The morning put our drive to see the petroglyphs, it sprinkled on and off through the night and early morning hours. By the time we were ready to go, there was no more rain.
We left the park and headed to lunch at a high end restaurant in Washington, called Mc Donald's. This Mc Donald's was quite busy, but quick to get the order out. We drove all the way around the building and parked so we could enjoy our exotic food.
After lunch we decided to do some wine tasting. We showed up to: 
thinking we were going to do a little testing... little was the word, better yet, NONE was the word. This winery was in Washington, where they currently do not allow wine tasting. You can however purchase wine, and we did, we bought a couple bottles of port wine. If we had done wine tasting in Idaho we could have actually tasted wine before purchase.
thinking we were going to do a little testing... little was the word, better yet, NONE was the word. This winery was in Washington, where they currently do not allow wine tasting. You can however purchase wine, and we did, we bought a couple bottles of port wine. If we had done wine tasting in Idaho we could have actually tasted wine before purchase.
We picked up and headed even further north in Idaho, to Coeur d'Alene. The area is most known for water sports and hiking. We pulled into the Elks lodge to stay for awhile. Dinner at the Elks was burgers the first night. We went for burgers and pushed our way into sitting with a couple we didn't know, they had friends coming, so we pulled more chairs to the table and made even more new friends.
We spent the next day just relaxing, except for planning the rest of our journey into hibernation. We achieved our goal of setting reservations in stone all the way into Arizona. It looks like we will be boondocking for a week before we settle in for the winter.
All rested, time to go and adventure around Coeur d'Alene (CD'A). What better way than taking a day cruise on the lake, which the city is named after. We got ourselves to the right place without too much incident. Garmin led us to the address given to her, a resort parking structure, which was a short walk from the cruise boat landing. Foolishly I decided to try and park in the structure. The entry had a swinging bar hanging from it indicating clearance was 6'9" in the structure. Wellll.... our truck, the monster beauty comes in at is about 6'6", and barely fit in the structure. I was so uncomfortable I turned around and got out of there, we found public parking near the landing.
We arrived so early that Carol and I sat and enjoyed the park at the foot of the landing. While sitting on the park bench I noticed a bronze moose with a mouse on it's nose. Apparently there are five mooses in the local area driven by a book written by a local author.
While we were still waiting we had the opportunity to see folks willing to sit in a seat, under a parachute, approximately 500 feet in the air... they call it parasailing... I said not for me, even though it looked like fun.
We took a walk down on the landing, at the front of the pier is an office for a boat plane company. The place was closed and had a watch dog posted in case anyone swam up to the property. No, your eyes do not deceive you, it is a fake dog.
Finally, it is time to board our tour boat. We chose the day cruise, a 1 1/2 hour long trip through the upper portion of the lake. Now, if you would like to see the whole lake, there is a 6 hour cruise available, and a dinner cruise. You can find them at cdacruises.com.
A lot of the homes 'sitting at the water's edge use tram systems to move up and down the hill. Image having to lug things up and down to your house. Most of the houses are accessed via private boats from CD'A. This raised another situation, called mail. There is an actual postal service route on the lake to deliver mail. During the warmer months the mail is delivered six days a week, in the colder months the service is cut back to three days a week. For those homes with roads to them, it only takes 45 minutes to get to CD'A on the lovely winding roads.
The lake has early history with steamboats. Steamboats were a very important way of live in the early 1900's, carrying people, and ore around the lake. As time went on, and new ways of travel, the need for the steamboats lessened. How was the situation of unnecessary steamboats dealt with? some rotted and sank to the bottom of the lake, others were torched, towed, and sank in the lake. Off Kidd Island the boiler of one of the steamboats can be seen sticking out of the water.
What is cool about this area of CD'A is the close proximity of attractions. After we got off the cruise we walked over to the Museum of Northern Idaho (museumni.org). They start their visitors off with a 30 minute video. In the next area they share a rich history of their past through many artifacts, drawings, and stories. I was intrigued with the logging and steamboats. The conditions the lumber jacks lived in, and the tools they used amazed me, and they deserve a lot of respect for the job they did.
The blade behind the chain saw was not the blade they used to cut trees, it was used in the sawmills to cut the lumber to required sizes. Besides lumbering, the area also did and still does farming. Some of the farms are part of a special certified group of farms that have been in operation for over 100 years by the same families.
I met one of my relatives greeting visitors, now I know why Walmart Greeter is in my blood.
Carol was struggling with her hip again and was talking with the volunteer at the museum about chiropractic help. Carol called the Chiropractor, who graciously fit her in and repaired her.
By the time the Chiropractor was done it was time for dinner, so we asked for recommendations. They suggested Syringa, a Japanese Cafe and Sushi Bar. I thought it was closer to a fusion style restaurant. Dinner was very good. Carol had a Bento box, I had Japanese style curry with chicken katsu, and a crunch roll. After dinner it was homeward bound.
The next day we drove to Spokane Washington. We took a chance and stopped at the Campbell House, but it was not open, that's probably what they meant by "call for appointment". Driving the neighborhood was fun, there were so many beautiful Victorian style homes. The older parts of downtown Spokane still maintain some beautiful commercial buildings. The one thing for sure is the roads in downtown really need some work, so much so that it was almost impossible to take pictures, however I did get pictures of at least one of the buildings.
Something I was not a fan of is the one way streets downtown, it reminded me of my days of frustration driving downtown San Diego, fortunately I wasn't driving this trip. After enjoying the one way streets we decided to go for lunch, or maybe visit a distillery. We chose to go to lunch at No-Li Brewhouse before hitting the distillery. We kept lunch simple having the daily special of fish and chips. The fish portions were good sized, the batter similar to a pancake batter. Carol had one of their house beers, and I had a black cherry seltzer. 
With lunch done we took a walk next door to the distillery order window... ooops, we're in Washington, they don't allow taste testing, options in Washington are buy, or nothing. We don't like to buy booze without tasting first, it can be a pricey mistake, especially at $40.00 a bottle. We did buy single serving cans to try at home.
Still early in the afternoon so we headed to Historic Flight Museum (museumofflight.org). The planes they have on display are all operational. If you are like me, you have a love for the smell of aviation fuel on a good morning. There are two sites for the museum, Spokane and Seattle. The Spokane site has a DC-3 the volunteers take visitors through.
We left Coeur d'Alene heading east again into Montana. We'll spent a few weeks there before heading south into Wyoming.
I LOVE seeing the two of you and your travels!!! Holly
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