Destination America!: The Finger

Yup, we are in the finger... of Idaho. From Flathead Lake we headed south and then west towards the "finger" of Idaho to Coeur d'Alene. We stayed at Coeur D'Alene RV Resort and it was okay. Nothing special, but was fine for visiting the area.

Between preparing for a new school year, "can I have" requests, sisters arguing, and lots of other every day activities, here are some of the thing we did in Couer D'Alene, ID:

Downtown and Lake Coeur D'Alene:

Lake Coeur d'Alene

The first full day in the area was Diego's birthday. He got to choose the activities and they included: sleeping in, football, and sushi. After the football game we went down to the lake and downtown area. We walked and the weather was beautiful. Warm with a great breeze. Awesome playground with water splash pad.

Playground on Coeur d'Alene waterfront.

Great library and "beach" area down by the lake. We returned to this area at least one other day during the week. Enjoying the beach and playground.

Spokane:
Spent an afternoon in Spokane, WA, which was just down the interstate about 40 minutes. The city was just okay for me. We spent some time in Riverfront Park,

Riverfront park running sculpture.

Giant wagon at Spokane Riverfront Park

Spokane Falls

Manito Park, had lunch at Stella's Cafe,

Manito Park in Spokane, WA

Manito Park Garden

Stella's Cafe in Spokane, WA

and ended the day with a Trader Joe's refuel. Yahoo!

Seven Stars Alpaca Ranch:
One search of the Couer d'Alene area brought up an Alpaca Ranch that as a little bit out of town. It was a rural drive out on dirt roads and ended at a beautiful property with lots of alpacas and some other animals.

Seven Stars Alpaca Ranch

The lady who runs the ranch gave us a tour and gave us some great information on alpacas. She was very excited to know of our Peruvian heritage. The store that she had was a mini market of what you would see in Peru. Cute little place.

Sofia about to be sheered :)

We even had a chance to hose down the alpacas to give them some relief from the hot sun.

Sofia hosing down the alpacas.

Moscow, ID:
Some friends that we met back in Palisades, ID, Andy and Annie live in Moscow, ID and invited us to come and visit. We drove about 2 hours south of Coeur d'Alene through rural areas with beautiful views and fields as far as you could see. I couldn't believe there was actually going to be a city somewhere ahead of us.
We arrived to Moscow to find a lively place with quite a bit of activity and cute restaurants with my favorite.....cute out door seating. There are two universities in the area; University of Idaho (~12,500 students) is on the Idaho side and Washington State University (~28,000 students) is just across the border in Washington, of course. With all of those students comes lots of coffee shops and activities in the area. We spent that first evening at the "National Lentil Festival."

The sign says it all.

Luna touring the ambulance on display at the festival.

Fun little festival with lentil chili provided by the community and lots of other booths to explore.
We stayed the night with our friends out on their beautiful property.

It was tough to see anything that first night because it was so dark when we arrived and also because of all of the fires in the area and to the west were really affecting the air visibility and quality.
We could see in the morning that the property was just beautiful.