Donna and I were excited to learn that the tree which will grace the front lawn of our nations capital is being chopped down right here in our neighborhood forest lands.
The evening before our trip to the tree cutting ceremony I decided to get into the holiday spirit with a yard fire and glass of wine. Well, actually I was just burning some brush but it's all the same, right?
The festivities were in the town of Newport, Washington but as expected they (forestry service) were having trouble getting the 100 long trailer around some of the logging roads and needed a few more hours. With that in mind we decided to run up to Sandpoint, Idaho 25 miles away. Here is Lake Pend Oreille about 10 feet lower than normal which I assume is for winter flood control. Nearly all private and public docks were high and dry. The Pend Oreille is one of the deepest natural bodies of water in the United States, only four other natural lakes are deeper... Crater, Tahoe, Flathead and Chelan.
With a rule breaker for a wife...I am always on the look out for the local gestapo.
We thought about settling here but did not find what we were looking at this time of our lives. (and thought it was sort of uppity too) Besides...I might of been embarrassed living in a community that has drive-thru convenience stores. But then come January, this might look a little better to me.
On the way back to Newport we stopped to let the dogs run around at the Albeni Falls Dam visitor center. It is a self guided tour that explains the 90ft tall dam that backs up the river to create a "head" which forces water down the scroll case, where it falls on the turbine blades causing the turbine to rotate. This and a lot of other hocus pocus that I don't understand, produce 200 million kilowatts from the three generators. We never saw the falls which I believe were most likely under the dam.
By the way, Albeni is pronounced "Albany", Pend Oreille is pronounced "Pond O Ray" and Colville is pronounced "Call-ville". I found out the last one a few days ago from the police officer who pulled me over for not having a front license plate. I begged forgiveness seeing that we were new to Washington. His comment was that he knew we were not from the area because I called it "coal-ville" instead of its proper pronunciation "call-ville". Whatever, I still got out of a ticket! But I did put the license plate on the front bumper (its the law here in Washington not so in Nevada).
I thought this Union Pacific railroad bridge that crosses just upstream from the Albeni Falls Dam was scenic even on a cloudy day.
Back to Newport and still waiting for the tree to come to town. They are bringing the tree to Colville in a few days but today will be the only chance to see the tree before they put it into a protective wrap.
The Big Wheel steam engine was manufactured in 1909 by Allis Chalmers (I wasn't aware the company was that old) and cut over a billion feet of lumber here in Newport.
Since we still had time to cruise the town we stopped off at the Pend Oreille Historical Museum and gift shop. Donna shopped and I talked to this "old timer" (late 80's) who grew up in the area and drove a logging truck for a living. He and another lady (sorry I didn't ask names) were volunteers at the museum. She added that the gentleman had over 3 million miles hauling logs. I'm impressed because I have about 1.1 million miles in vehicles and this guy had three times that amount. They were both a wealth of local info and I enjoyed learning about the valley. I did ask one question about hitting deer. "Do you know about how many you have hit with your logging truck"? (thinking 20 or 30 would be about right) He didn't even hesitate, "hundreds, but never a moose or elk". I then forgot to ask how long before a person doesn't "jerk" the wheel when the deer try to commit suicide?
Time we joined the festivities. Here is "Woodsy Owl" from the U.S. forest service telling the kids how to enjoy and protect the forests.
The Newport population is just north of 2000 but we saw many more folks then that. I heard people from Idaho (just across the bridge), Spokane, Chewelah, Colville and towns up and down the river that seemed to support this event by coming on down.
The whole downtown was shut off to traffic, it's like one big mall. Food, games, bands and all the shops were open for your holiday shopping pleasure.
One of the caroling groups.
Carriage rides were doing a booming business.
Donna got to meet "Smokey the Bear" who told her...only "YOU" can prevent forest fires. Donna thought this was a lot of pressure to put on just one person :-)
Here was a map at City Hall showing us where they are cutting the tree. The public was not allowed to drive back to the cutting but the forest service provided free shuttle service if you wanted to go to the cutting site.
Finally, 2 1/2 hours late but well worth the wait. This is such a beautiful tree...even laying down. To think that after 65 years I can say I was one of the first people to see our countries 2013 Christmas tree. From this link you can see the journey the tree takes with Colville being the first official town...so we get to see it twice!
The closer it got to us the more beautiful it became. (truck pretty hot too!)
There won't be many in the country that get this close to the tree.
Donna took an excellent video of the 88 foot Engelmann Spruce as it passed us.
Till next time, happy holidays.
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