The days have flown by here at the Coeur d’Alene Elk’s Lodge. We’ve been active and the days have gotten past me without writing a post. I’ve been studying for the ham radio exam and I’m confident I can pass the technician exam. I’m now thinking I should also take the General exam as I think I know enough to have a chance of earning that license. The General license will give me more frequencies to work with and possibly longer range. We’ll see.

On Thursday, Donna and I took a drive up to Priest River. We wanted to visit with our friends, Jim and Cindy Birditt. Jim has been my best friend for nearly 50 years. It was a nice drive in Midget-San. We avoided the traffic on US95 and took Meyer Road up to Rathdrum where we found ID41. This took us up through Spirit Lake where we then took the Spirit Lake Cutoff Road through the woods to the Pend Oreille River. A few miles west along the river brought us to the bridge at Wisconsin Street where we crossed into the town of Priest River.

After a little communication snafu, we met up with Jim at Mi Pueblo – a Mexican restaurant in town. We’ve eaten there before and knew they had excellent fare. We sat outside at a table and talked over lunch. We left Midget-San in the Ace Hardware parking lot and rode in Jim’s truck to his place a few miles east of town. Jim built a log home here back in the ’90s – it’s somewhat remote and I didn’t want to drive Midget-San on the unpaved roads. We sat on his deck with Cindy and talked and laughed for a couple of hours. The time really flies when it’s spent with good friends. Unfortunately, I was so caught up in conversation that I never took a photo.

On the way back to Couer d’Alene, we saw two moose alongside the Spirit Lake Cutoff Road. It was a beautiful drive.

On Friday, we had plans to meet up with Dick and Roxy Zarowny who drove over from Spokane, Washington. They’re friends and fellow RVers that we met at Viewpoint RV & Golf Resort in Mesa, Arizona. Roxy had been in touch with Donna and they invited us to join them for a boat ride on Lake Coeur d’Alene. They recently sold their boat, but they had reserved a rental pontoon boat to cruise around.

We drove down and parked in a public lot east of the Coeur d’Alene Resort. Parking was a bit of an adventure. You pay for parking at a kiosk that only accepts credit or debit cards – no cash. For some reason, it declined my card twice. Then I tried Donna’s card and that was declined as well. The people waiting behind us then tried to pay for their space and their card was also declined! We found another kiosk on the other side of the lot and my card worked fine.

The weather when we left the dock around 10am wasn’t as expected. The day dawned with quite an overcast and the clouds were still present. It was quite breezy out on the water, but it was good to be out there nonetheless. The Coeur d’Alene Resort is on the northern shore of the lake. We cruised south toward Mica Bay. There are a number of lake houses and cabins along the shore. Some are more like mansions or resorts! Dick knew a lot about many of the more outlandish homes – who owned or built them and so on. Some are difficult to reach by car and are mostly accessed via boat from town. We saw an interesting sight at one place. It was Ford pickup truck that wasn’t where it should be.

The truck was wrecked, but it didn’t appear to have rolled over. It looked to me like it came down the hillside nose first. The front end was heavily damaged as if it crashed into the rock at the water’s edge and the rear end swung around to its final resting position. It’ll be a tough job to get it out of there.

We were cruising right into the wind, so we crossed over the east side of the lake across from Twin Beaches and came around Arrow Point to get out of the wind. There was an interesting house at Arrow Point – it’s built on top of a large square rock! Dick said it’s owned by an architect.

By noon, the clouds had mostly dissipated. We stopped and drifted and had lunch on the water. I think we were near Moscow Bay. Roxy made some excellent Mediterranean wraps. She also had tortilla chips and homemade mango salsa. Donna brought some grapes and also made molasses cookies for dessert.

We came back along the north side of the lake where we saw people hiking on the Tubbs Hill trail or splashing in the water. We came past the Coeur d’Alene Golf Course. They have a floating green on one of the holes! To reach the green to putt or retrieve your ball, there’s a small boat ferry.

We came back to the dock at 2pm after a lovely day on the lake. It was very generous of Dick and Roxy to invite us out and treat us to a tour of the lake.

This morning, Donna and I hit the Kootenai County Farmers’ Market. It’s only about half a mile from the Elk’s Lodge on the southeast corner of US95 and Prairie Avenue. We’ve been to this market once before on our first visit here in 2014. It’s one of the nicest settings for a farmers’ market, being in the shade of tall pine trees. We found a few things there although we didn’t go with an intention of buying anything.

I bought locally made jalapeno-chedder sausage. They’re pre-cooked so you can just slice them for a snack or grill them if you wish. Donna found really good looking fresh green beans. We also bought some labneh – we haven’t had any since the last time we were at this market. Labneh is sort of a cheese made by straining Greek yogurt.

On the way back from the lake yesterday, we stopped and checked out the dump station at the fairgrounds. I wanted to see if I could get in and out with the trailer or if I would have to dump first, then come back and pick up the trailer. It’s plenty roomy so no worries about the trailer. We’ll have to dump our tanks before we hit the road tomorrow. We’ll stop in Winthrop, Washington for the night, then continue on to Mount Vernon where we’re booked for two weeks. Time to visit the grandkids!

The weather has been fine with daily highs around 80-85 degrees dropping into the 50s overnight. Yesterday was the only cloudy day all week. The long range forecast for western Washington looks favorable, so hopefully, we’ll continue to enjoy sunshine and warm temperatures.

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