Why you should visit Harrison, Idaho

I'm about to let you in on a secret. 

Well... maybe not. It's not news to you that I love Lake Coeur d'Alene, in northern Idaho. There are currently 14 posts with the tag "Cd'A", the abbreviation for Coeur d'Alene? I'm not exactly exclusive about my love for the giant lake. 

But let me tell you about my love for the little town of Harrison, Idaho. You might remember it from my posts about getting married there last summer. I'll recap our wedding, someday, but this post is devoted to a little town.

I'll only give you ten reasons, though I could go on and on.

It's the ugly stepsister to the city of Couer d'Alene, which is located at the north end of the lake along I-90. Harrison's location 45 minutes south of the interstate, and on the less-accessible east side of the lake makes the town more remote. More remote means Harrison remains an actual town; a geographical location where miners and loggers from across the area gather to purchase groceries and ice cream and drink at One Shot Charlie's Bar. It's an authentic place where the people are friendly.

Main Street, Harrison, ID.

 Gretchen, Dusty and I eating ice cream. 

Its beautiful. Want to disagree with me? Yeah...imagine yourself here and tell me that's hard to look at. .

The water-sports options are pretty sweet. Wanna go ski-boating? Head out onto the lake to go intertubing, wakeboarding and waterskiing. Take a jet-ski up the winding Coeur d'Alene River to see wildlife or fish. Or go up the St. Joe River, through Lake Chatcolet to the town of St. Maries, for dinner.Boats are available for rent here: Just wanna hang out on a beach? Try the city beach next to the boat launch. 

Multiple options to answer the where-to-stay question. Feel fancy? Stay at the Lakeview Lodge, where the manager Claire will bend over backwards to make you feel at home. Many rooms and suites have small kitchenettes, if you feel like cooking your own meal. Try the Osprey Inn or Wild Boar Bed and Breakfast. Or camp, at the City Campground right on the bike trail, or the State campground a mile or two north of town. Or, if you're planning on staying a while, try one of the many vacation rental houses around town. (Insider tip: my parents rent both their main house and "The Shack" out).

Hungry? Check out One Shot Charlie's Bar for food ("Best Dive bar on Lake Coeur d'Alene), or the Marina for fancier stuff. The Landing Restaurant is good too, and the The Creamery next door even has huckleberry ice cream. The Harrison Traders store has a deli for sandwiches, and basic foodstuffs in the aisles. (Insider tip: Harrison Traders also has doughnuts. AND a State of Idaho liquor license) (Insider tip #2: pair the huckleberry vodka with lemonade. Be careful, it's delicious and refreshing and deadly when you realize you've split an entire bottle with your friend Ali). 

Like to bike ride? Let me introduce you to the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes; a rails-to-trails program which stretches 85 miles from Mullan, Idaho (on I-90), down the CdA river, past it's mouth into Lake Coeur d'Alene in Harrison, then along the east side of the lake, across a former railroad bridge and up the hill to Plummer, Idaho. Harrison is about mile marker 15, and riding the trail is freaking AWESOME. I sprint out 25 mile bike rides every morning when we're there, in an effort to burn the drinking and food calories. 

Oh, you want to do more bike riding? How about riding another rails-to-trails program out of Kellog (1 hour from Harrison), The Route of the Hiawatha. Follow the old Milwaukee Road path on a 15 mile ride from Lookout Pass ski area (on the Montana/ Idaho border) through the headwaters of the St. Joe river. Let me tell you, this is some of the most rugged, remote, spectacular landscape in the United States. 

Going to be in Harrison for a while? Check out the public library to restock your pile o'books. Check out one of the summer concerts in the park, or a movie in the park, or one of the festivals like the Old Time Picnic or Car Show and Chili cookoff.

Nightlife? At the lake? I'll admit, nowadays I mostly want to finish dinner and enjoy a glass of wine on the deck while I read a book. But not so long ago, and occasionally still, I'll head down to One Shot Charlies or the Marina for cocktails and live music. One Shots is a family tradition, I even dragged D in there the day of our wedding (okay, for water, not a drink. It was too hot). The Marina has great live music on Saturday nights, and if the boats are lined up on the docks, you know it'll be a good night!

