One more stop before Canada

We took another short drive up the road a little to Blue Lake Resort which is between Naples and Bonner Ferry. This is about a thirty minute drive from the Canada border. It is a nice little campground with a small lake. Their site has the campground map showing the lake with note that no motorized boats allowed. No kidding, it is only about the size of two Olympic size swimming pools.  However, it is pretty anyway.

Well, we did another McCall  type kayak trip. Remember, we stayed in McCall near Lake Payette but didn't kayak until we went to Riggins and made the drive back for a day of kayaking Weather was a factor in why we didn't kayak when we were there. While we were in the Sandpoint area, we had some nice days. We got lazy and didn't kayak on those days and the day we said we would kayak ended up a rainy day. So here we are in the Naples area and decided to drive back to Lake Pend Oreille as the weather is nice and sunny.

We drove to the Springy Point put in which is actually on the river, not technically the lake. It is a nice boat launch right next to the Springy Point campground.

We had a nice paddle, checking out the beautiful summer homes along the banks. Came back against the wind and so another good workout.

We drove back over the Sandpoint Long Bridge. The original bridge was built in the early 1900's and was advertised as the longest wooden bridge in the world at almost 2 miles in length. It was rebuilt in the 30's. In the 1950's it was rebuilt a third time,due to heavy use during World War 11, this time in concrete in steel. When the fourth bridge was built, it was built along side the third bridge, which became a walking-biking path.

   Another nice day. Tomorrow we will be going into Canada. We plan to head up as far as Jasper National Park, with some stops on the way, and then come back south to the Banff are and go over the border into Montana by the third week of August.                                                           

Festival at Schweitzer Mountain

Saturday is my birthday and we decided to go to a Festival that is at Schweitzer Mountian. It is a well known ski resort and is a summer destination as well. The Mountain Music Festival has three bands playing throughout the day. There is also a barbeque, beer garden and activities for kids such as a climbing wall.

        We decided to eat at one of the restaurants, Chimmey Rock Grill, at the Village. We sat outside and listened to one of the bands play while enjoying a nice lunch.

Most of the rest of the time we stayed at Sam Owen Campground, we just relaxed. Had a few beautiful sunny days and a few rainy ones. Par for the course. Savannah was ready to play with the deer that came into our site.

                                                       
                                                                                           

From Lake to Shining Lake

We left the lake at Coeur d'Alene on Friday and headed for another lake farther north. We drove through Sandpoint, Idaho and drove along lake Pend Oreille. Our destination was Sam Owen Campground in Hope, Idaho, which is about 21 miles from Sandpoint. The campground is on the banks of the lake and in a heavily wooded pine area. . With out Golden Age pass, we only paid $9 a night. No hookups and can't get satellite but a beautiful campground.

        We took a little drive to check out the area. We saw many deers as this area as the David Thompson Game Preserve is on the same pennisula as this campground and a few others.           

                                                                                                                             

Back to Idaho

Monday, we left Washington and headed to Coeur d'Alene, which is only about 30 miles east of Spokane. It is the largest city in the northern Idaho panhandle and is right on the Lake Coeur d'Alene or CDA as it is sometimes referred to.  It has become a big tourist area and has two major ski resorts in the area. The campground we are staying at, Blackwell Island RV Park, is right on the lake. Unfortunately we couldn't get a spot close to the water and are in the back with the entrance to the park in back of us. Oh well, we can't always get the perfect spot. The park is nice and has a nice beach area, including an area that dogs can go into if they want.

Got some nice pictures in the evening with a gorgeous sunset.

Tuesday we took a drive around the lake. We were going to check out another campground which I thought wasn't too far from where we were. It was about 45 minutes but we were on the scenic byway and so it turned out to be a lovely afternoon admiring the views of the lake. The lake spans 25 miles long and has 109 miles of shoreline. It is a great place for fishing and boaters to enjoy. A lot of the shoreline seems to be private with lots of vacation homes.

I took this picture of an old truck that was on the side of a road. I was reading that there are many old Ford Model T autos at the bottom of the lake as people would drive over the frozen lake in winter in the 1900's to save time getting to the other side and sometimes the ice would break. There are also some steamboats that were burned when no longer used to ferry people across the lake and these ruins are often explorer by divers.

