On the Waterfront

On the waterfront today, I served as a tour guide for three people who’d swung into Coeur d’Alene en route to Leavenworth, Wash. — females from Livingston, Mont., and Mount Vernon, Wash., and a male from Sidney, Australia. Two them had met during a tour of national parks in the West. They were in City Park asking for directions to McEuen Park when I said: Follow me. I took them the long way, around the Boardwalk and then around McEuen Park, explaining points of attraction. I enjoyed talking about Coeur d’Alene. I told them, for example, that we have the quasi-public boardwalk as a result of an agreement that allowed the Hagadone Corporation to build the Coeur d’Alene Resort higher than shoreline regulations allowed back in the mid-1980s. I explained the fight over McEuen Park — and how it almost led to the recall of then mayor Sandi Bloem and three council members. One of my small troop couldn’t believe that some in the city would prefer three ballfields to a magnificent park. I didn’t have time to explain the whole CAVEr movement. So I dropped them off in front of the Pita Pit/San Francisco Sourdough restaurants. And headed back to the Coeur d’Alene office.

Question: How often do you get asked for directions by visitors to Coeur d’Alene?