Exploring Pend Oreille County

When I went away last weekend I had a few adventures and I’ve been struggling between deciding if the moment has passed or if I should still share plus this week has flown by and felt strangely busy.  I had some time tonight so I thought I would share one of my adventures.

After spending last Thursday in a casino my mom decided Friday we needed to get out of the house and do something.  Our goal was Crawford State Park, located about 2 hours North from us.  It’s a beautiful scenic drive and I loved spending the time with my mom.  It was a relaxing day with plenty of photographic pit stops.

                             

The highlight was Sweet Creek Falls rest area…yes, rest area but a nice rest area with trails to hike.  We’ve lived around that area for years and years but neither of us even knew this place existed.  We first went down to the lower falls.

then hiked up higher.  There was one more trail that went higher but we decided to not overdo it.  My mom’s had 2 knee replacements so it was awesome she could walk as far as we did.  We definitely decided we were going to come back to check out the higher trail.  The trail to the falls wasn’t very long or steep.  If you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods this is a perfect side stop with clean restrooms (always a bonus on a road trip in the middle of nowhere).  It was a nice, well-maintained trail with picnic benches all along the way, perfect place for a picnic.

The trail was not as dangerous as the sign would have led us to believe.  We played in a cave (I’m kind of a dork 🙄 ).  I took tons of pictures of the waterfalls.

              

Our journey did not end at the falls.  We continued on with the plan to eat lunch in one of the small towns along the way but we shortly discovered these towns are ghost towns most of the time except for in the summer when they becoming thriving tourist locales.  Metalline has a population under 200 so in the off months the towns are quiet.  Thankfully a small shop was open so we grabbed some huckleberry ice cream (I had a moment thinking about all the sugar but it was worth it).  Yum!

This and a couple bottles of water were enough to sustain me for awhile but I was so hungry.  I was kind of surprised at how hungry I was but I guess my body is getting used to this 3 meals a day thing.

The end goal of our journey was Crawford State Park, home to Gardner Caves, one of the 3rd longest limestone cave in Washington.  We knew the caves didn’t open until May but we read about a place you could hike with a picnic bench right along the Canadian border so we were excited to check it out.  We figured even if the caves were closed the park must be open…..we were wrong.  As you can see by the very sad picture below the park was closed 😦 so we took a few sad pictures in front of the closed sign, turned around, and headed for home.

Our final stop was a wildlife viewing area with no wildlife but more beautiful views.  I might have mentioned before that I’m trying to get more people pictures when I’m out on these excursions.  I tend to focus on the landscapes but I love to have photographs of the people who join me on my adventures.

That’s my lovely mother hanging out on a bench (Hi Mom, Hope you don’t mind I shared this pic 🙂 ).  It was a nice drive and despite the rain clouds looming over us half the time turned out to be a great day to explore.

I hope to have more pictures up on my photo blog but I’ve been taking pictures at such an insane rate it’s become a bit overwhelming.  Between this trip, a few walks, and 2 trips to the arboretum I think I’ve taken close to 1,000 pictures over the last week

I love taking pictures but with so many pictures it becomes challenging to sort through them all to edit, delete, and pick my favorites.  My goal is to go through these last couple batches by the end of next week but we’ll see how it goes.

Hope you guys enjoy the pics!