Rivers, bridges & railroads

This post has a lot of photos -I'm too tired to write much but don't want to get too far behind, either. I made it to Canada today, hurray! To another RV campground with wi-fi in the tent section. I know that in fact there's a big issue of the lack of access to high-speed internet in rural areas, so it's especially strange (but useful) to find it here in my tent.

I laughed when I looked at my pictures from today, because so many of them were of rivers that I crossed over... it was a really lovely, scenic day. I found it harder to capture the presence of trains all over northern Idaho - it's really been amazing, since Coeur d'Alene I've been riding next to railroad tracks, and there are trains on them constantly, all day and all night. I didn't realize how active they were/are in these parts. (I can't tell what they're hauling, just boxcars of "freight.")

The big action of the day (well, besides riding) was watching storms pound the mountains to the north - the direction I was riding in. I was "prepared" for rain, with covers on my panniers and a clear sense of the order of things to protect (1. camera, 2. the rest of me), but I wasn't liking it, and it looked really intense. Turned out it *was* intense - pouring rain & hail - but it stayed to my north all day and by evening it cleared up quite nicely.

The small action was realizing I'd left my bank/ATM card someplace - I called the bike shop in Sandpoint and sure enough, they had it. I really liked those people but dang, I have many bad memories of needing to interact with them! Fortunately they did have it and are mailing it to me in Montana; and fortunately I have a credit card I can use to get cash... but what a pain! And how dumb! And... what next?!

Well, getting up at 6am and riding some more: a day-ride farther north, to catch sight of Kootenay Lake (and then come back to this same campground). It's nice to be able to get up & go without having to pack up (and carry) all my stuff...

This RV park has a lot of us tenting tonight, including some other folks on bikes. I had a great dinner conversation with the woman next to me, a nurse from near Edmonton who's planning to retire here and is visiting to check it out. She shared some chicken with me and we chatted about health care, retirement, and politics in general. Canada's been moving to the right along with the US and its national health plan is actually in a bit of peril right now - which I didn't know. Dang, where are we supposed to go, now?!

Well, to bed...