                                                                                                                                                                                
                                                Terry and Nancy, whom we met at the Escapees Hop were staying here at the same time as us. We got together a few evenings for cocktails and conversation. One evening we went to the Cedars Floating Restaurant which is right by the campground. It is buoyed by 600,000 pounds of concrete encased Styrofoam and has awesome views of the lake and Spokane River. Picture below is from their website.

We all shared appetizers, including yam fries over Gorgonzola cream sauce sprinkled with Gorgonzola cheese and drizzled with honey balsamic vinegar. We love sweet potato fries but these were especially good. We also had calamari and a crab artichoke dip with crostini. Good food, good views and good friends

To Washington State

Tuesday was our traveling day. We had a very fun week and are now headed to the Lewiston area to get our motorhome fixed before heading onto Couer D'Alene, Idaho. We actually are staying at Hells Canyon Resort, which is in Clarkston, Washington. Clarkston and Lewiston, which is in Idaho, are twin cities only a few miles apart. The park is right on the Snake River and we have a view from our site.

Lewis and Clark territory and so the metal sculptures here and around the area

       We took the motorhome into the Freightliner dealer in Lewiston and after a few hours, they weren't sure what was wrong and   referred us to the Freightliner repair shop in Spokane. Oh joy. Hassles of mtorhome repairs. We didn't do a whole lot when we were  here. We checked out Chief Timothy State Park which is on the water and looks like a good place to stay and to paddle from.
We also stopped at the Nez Perce Nationa Park vistor center museum. The Nez Perce tribe lived in the prairies and river valleys of north Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. In fact, there are still Nez Perce Indians in the  area.
We are on our way to Spokane on Friday to hopefully have someone fix the rv. We also hope to see some old friends of ours who moved to Spokane from California about 20 years ago. We haven't seen them in 15 years and would love to get back in contact with them.                                                 

Through the Trees

Saturday, we had a last day of Jeeping. Only 3 Jeeps went and Walt led us part of the way in his truck and then we continued up the mountain. Ernie and Tara, Nancy and Terry and us were the Jeepers. We drove along the Salmon River in the Carey Creek area. We turned onto one of the forest roads, on a narrow road with a shelve on one side that followed a creek that went down to the river and lots of trees to go through and rocks to maneuver around and over. Fortunately we did not meet anyone coming down as there were very few places to pull over to let another car go by.

     We reached a small meadow area to stop and have something to eat. Tara and Ernie's papillon Toby and our Savannah having been getting along great.

We headed back which was much faster than the way up.

                                                       
            The evening meal with the whole group was the last of the HOP and was the best of the three dinners catered. We had spaghetti with garlic bread, bread sticks and salad.

Sunday was the last morning of the HOP. Some of the people left though a number, including ourselves, are staying through the rest of the 4th of July weekend.
We spent sometime cleaning the inside of the Jeep which naturally got pretty dirty on our drives. We drove into town to a self wash to take care of the outside.  We also did laundry at the campground.
We had been talking about  pizza with Ernie and Tara the other day and decided to have a pizza "throw down". We made our favorite boboli pizza that has dijon mustard spread on it, covered with bacon, then cabbage which was cooked in a little of the bacon grease, along with caraway seeds and apple cider vinegar. It was then covered with fontina cheese. Tara's pizza, also boboli thin crust, had a tomato based sauce with olives,anchovies, jalepeno's and Italian cheeses, which consists of 6 different cheeses, including ricotta. The ricotta was an especially good touch as it gave it a creamy taste. We had to declare a tie as we loved both versions.
Monday was mostly just a relaxing day. The nearest fireworks show is in McCall and since it doesn't get dark until after 10, we decided to forgo that. We ended up going into town with Terry and Nancy for some lunch at the River Rock Cafe.  Terry and Nancy shared pizza and Joe and I had sandwiches. Everything was good. We then had a few drinks at one of the local bars and then went back to the campground and spent the evening in various discussions of travels and politics and such.  Independence Day and all it means in this great country of ours was also among the discussions. Tomorrow we leave for Lewiston to hopefully get our overheating problem with the RV fixed. It has been a great week and we met some great people who we hope to run into in our future travels.