Day 2

Day 2, Monday, September 24, 2012

This morning we had to go back to the airport to get Heidi added on as a driver of our rental car. You both have to show up simultaneously in person, who knows why???

Then we headed for Coeur d'Alene, Idaho where we turned north toward Canada. Had lunch at The Badger's Den in Bonner's Ferry, just prior to crossing the border. Nothing special except there were funny license plates in there. Those photos are on my iPhone and no easy way to get them to the blog (that I know of anyway).

Once across the border, we had a bit of trouble finding 3A in Creston which was to take us around the right side of Kootenay Lake so we could take the ferry to the other side. This is part of the Sellkirk Loop drive. Anyway, we finally got ourselves sorted out. This morning we hadn't been able to enter Nelson, B. C. as a destination for our drive, but we discovered later that once in Canada, Mr. Garmin seemed to recognize things and could give us directions to our hotel in Nelson. Who knows with these electronic gizmos???

By the way, the road all the way to the border is under construction and there is very heavy traffic.

Scenery has been good, but it is very hazy. We're not sure if that is from all the forest fires in Washington or is due to a temperature inversion (it's been very hot here), or what the deal is, but it doesn't make for very good photo ops. Tomorrow is supposed to be the big scenery day on the way to Revelstoke, so we're hoping things will be clearer.

Anyway, we made it to Kootenay Bay in time to catch the 3:30 ferry. Here's a picture of the ferry coming to get us.

It's about 35 minutes on the ferry to the other side of the lake. From there, it's a short drive to Nelson. We're staying at the Hume Hotel, right downtown. It's an old hotel with a very creaky elevator. We have sort of a suite—we each have a separate bedroom with a queen bed and we share a bath. We brought out luggage up and then headed out to explore Nelson. Unfortunately, everything seems to close at 5:00 p.m., and I was really kind of disappointed. I had been led to believe from what I'd read that there were lots of artists' galleries and such on Baker Street. We did a little window shopping and discovered a nice cafe called the Main Street Diner which we decided to return to.

We then attempted to reach the river, but access is cut off by the railroad and all sorts of industrial stuff, too bad. We probably could have driven somewhere to access the trail that allegedly runs along the river, but we were not about to give up our parking space in the hotel's very small lot.

So we proceded back to our diner and ate a delicious dinner on their outdoor patio. I had a wonderful crab pita with loads of delicious crab and Heidi had an excellent Greek salad. On closer examination, we discovered the planters fencing in their dining area were their herb garden. A very pleasant spot.

Back to the hotel for desert. On our stroll on Baker Street, we found a bakery which had sinful-looking pastries in the window, so of course we just had to go in. Once in, we discovered they had Nanaimo bars. I've heard a lot about these, so we just had to get one to try. It was good, but pretty rich. We weren't able to finish the whole thing.

Another interesting thing we've discovered is that everyone takes US dollars at par. I paid my bank $1.07 for each of my Canadian dollars. Heidi was offered an exchange rate of 80 cents on the dollar in the Denver airport (which she declined). A shopkeeper told her she will buy her dollars at par if she wants to exchange some tomorrow. They seem to throw it all in the register and treat it all the same—I got change in mixed Canadian and American quarters. Maybe as we get farther into Canada, that won't be the case, but I'm kind of wondering why I paid a premium for my Canadian money.