Sibling Assignment #151: The St. Joe Watershed

As InlandEmpireGirl put it, we are back rolling again on sibling assignments.  I gave this one and it's pretty simple:

"Write about a particular thing that happened on our Sibling Outing that was especially enjoyable.  If possible, include an image, but not required."

IEG's post is here and Silver Valley Girl's is here.   They both documented the Hobo Cedar Grove phase of our day (see below).

My sisters and I do our best whenever all three of us are in Kellogg to go on an outing without any other family members:  no kids, without our mother, no husbands, and without the Deke.  We realized a few years ago that when we saw each other, we were always with other family members (which we love), but we wondered if it might be fun to go out with our cameras and explore Spokane or go to Greenbluff or go up the North Fork of the Cd'A River by ourselves and just enjoy one another's company.

We've done it and it works.  We gab.  We tell stories.  We tell inside jokes.  We laugh.  We remember.  We have a great time.

Back on August 27th, Silver Valley Girl, InlandEmpireGirl and I set out from Kellogg and did the following:

• Ate breakfast at Sam's in Kellogg
• Drove over Moon Pass
• Stopped in Avery and poked around
• Drove the mean streets of Calder
• Stopped at the Marble Creek Interpretive Site, and learned about logging practices in the early 1900s
• Drove to Clarkia
• Left Clarkia to go the nearby ranger station to get a clearer idea of how to get to the Hobo Cedar Grove
• Drove to the Hobo Cedar Grove
• Walked an interpretive nature trail at the Hobo Cedar Grove
• Stopped at the liquor store in Fernwood
• Stopped at the liquor store in St. Maries (success -- grasshopper [aka grasshoppahs] to come
• Met Mom at the Mission Inn in Cataldo for dinner

I'd been looking forward to this outing for weeks, not only to spend time with my sisters, but also because I'd just read The Big Burn by Timothy Egan and I wanted to see this part of Idaho again, now with fresh knowledge of what happened when the Fire of 1910 swept through Wallace and the forests to the south.

In 1910, Avery was an especially important railroad stop as trains either descended out of the Bitterroots or ascended over the rugged mountains.

Today, in Avery, one of the attractions is a railroad car, giving visitors a chance to experience what the interior of a passenger car was like when train travel was popular.  Here's a picture of the car:

The interior was much more interesting to me, both because of what I could see about the level of luxury for train passengers and because the light coming through the windows and the shadows that resulted were fun to shoot pictures of.  I found myself trying to get good pictures of this interplay and I may or may not have done a very good job documenting what the insides of this train car looked like.  I don't know my pictures well enough to say if I succeeded in evoking much in the way I shot the light and shadows.  You see what you think:

I really enjoyed being in Avery.  It's remote.  It's pretty interesting, especially historically.  And there were all kinds of good subject for pictures there.  Here are a few more: