Coeur d'Alene, ID

Coeur d’Alene. We had only heard good things about the area, so we were looking forward to the drive. Saying it was absolutely gorgeous doesn’t seem to cover how awestruck we were.


This was my favorite area. No editing was done to this picture. Blue, blue sky. Green trees. Even the shadow of the cloud. I loved the color. It was so vibrant.


I think this area was Mark’s favorite. The picture does not do it justice. It’s a screen shot from the video footage we have. We’ve never seen mountains so tall. And full of trees. Completely full of trees. It took our breath away.

We were headed for a hotel just past Coeur d’Alene, in a city in Washington called Liberty Lake. It was the first time we were in a hotel on the trip, and I think it will be the only time. We weren’t going to stay in the hotel room the whole time and miss the city, especially on the fourth of July.


So we headed to Lake Coeur d’Alene for the fireworks on the beach. It was packed down there. There were party boats out on the lake and people looking to have a good time.


We killed time on the beach waiting for the fireworks to start by playing Angry Birds and ukelele. The fireworks were awesome. It was a hoot. Especially the grand finale. I’ve never seen a grand finale so grand. One on top of another. It just kept going. I was giddy. So glad we had a night out. I’d say it was a pretty fantastic fourth of July.

But I’ll end my story there.
Mark wants to share about the next morning…his bike ride.



Until next time,
Jordan





Well, the plan was to bike 5-10% of the miles that we are putting on the car (5,500+ car miles = 225 to 550 bike miles). Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen, but at least I was able to get out for the first time on Tuesday, the day after Independence Day. I’m a much earlier riser than Jordan, so the plan was to do a 30-40 mile ride in the AM.



I headed out of the motel with my bike and GPS. The darn GPS took several minutes to load , so I started biking without my route. Unfortunately, I started the wrong way, so I added about 5 miles to the ride before even starting the planned route.


It turned out to be a great ride. Ten miles to Lake Newman. Approximately fifteen miles around the lake. Then, ten miles back. Some steep hills. A lot of beautiful scenery. Turkeys. Deer. Horses. Farmland. The lake. Mountains in the distance. Beautiful.

The big, BIG negative was that I broke a spoke at the beginning of the ride. I rode it anyway, but I won’t ride again until it gets fixed, which will be in Los Angeles. I ordered the replacement spoke via a bike shop there.

So, I’ll be running this next week. I won’t be able to see as much, but I’m happy that I’ve got my running shoes with me.



Until next time.
Mark