Wednesday, August 19, 2015

2015 Western Trip – Days 17 & 18 – Coeur d’Alene Area

After a busy time in Cody and two days on the road we just cleaned on our mobile house and relaxed our first day in Coeur d’Alene (CdA), a town of 43,000+ located on the shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene.  It is obvious that it is a tourist area as the main street is composed of mostly shops and eateries and it sits right on north end of Lake CdA .

On our second day we took a scenic drive on ID-97 which ran right along the east side of the lake down to the town of Harrison.  Due to the haze from the fires in the area, the following shots are from the web, but represent what we would have seen had it been clear.






Lake CdA is roughly 25 miles long, 1-3 miles wide and is a natural lake with the Spokane River flowing out of it and the CdA and St Joe Rivers flowing into it. - I was shocked to find that it was a natural lake.  It reminded me a lot of Lake Tahoe and I can imagine it being very pretty with snow on the ground.  

This is my shot of one of the lodges on the lake and of a wetland area where the CdA River enters the lake.



Thanks to the logging industry, Harrison was a thriving town in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and the largest town on the lake.  It is a now a very small town of less than 300 people and nearly every business on the main street is supported by tourists.  You can see it all from these shots each way from our car.



In addition to shops and pretty depressed looking homes, Harrison contains a city park, a city hall, and a marina/restaurant with an attached campground, which was basically a gravel parking lot with partial hook-ups - but a great view.





While we were there, this was the busiest place in town advertising the largest scoops in Idaho and for only $4 – Bev and I split one - huckleberry of course.



From Harrison, we headed cross country for a pretty drive on ID-3 thru the CdA River valley and discovered many more lakes and wetlands than we would have imagined – this is Swan Lake.


We then came along these guys grazing next to the road and after noticing the fairly high fence and having just passed a specialty meat purveyor, we decided they might be farm raised elk.



Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

8/9-8/10/15 event dates

7 comments:

  1. Pretty country and that's a fantastic shot of Bev holding the ice cream cone. It could be in an advertisement. I could see us enjoying the little house on the lake with the dock and boat for a couple of weeks, relaxing by that pretty lake.
    Sam

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  2. Another wonderful area exploring, love the small towns and countryside.

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  3. Larry, You have some nice photos...nothing wrong with 'borrowing' others when you need them either. Great looking ice cream! This is another area of Idaho that we haven't visited. Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

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  4. Beautiful scenery and a lovely ice cream cone too! I love small towns with neat little shops and restaurants.

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  5. Me too with the ice cream! Scary with the fires. We were just visiting in Dubuque with friends from Washington, lots of stories about the fires there. This looks like a great place to visit!

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  6. It's so cool to see you in my home state! Great photos Larry.

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  7. What a beautiful area! What a shame about the fires in the area, though. There seem to be many of them in the west lately. I hope Bev shared that ice cream cone with you :)

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