Day 05 - Ritzville, WA to Nelson, BC, Canada

Today was planned to be a somewhat short day so we slept in and rolled out around 10 am.

First place we rolled through was Spokane, Wa.  We stopped by the local Harley Dealer only to find that thier inventory was frozen and they could not sell or do anything. We encountered thier another dealership in the same state in Kennewick.  Evidaently there is another also owned by the same owner in another city and one of them will be closed.  Guess the big Harley buying boom is over....Dealships seem to be dropping like flies...

We did modify our trip just a bit to roll into Idaho to visit Lone Wolf HD (Figured they would have nice shirts..Then we got back on track by taking ID State Hwy North to WA Hwy 20 and WA Hwy 31to the Canadian Border.

Begining on WA Hwy 20 we were traveling on a Scenic Byway called the International Selkirk Loop.  Scenic is definately the word for it.  It follows a river and meanders ever upward into Canada.  Once there the loop continues by talking a ferry across a lake then downward back into Idaho.  We will be riding only a portion of the downward portion of the loop since we will turn off and travel across more of Canada to get to the Northern portion of Glacier NP (Called Waterton NP in Canada.

We entered Canada just below Nelson, British Columba. Stopping at the Best Western in Nelson (which had the best parking) I was very happy when the lady at the counter said I would get a lake view room!  Then a bit disappointed when it turned out the lake view is a sliver of the lake through houses and cables.

We did find Nelson to be a quaint town.  It seems it is popular to sit outside in what sort of look like sidewalk cafes.  But the sidewalk is between the setting area and the eatery...a little odd but it was a nice place to sit and enjoy some local foods and culture. 

Tomorrow we head to Waterton NP (Glacier NP).  It's about 300 miles...we've decided to get an early start so we can get there at a decently early hour. We will definately not have internet connection tomorrow night.  So I'll get back to blogging in a few days....  Type at you later!!

Note: as with yesterday I have upload some new pictures to http://picasaweb.google.com/BradnBev/Vacation2009