Day 2 - We enter Canada

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We left the Spokane area early this morning, making a short stop in Couer d'Alene, Idaho, at the Government Way Antique Store (named after the road it is located on, not their business philosophy!). Sheryl and I both like to shop antique stores along the way, me for railroad stuff and Sheryl for jigsaw puzzles. Sheryl found her first two buys today, but nothing for me so far.

We ran into lots of traffic heading north to Sandpoint and Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced Ponderay), as well as a fairly good string continuing on to Bonners Ferry. Once past there things thinned out pretty well. Crossed the border into Canada at Eastport around 12:30. Was a little tricky as we are driving a new car with no plates yet, so we had to produce sales and license documents to get through customs. But through we are. As we drove north out of Eastport we saw dozens of pieces of track maintenance equipment stashed in the yard area near Yahk, and saw them doing lots of track work. About 10 miles south of Cranbrook we passed a fairly large forest fire burning on the west side of Moyie Lake . Lots of emergency personnel presence and multiple planes and choppers in the air dumping water. Lots of smoke blowing north into Cranbrook.

We stopped in Cranbrook for lunch at a nice local brew pub, the Heid Out, located in downtown. They feature Fisher Peak Brewing product. Not the best we've encountered, but very drinkable. We were hoping to get to Lethbridge today, but with some of the traffic delays through the fire area and the extra time it took to get across the border, we only made it as far as Sparwood, which is a nice little town located right in the middle of the Canadian Rockies. Hope to make Regina tomorrow.

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Photos

Cranbrook Forest Fire
Looking west across the lake, the whole mountainside is burning.

Cranbrook Forest Fire 2
Here you can see one of the planes involved in fighting the fire. They load water from the adjacent Moyie Lake to dump. There were probably 6 planes in the air when we drove by.

Cranbrook brew pub
Located right downtown in Cranbrook. Great food, good beer, excellent service.

Cranbrook Railroad Mural
This mural is on the wall of the business right across the street from the brew pub.