Shoshone & Coeur d’Alene

Taking a break from bike rides, Ray, Judy, John and I played golf on a mountainside golf course called Shoshone. I played horribly but John had a good day. 

The next day we drove up to Burke, an old gold mining town that was built in Burke Canyon.  The Frisco Stamp Mill was blown apart by striking working in 1890’s.  All we saw were its footings.  The town of Burke was established in a canyon so narrow that rails, roads and river shared the same thoroughfare.  In fact, the Tiger Hotel had the river and the railroad running through the middle of it.  And that’s how it was destroyed, by catching on fire due to sparks from the steam engine. Not much left to see today.

John and I rode our bikes from Kellogg to Wallace on the Trail of the Coeur d’Alene, a rails to trails that connects to the Hiawatha on the east and goes all the way to Coeur d’Alene on the west.  In between is Wallace, an historic Wild West and mining community with an interstate highway running over the top of its downtown area.  We stopped in the Northern Pacific Railroad Depot, walked the town and then rode back to Kellogg, about 30 miles total.  Most of the historic buildings and museums were closed or required a reservation so we didn’t see much.