Northern Idaho/Winthrop, WA - July 28-August 9, 2006

We were excited to get to Idaho and see the beautiful lakes and scenery we’d heard so much about. Our first few days were spent in an RV park near Sandpoint which made a convenient jumping off place for exploring Lake Pend Oreille. Sandpoint is a great little town – good shopping, decent restaurants and lots of charm. We added it to the growing list of places where we could see ourselves spending more time. As we explored the small communities around the lake with their summer homes and marinas, Ez rekindled his interest in boats and soon he was cooking up plans that involved buying a boat to use in Phoenix and our fictional seasonal getaway in Idaho. (Actually, it sounded pretty good!)

Next we moved a few miles down the road to Coeur d’Alene – the city and the lake. Coeur d’Alene is like Sandpoint’s bigger, richer neighbor. The homes are larger and fancier and there’s more traffic on the roads and on the lake. We took a couple of long drives along the lake and had fun checking out the homes that ranged from modest cabins to palatial estates.

We had two memorable dinners in Coeur d’Alene. One night we ate on the floating dock of a lovely shoreline restaurant and watched the moon rise over the lake – very romantic! Another time we did a dinner cruise around the lake with a fun couple we met from Casa Grande. The scenery was great even if the entertainment consisted of a senior citizen in an Elvis costume playing the accordion!

Even though we were in one of the most scenic areas of the country, I didn’t take as many pictures as I might have because of the smoky haze in the air. We found out later it was caused by a huge forest fire in north central Washington that was sending smoke to the east. Then we found out that the fire was near our next destination, but wasn’t expected to give us any trouble. More about that later. .

Although we enjoyed exploring the lake, we logged the most miles traveling between our RV park and Spokane attempting to solve our DVD problems. We’d already purchased and returned several DVD players trying to find one that would replace the original one that came with the coach. Next we took the defective machine to an electronics repair store to have it fixed – but it was diagnosed beyond help. Then we spent a couple of afternoons consulting with the various techno-geeks at Circuit City and Best Buy. They proposed some pretty creative solutions, and we finally bought a new unit that had the necessary connections. Ez had to cut away the back of the electronics cabinetry however to make it fit, but now we can watch movies again! Woo Hoo!

Our drive to Winthrop, WA took us through some great new scenery – the rolling wheat fields and orchards of eastern Washington. We saw the Grand Coulee Dam and lots of country that reminded us of Arizona.

The town of Winthrop is on the eastern slopes of the Cascades though so we were soon back in the trees. This is another little town that ranks real high on the charm register, and it was just voted one of Sunset magazine’s top ten places to have a second home! Our RV park was right next to a little lake about a mile outside of town and one of the most picturesque places we’ve stayed. That forest fire was burning northeast of us, but the winds were blowing in the opposite direction so we had less smoke than when we were 180 miles away in Coeur d’Alene. One evening we took our lawn chairs down by the lake and watched the full moon rise over the lake. At the same time we could see flames from a back fire rising up over a distant ridge. Both beautiful sights, but in very different ways. . .

I’m thinking that it’s good to be back home in Washington and we’re looking forward to seeing the Puget Sound area. Next stop is Whidbey Island north of Seattle. . .