled to zero in on the exact locations.  So far so good.

There is a big geographic photographic gap between this point and my eventual destination of West Glacier National Park simply because of a very bad thunderstorm.. that one time when the weather didn't afford me good photography options.
I traveled along Route 2 in Idaho driving through Sandpoint and Libby and it is along this route that I took these photos of Loon Lake that sits along the highway.

Loon Lake 2016

In October 2008 I stopped to photograph the lake in this same location during a lifting fog that added a very warm glow that I have yet to capture again on any lake.

Loon Lake 2008