Camping at Copeland, Id ~ Driving to the Canadian Border
First thing in the mornin I picked up and installed the replacement solenoid out in front of Napa in Bonners Ferry, while
Lei did laundry with a Mennonite lady and discussed the ills of the modern public education system. Then we spent the day driving up the west side of the valley, as far from the big busy highway, US 95, as we could get, we went up the 45 (or 18 depending on your map), an old county road, quite a bit of it was just dirt.
The road took us right through the Kootenai Wildlife Refuge and all the way up to the Canadian border at Porthill. We saw no special wildlife, but did get to view some “Moose art” and most memorably, we did get to race with a frantic deer! 
One of the big reason we chose this route is that we had heard about the largest hops farm in the world being up there, Elk Mountain Farm owned by Budweiser. It was pretty great, we talked to a nice kid who works the vines, we were surprised that the hops look like grape vines hanging on trellises. Bummer though, they don’t have a gift shop, LOL, we wanted to buy some souvenirs. 
Bonners Ferry Barber Ship
The border with Canada was a letdown, just a government installation, that we weren’t allowed near.
We did stop in all two shops in the town of Porthill, which we had expected to be a bit bigger, they sell gas by the liter like pop. I have to assume that gas is much cheaper here than in Canada, as the station was full of Canadians buying gas. We heard they go to Bonners Ferry to buy groceries also. I can’t imagine what they have to pay for their goods if coming across the border saves them money! Especially when you factor in the long wait in line at the border and the passport cost, $176 US dollars for 5 years.
Coming back south we took the 95 and were hot and tired, but we found another handy free “river access”, when we arrived it was HOT, MUGGY and STILL. Not the nicest we have seen, it seemed disheveled and kinda trashy, we couldn’t find a level spot to park, but when the sun went down it was better and quiet and it had a nice cool breeze in the morning.
Lei, while sitting like a lump, staring out the window in the heat, did finally see some exciting wildlife run by at this “river access’. It was a crazy looking, reddish orange catlike creature, with a very long & very bushy tail, with a white and black tip, we found out the next day at a ranger station that it musta been a “Fisher” a very elusive animal, that nobody ever sees. !! 
Unlike most of these camp spot postings, we got pics, I asked Goody Two Shoes if she would let me include her gallery of this day!! Look at the bottom, where galleries go.
Camp song: “Shipoopi – Buddy Hackett”
Cost: $ Free
Phone T-Mobile: Zero
Internet Verizon: 1-2 bars 3G with the antenna
Noise: Quiet, surprisingly, we were under the only bridge across the river for 10 miles and there are farms everywhere including the Elk Mountain Farm, I wondered how the employees got home?
Restrooms: Vault
Water: NO
Dump: NO
Trash: Pack it in Pack it out
Note: Riverside
Location: N48.905054°, W116.401808°
Elevation: 1765 feet
Abt 10 miles south of Canada on Copeland Rd.
Nights Stayed: July 2nd 2014
Show on map
oh boy, are you in for it now! i have lots of comments for this comment box. ok, finally you got to the Canadian border, but not into…… i like on the map the International Airport is in USA but town is in Canada. hmmmm. Copeland. i have no Copeland on my map. yer pin-map shows the road and in a certain magnification, the name Copeland by itself near a tiny lake and intersection of 45/46. gas station and diner/post office? and i beg to differ with ya: ya couldnt have driven on 95 to get to Copeland. i wasnt there, but yer map (and mine) says you were on Hwy 1. (I know, big technical difference). lol.
Randy, i think ya need a vacation from each other for a while. i wonder what kind of names Lei has for you? yers for her are “Lump” and (Miss) “Goody Two Shoes.” LOL.
and now about the photos. i dont know if its just my browser or what but your “photo thingi” doesnt work right now. i clicked on Goody Two Shoes’ photos and they enlarge but are superimposed over each other. click on each and they change, but am unable to click somewhere to get back to normal page. i had to close out my browser and start over before i got back to this normal page. in my notes i wrote: yer photo thingi sucks! oh yeah, in the gas station pic, gas is $1.069? really? i saw the sign for 4th of July events with Live Band and fireworks. looks like a cool little town. how were the prices for stuff/groceries?
ok, thats enough for now. i cant wait to hear where you go from here! do you think you will ever catch up to “real time?”
Hmm, my map shows no airport and all we saw was two stores and 3 gas stations in Port Hill.
We have discovered how inaccurate the maps and reality is, we did take “Copeland Rd” off of the 95, saw no 1 – BUT recently Boundary County, Id put names to all the county roads, as we drove out of town a nice lady at the visitors center in Bonners Ferry provided us with a cheat sheet that they had put together cause all the maps show route numbers, even the ones they give out, but when you get out there you see these bran new signs with names, guess they ripped down all the numbers, jest to make O’fficial, fortunately when we get out here in the sticks, most time if you find a road at all it is usually the on you wanted, bummer is – a county road looks the same as a farmers driveway. :)
All my names for GrammaLei are spoke in love, you know that . . .
Goody2Shoes gallery works for me in my Firefox 12.0 which is quite old and in Internet Explorer 10 and in Google Chrome 36.0.1985.125 which is what I have.
Facebook tells me that you are using Internet Explorer 9.0 but I don’t think that would make a difference, maybe just a bad day??
They sell gas to the Canadians at $1.069 a LITER! I guess cause our gallons aren’t Imperial?
All we bought was a post card and it was expensive :)
Oh I long to catch up to real time! every time I think I am going to get there something goes Kaplooowy!
you need to sit someplace for a week where you have internet bars and try to catch up. i know it takes a lot to do each post (using WordPress?). your photos in the beginning of yer posts work fine, but Goody2Shoe’s photos were garbled mess. idk.
the international airport shows on yer pin-map if you really crank the magnification up till you see street names. the airport is in ID and town in Can. and according to your pin-map, 95 branches off to the east (11 miles south of Porthill) to Addie and 1 continues north to Porthill.
and i understand your love-words for Lei (now).
Love ya both.