My fatwa for Peggy to drive down the west side of the Pend Oreille River the other day was probably not the direction as navigator that I should have given. Today we got on US-2 to Newport, across the river into Idaho and immediately north on what was initially LeClerc Road which follows the east bank of the river. It was a better decision today.
This road runs basically parallel with WA-20 which is on the west side of the river. Our trip up 20 a few days ago was very nice but the really good stuff started north of Ione. Today our trip up LeClerc Road gave us a completely different view of the Pend Oreille River and it was great. LeClerc runs very close to the river in many spots and passes through mixed conifer/hardwood forests and some very pretty farm country.
About 25 miles down the east shore we came across a state exhibit of something called Manresa Grotto. We pulled over, parked and bailed out of the truck for a hike up a dirt path to a wossname. The Grotto turned out to be three sizable caves, the middle one the shallowest. The cave to the right was pretty fair sized – maybe about the size of a hotel room. The cave on the left had two entrances and is about the volume of a two bedroom house. It also had a spectacular view of the Pend Oreille River running through the emerald bottom land.
The caves are worth the short walk but, unfortunately, many inconsiderate jerks have been nice enough to augment the natural beauty with carved and painted graffiti throughout the cave surfaces. Some guy probably sporting a bright white scalp and many amateurish tattoos has provided a nice black swastika painted on the column between caves. I believe the caves were initially used by Native Americans mostly because the Grotto is on the Kalispell Indian Community lands.
We continued north from the Grotto through beautiful country. Peg spotted some wild turkeys and we spotted some waterfowl but we saw no bigger game on the road going north. There are many ordinary houses that have been embellished by the residents and the results are great. No two houses are the same. There are a few places along the road where the resident is the type of person who likes to keep everything he has ever owned and displays them for neighbors and passersby to appreciate. These guys seem to exist nationwide. The gorgeous scenery all along the rest of the road makes up for the few hideous junkyards.
At Ione we turned around by crossing the Pend Oreille and turning south on WA-20 until we got to Usk. Usk really is more an intersection than a town and we crossed back over the river toward Idaho and backtracked south on LeClerc Road until we came to US-2. After some poor navigation by today’s navigator (his name rhymes with head), we were able to find our way to ID-41 south to a place I think was called Tweetie. We turned west and back out of Idaho and into Washington for about the third time today. We sort of took a northwest direction from there on paved roads, except in the long sections with washboard gravel surfacing, on our way back to Diamond Lake and the Little Diamond Campground which is not on Diamond Lake. We had completed our loop for today and were almost home when a fawn tried to commit suicide by smashing into our radiator while we were moving along at about 50. Eagle-eyed Peggy spotted the almost doomed creature in time to apply the brakes. The guy tailgating us had a more difficult time and followed afterwards at a much greater distance.
It was a great tour today. I would suggest to all interested that the scenery on the east bank of the Pend Oreille is better than that on the west side in the area around Newport and points north. The area around Lake Sullivan is beautiful and the road there starts at the end of LeClerc Road in Ione.
We took a couple pictures during today’s wonderful drive and you can see a few of them by clicking here