Blake's Blog. Coeur D'Alene

Left Coeur D’Alene this morning and we are now heading for Portland, Oregon. We are crossing through Washington state – Spokane, Washington is only 20 minutes west of Coeur D’Alene. Unfortunately, we only had a couple of nights in Coeur D’Alene. It’s unfortunate because it really is a beautiful place and we had a tremendous campsite right on the Spokane River. The weather was great during our visit and I took advantage of it by going for a nice run along the river path the day after we arrived. That night we watched the early 90’s Johnny Depp movie, Cry Baby. The movie is a musical and actually had some good 1950’s era music but it was a rather silly movie overall. Worth a few laughs.

Yesterday, we had a fairly lazy morning. I made eggs, toast, and bacon for breakfast and we spent the morning outside, mainly reading and relaxing. Sonya finished booking campsites for the last leg of our North American Tour. Isaac devised a new points system for his parents. We get to earn points for doing things like dishes and laundry. We can cash in our points for rewards. For example, 25 points gets me a hug (from Isaac) and for 150 points Isaac will make me pancakes. He’s a funny little man.

After lunch, we took the bikes out and went along the river path to the main part of Coeur D’Alene along the lake. There were a lot of people out enjoying the weather in the parks and at the beach. We stopped at the beach for awhile and I put my feet in the lake but it was rather frigid. A few brave souls went all the way in but, for the most part, people were content to stay on the beach and soak up the sun.

After our bike ride, we played some cards before heading out to supper. There was a floating restaurant only about half a kilometer from the campground that was recommended to us. We were able to bring Kizmet with us and tie her up just outside the “patio”. The entire restaurant is built on a large floating dock and the patio is a section of it that is fairly open with numerous windows facing the river. The food was excellent. With a huge salad bar and fresh rolls, we were all stuffed by the time we left. After supper, the kids and I watched a couple of episodes of MASH, a show that the kids had never seen before. They found it to be pretty good and I thought that it is still a great show after all these years.

Looking forward to seeing Portland.