En route to Northern Idaho via Water

One of the turquoise gems of my childhood, the Payette Lake, was cold to the touch as I dipped a cheap piece of xerox paper into the water Thursday.  Other than a few boaters and families on the shore, it was calm and quiet. A distinguishing feature of this lake are the pine needles and minute pieces of bark that are now floating in my specimen bottle.

Slowly but surely a plan is formulating to take these photographs into the next realm, something to look forward to in Indiana.

[The above two images were taken in McCall at the park "downtown."]

After the snow melts, the water is rarely clear and I marveled at the fact that my brother and I swam at the Slate Creek Campground on the Salmon River on several occasions. It is roughly 20' closer to the shore than anything I remember in the past, flowing into the parking lot near the campsites.

Logs churned upstream in whirlpools. Grass that will undoubtedly die in July from lack of precipitation swayed in the murk along the shore.

  

Here is  the Clearwater River taken from Lewiston Hill; it is included so no one can ever accuse me of ignoring polluted bodies of water from areas that aren't located in the Midwest.  How could I ignore a river named Clearwater? The irony of its location next to a pulp mill (above) was never lost upon me.

Struggling without three hands while trying to take photographs through the binoculars with the iPhone is becoming an ongoing theme.

My cousin and I arrived in Coeur d'Alene in the evening. We wandered around the resort taking photographs on the iPhone. This was the lake we always drove past (because Pend Oreille was much better) but we did spend time at the resort once for my mother's insurance conference. These photographs are a reminder of that time period.

Soundtrack: Van Halen blasting on a lime green speedboat driven by two men straight out of the 1980s.

My attempt at making Northern Idaho look like I momentarily visited the Adriatic Sea.

View of the boardwalk from the bridge (standing above dozens of swallow nests).

My favorite photograph of the day: hotel art at the resort (I only documented the chocolate cake).