Welcome to part 5.
After a very good lunch at My Kitchen in St Maries ID, we continued to follow the road east out of town, following the St Joe river. We asked at the restaurant about the moose and were told that about around 19.4 miles there would be moose just lying around all over the place! We could hardly wait. Finally! Some big wildlife to capture!
On our way, we continued to watch to see what else we might see. It wasn’t long before we started seeing all sorts of eye-catching sights, such as this field of blue wildflowers. I’m not sure exactly what type of flowers these are, but I’m pretty sure these are not the blue bonnets we have been seeing in other places. Still though, a very pretty scene.
If anyone knows what these flowers are, let me know and I’ll update this page and give you credit for the knowledge, because I have no idea.
A little further down the road we came across a waterfall right off the roadside. Well, you know this is going to call for a stop and photos. Karen took this one but made the mistake of telling us she was taking it. Yes, I’m sucking in my gut. Hey! You would too if you had just eaten the burger I had! I was stuffed!
Throwing caution to the wind (this would be a recurring theme), I crawled down the bank of the roadway to get down at the water level. I found a place under the bridge where I got this shot. However, I had been so excited about jumping out of the car, I left my tripod so getting a longer exposure was not possible. My old hands aren’t as steady as they once were. Still though, this captures the scene rather well, showing the power of the water flowing down the mountain. Not all waterfall photos have to be with a slow shutter speed.
And, of course, while I am “risking life and limb” for a shot (ha!), Karen is taking the beauty route and finding more pretty flowers up top. This is not the same as the field of flowers we saw before, but still very pretty. I noticed there are a lot of blue flowers up here.
After driving well past the 19.4 mile mark on the road, we still had seen no moose. I was even driving extra slow, pulling over to allow others to go past us to keep from missing anything by driving too fast. Still though, there was plenty of beautiful scenery. Even the power pole couldn’t ruin this beautiful framed scene.
Making our way back I saw a turn off for Killarney Lake and decided to give wildlife one last chance to make an appearance for the day. Time was running out and at this point I had pretty much given up hope of seeing a moose.
The drive around the lake was nice. It was relaxing to be off the highway for a bit. There were some waterfowl in the area so it wasn’t a total bust. Karen got this cinimmon teal duck (?) floating on the lake, just enjoying the afternoon sun.
Continuing on around the lake we saw a few other birds but it was mostly quiet. And then, as we reached the end of the road, I looked across the lake to a shallow marshy area and what was it I was seeing? Yes!! A Moose!! It wasn’t the massive herd we had been told about, and it wasn’t a male with a huge rack, but by golly, we got us a moose! We can go home happy now!
While the moose was on the other side of the lake, we didn’t get any close-up shots, but we were happy with the fact that we got to see one so we weren’t going to complain. Now it was time to head back to our room, relax, and prepare for our next day. Let’s just say that our little waterfall today had bitten me and I had some research to do!
Stay tuned for part 6!
Michael
Sharing God’s Creation, One Click at a Time
All words and photos copyright 2019 MHampton Photography
Equipment used: Canon 5DS-R, Canon 1DX II, Canon T6S, and various Canon lenses and Insta360 One X