Today we ventured out and did a beautiful loop around Lake Coeur D'Alene (pronounced CORE-DA-LANE). We headed south on SR-27 to Rockford then on to Plummer on SR-278. All beautiful rolling hills, some wheat fields that eventually break into lightly forested hills. Just past Plummer we started driving along the southern most edge of Lake Coeur d'Alene through the Heyburn State Park. Very scenic, when we could catch glimpses of the lake through the trees. We made a quick stop at Rocky Point then were back on the road.
Rocky Point, Heyburn State Park
After exiting Heyburn State Park we wound our way through St Maries (pronounced St Marys), the county seat of Benewah County. St Maries sits at the junction of two rivers, the St Maries and the St Joseph. Due to the abundant marshlands, and the cool nights & warm days of Northern Idaho, St Maries produces hundreds of thousands pounds of wild rice. The rice is harvested with an airboat, see the photo below (from www.wildriceonline.com/).
From there we headed north on SR-3 through the tiny little town of Harrison and on to Coeur d'Alene. About the only wildlife we saw were a family of wild turkeys crossing the road - two adults and three babies, very cute!
