Hello again! Hope everyone is having a great summer – do you believe it is already the middle of July?? Where does the time go? We have been enjoying mostly sunny, not too hot days and cool nights for the last couple of weeks. After leaving Missoula, Montana, we stayed at a nice RV park in St. Regis, Montana. St. Regis is along interstate 90, in the far western part of Montana, near the Idaho border. We enjoyed the area very much – nothing around but mountains and pine trees and plenty of hiking. The RV park was very nice, but crowded over the 4th of July. Not surprising I guess, but it was a little busier than we would have liked. But the weather there was great – needed the furnace in the early mornings, it was so cool. Then sunny and pleasant in the afternoons. We got in a few really nice hikes in the area, I have pictures and some short videos in the link here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/64zqoNqdqDsPrWiaA I hope the videos work, I’m never too sure about that!
After St. Regis, we moved to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in the panhandle. We have never been to this part of the state before, and we’ve been enjoying exploring. Our RV park is average, not great but is waterfront, which is nice. Its a very large RV park (182 sites) and we are very far in the back, no water view for us. The Spokane River runs into Lake Coeur d’Alene, and our RV park is right where river and lake meet. Lake Coeur d’Alene is 50 square miles, very long and narrow. We rented a boat yesterday and toured around, admiring the very nice homes all along the shore. Unfortunately, the weather did not really cooperate – it was cold! We wore sweatshirts and pants, and had a blanket to wrap up in on board, but, I still needed more, so we stopped at a resort along the lake and I bought a sweater to add to my layers and some hot coffee. It is always surprising to me how different things look from the water – a total new perspective.
There’s not a lot of hiking near here, it’s about an hour drive in any direction to be in the mountains. We are enjoying being tourists in the area instead. We’ve sampled some local coffee shops and Gerry got to spend a day at a nice doggy day care while we went boating (he was not allowed on the boat, which was disappointing). We went to the Coeur d’Alene farmer’s market last evening and found tons of great produce and more strawberries and cherries. We have been eating so many strawberries and cherries, it is crazy, but they are soooo good! We love being in the produce growing region, and I think most of our trip will be full of wonderful, fresh, local fruits and veggies. There’s another farmer’s market tomorrow evening, in Spokane, Washington (just about 30 miles west of here) that we plan to go to also. Lots of cooking and baking with all our bounty!
I hear you asking….what about the RV repairs? And what about those stitches in my head??? Happy to report both worked out very well. The RV repairs went very smoothly in Missoula, the guy we found was very good. He adjusted the 2 electric cable slides (the other 2 slides are hydraulic). The cables had become somewhat slack and needed tightening. Kinda like a chain on a bicycle…we hadn’t had a problem yet, but didn’t want to worry about one developing, so he took out the 2 electric slides, they are both in our bedroom, and adjusted the cables. He also replaced the electric water heater element and fixed our living room window latch. So, at the risk of jinxing us by saying this….everything is working perfect in the RV and we feel great about all the maintenance we’ve had done, it is practically brand new again! We do have a running conversation about possibly getting new furniture and carpet put in someday. We’ll see. Right now we still love it and are very comfortable here. Here’s a picture I took just now of us all set up at our RV park in Coeur d’Alane:
And I had the stitches removed from my forehead when we arrived in Coeur d’Alene. They put some type of glue on it and is still covered for a couple more days. So I haven’t gotten a good look at the damage yet, but I’m sure it’s okay. But, to keep things interesting, while we were on our way to have the stitches taken out, a crown broke in half on one of my teeth! So I had to go to the dentist and have a new crown done… 😣 The good news is I really liked the dentist I went to, she was super nice and I was all fixed up in just a few hours. Hoping that’s it for me!!
Here’s some pictures of our time so far in Coeur d’Alene: https://photos.app.goo.gl/CTTKPhYa1Fw6C2Yw7
We leave here in a couple of days, headed to northern Oregon. Will have a report from there for you!