New day always brings new adventure
It is early in the morning and the temperature is already pushing 80 degrees. My husband, Bill, and I are on our way to Sandpoint. I have been sent there on a work assignment. Bill, who works for the largest small-business lobby in the country, also needed to make a trip to Sandpoint so he rearranged his schedule so we could travel together.
When Bill is traveling out of town I often like to travel with him. It gives me time to enjoy this beautiful country that so inspired us 10 years ago when we first visited Coeur d’Alene. It continues to inspire me with ideas for things to write about.
I actually got up with my husband at five o’clock this morning. By six-thirty we were on our way. The drive is a little more than an hour but the time passes quickly.
We enjoy chatting about things we have not had time to talk about because life is just too busy.
I see a log home being built in a building yard. A crane lifts a log into place that has been notched and prepared for its place like the Lincoln Logs my brothers used to build cabins out of when I was a kid. Wouldn’t the early settlers of the Northwest have appreciated their log cabins being built like this?
Driving through Athol, we pass the turnoff to Bayview and Farragut State Park. My husband tells me that during the 1940s Farragut Naval Training Station was located there. Come on. A naval training station in Idaho? Yes, he says, it was temporarily the largest city in Idaho as the Navy trained almost 300,000 sailors. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, caused an urgent need for more training facilities and in 1942 it was announced that Lake Pend Oreille had been chosen as one of the new facilities. President Franklin D. Roosevelt named the new site Farragut, after the famous Union Adm. David G. Farragut. It was Farragut who said during the raid of Mobile Bay, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”
Green ponderosa pines, tall yellow-green grasses with purple, pink and white flowers sway beside the highway. Trucks and boats blow past us on the four lanes that soon become two. There are only a few cars out with us in this early morning drive. A ring-necked pheasant scampers across the road in front of us, squawking its call as it flutters into the air, narrowly missing our windshield.
Traveling along Highway 95, I see green hills, streams and lakes alive with the beauty that first attracted us to this region. Here in North Idaho the scenery is breathtaking and the people are down to earth and just plain nice. It is like stepping back in time 50 years to what America used to be like.
Just south of Cocolalla, we pass the landmark red barn and house that our friends, Sonja and Frank Zimmerman bought and are remodeling. Sonja owns Sonja’s Cleaner by Nature in Hayden and Coeur d’Alene. Frank, a former logger and builder has been repairing and remodeling this home in preparation for their retirement.
Between yawns we hear Dean and Angela on the radio sharing their wry slant on the news. They are really funny. The music they play is only background for their jokes. They have a dry sense of humor but it fits us just fine. No wonder my husband comes home in such a good mood after listening to them.
As we cross the bridge from Sagle to Sandpoint, Lake Pend Oreille is calm, misty and a deep blue this morning. Green quaking aspens, dusty blue-green pine and yellow maple leaves flutter in the breeze mesmerizing my thoughts. I could nap on these distant white beaches all day. But work presses me onward.
Passing the Cedar Street Bridge, home of my favorite shopping place in the entire world, I notice that Coldwater Creek is no longer in the mall on the bridge. A Community Market now occupies it. Coldwater Creek has moved across the street on First Street. They have been a part of Sandpoint for many years and I have enjoyed numerous shopping trips to this bridge.
Bill drops me off at my work assignment, the Farm Bureau Insurance office. He will pick me up for lunch. I have a delightful day getting acquainted and working with the staff.
After a delightful day working in Sandpoint, we head back to Hayden, and home. It has been wonderful meeting new friends, seeing new sights and learning new facts about our home in North Idaho.