Selkirk Loop, Part One

We left on our short trip Tuesday heading across Stevens Pass and into eastern Washington where the countryside is ablaze with wildfires.  Our first stop was a quilt store in Wilbur, Washington.  We had lunch at this very small town at Billy Burgers.  An outstanding burger if you're ever in Wilbur.

After traveling most of the day though hazy conditions we made it to the small town of Colville.  Actually, Colville is quite a big town complete with at Toyota and Chevrolet dealership, Safeway, Habitat Resource Store and tons of other smaller businesses and several fast food franchises.  If you enjoy hiking, fishing and hunting this is a perfect base to use when in the Okanogan region of the state. 

 

Haze all around us

Really good burgers

Small town quilt store

We left the next day to make a border crossing into Canada for our next destination.  As we approached the border both our phones beeped and we found ourselves forced to shut them off as we didn’t want to pay the big roaming or data fees the come with leaving the country.  The border crossing was a breeze and we started up the road.

Unfortunately, with no phone and no map we were kind of lost.  We had a basic idea of where we were headed but I wasn’t totally sure exactly how to get there.  Thankfully the region of Canada that we were in chose to put big maps up as billboards at certain interchanges on the route and we managed to make it to Nelson, the first city along our route north.  At the visitors center we got a map to help us with the remainder of our trip around the Lake Kootaney.

 

Beautiful Ferry

We drove north along the West Arm of the lake to a crossing at Balfour to board the free Provincial Ferry across the lake to Kootaney Bay.  The open deck ferry looks like it could manage 40 – 50 vehicles at each crossing.  It has restroom facilities and a small coffee shop that has sandwiches and other dessert type goodies.  With the way the crew stacks the cars on the deck, getting from one side to the other can be a challenge much like a corn maze.  The 35 minute trip was uneventful but the scenery was beautiful and the lake was crystal clear.

There isn’t much to see in Kootaney Bay.  We headed up the road from the ramp and I spotted a Quilt store sign so we turned and went to find it.  Down a short dirt road with lots of ruts over looking the lake we found a small building sitting off to the side of a pretty nice house on the hillside.  The shop sign said it was closed but a lady came running out of the house to see if Mia wanted to go in.  Daaaaaa!  Mia visited with her for several minutes while Honey and I once again spent quality time in the truck waiting.

Next stop, Crawford Bay.  But that is another story for tomorrow.  Hope all is well and thank for stopping by.