Thursday July 21, Lewiston ID

It’s been quite a frustrating day in lots of ways and nothing really exciting seems to have happened. Made a decision to buy a replacement lens, firstly the cost is so much cheaper here in the states with our exchange rate so good at the moment, compared to NZ, and somehow the next half of the trip would be frustrating without it!

Googled and ound a great camera store in Boise our next big town and thought I could get it there. While searching found that there was a camera store in Moscow, but the Mall didn’t open until 10. Hung around waiting for it to open, only to find that the store had closed down. Checked out with a some guys in the Radio Shack store, and they were most helpful and suggested a store in Clarkston, across the river from Lewiston.

Put the address in Jilly and headed south for the 45 minute drive, through more cropping land.

Dropped down quickly from the high country into a very arid area. The neighbouring towns of Lewiston and Clarkston sit on either sides of the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers, the bridge is on the boundary of Idaho and Washington. Interesting bit of trivia, Clarkston is in fact the most inland port in USA with ships coming up the Columbia River and then into the Snake River.

Found the store but no joy, so got on the phone and rang the large store in Boise. They were most helpful, but as the result of the Tsunami in Japan, a lot of these products are in short supply. He thought it would be several weeks before they got any in and didn’t know where else to get one as they were the biggest store in the region.

As a last resort I rang B&H photography in New York, a big mail order company that I have dealt with previously. They had the lens in stock and could ship it to me overnight, but I needed an address to send it to, and needed to get back to them within an hour so that it could get away.

Found the information centre, they were most helpful and were more than happy to have the parcel sent there.

So finally got it all together and organised and with fingers crossed it should arrive tomorrow, as long as UPS don’t muck it up!!!

The weather was starting to heat up and was quite humid so by mid afternoon headed out to a State Park on the rivers edge, and got a nice spot under some trees. While we were at the check in, a chap spotted the New Zealand sign…. Jim and Pauline Morrison were both from NZ but have been living in Victoria, Canada for much of their life. Jim had grown up in Papakura and Pauline in Takapau, and not surprisingly we knew friends of there’s in NZ. It is a small world.

Not many photos today…sorry!