A little cultural tourism. There is a museum, City jail and walking tour brochure for the little town. 


All in all, Harrison is probably the best place in the world. 

Pacific Northwest Roadtrip

We returned home last night from a one week road trip to the Pacific Northwest, where we visited friends and family and Dusty was the best man in a friend's wedding.

I didn't take my camera, but had a handy blackberry for quick photos.

We drove to Harrison on Friday afternoon, and saw a bunch of windmill blades being shipped via rail. Pretty cool to see!

We weren't in a hurry on Saturday, so we toured the central part of Washington state. My family used to go boating on Lake Roosevelt, the reservoir behind Grand Coulee Dam. The dam was a Depression-Era program which brought electricity, flood control and agricultural irrigation to Washington. I wanted DJ to see it. Obviously we were too close for great photos.

Unfortunately, we paid for our little detour later, in the form of delays, chains required and crappy spring snow over Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascades. We took my sedan for the trip, as it gets so much better gas mileage. We never take my car out of town in the winter, as I don't have snow tires or all wheel drive. Since I never leave the city limits, I don't have chains either. Which was going to be a problem when the Washington State Patrol shut down the pass and then checked every vehicle for AWD or chains. Umm... yeah. Thankfully, the state patrolman was distracted when he checked our car; I'm pretty sure he glanced at our Montana License plate and just waved us through. We went for it, and it slowed our arrival in Seattle by about an hour and a half.

After a great dinner with Brian and Denise on Saturday night, we woke up kind of early Sunday morning and headed down to Pike Place Market to walk around. Of course, all I photographed were the blooming trees!

And daffodils! Planted on rooftop containers. So great.

You might be wondering what we did with Harlow while out of town. She stayed with our friend Mark and his dog Charlie. We were a bit cautious, as neither dog had really spent much time with another dog before. But they got along famously, and Harlow was able to go hiking off leash, play in a great back yard and generally just be a very spoiled dog. She's exhausted today. Mark is a great photographer and would send me a photo or two like this:

Monday we went back to Pike Place Market and loaded up on fixin's for a dinner at DJ's mom's condo in Long Beach, Washington. Seafood!

After stopping for a great lunch with DJ's grandmother, dad and dad's wife, we drove down to Long Beach. It's so weird to me to be at a beach where you don't take a blanket and a cooler and lay out. But it was a very relaxing stay with a lot of reading, snoozing, and walking. We even had my friend Erin up from Astoria for dinner!

Wednesday and Thursday were spent in Castle Rock visiting Dusty's parents. Friday about noon we headed down to the Portland area, where we picked up Dusty's tuxedo for the wedding, and hunted Pliney the Elder. Pliney is a great beer which is IMPOSSIBLE to find. Serioulsy, people laughed at me. Between Seattle, Astoria, Vancouver and Portland, we could only find a single bottle!


Saturday was the wedding, held at the World Forestry Center near the Portland Zoo. Super fun. The only photo I snapped was a late night blackberry shot. We are shiny. Oh well!

Sunday was a long haul of a drive from Portland back to Bozeman. Eleven hours, plus a one hour time gain. Gah. We left at 8am and arrived home at 8:30pm. Thankfully the roads were fine. It must be close to spring, as Road Construction Season has begun with bridge replacements over the Clark Fork River in Montana...

Grenades

In considering out Europe trip last fall, we're both really excited to visit the Normandy region of France. Intrigued by D-Day, the history, and the chance to have a more authentically French experience, we've both been doing a lot of reading about WWII.

Dusty picked up the DVD set of The Pacific over Christmas. It's the compendium to Band of Brothers, done by HBO a few years ago from the Stephen Ambrose book about Easy Company during the Allied invasion of Europe. The Pacific focuses on a group of Marines invading Guadalcanal, Pavuvu and Peleliu.

Obviously, the stories have penetrated DJ's psyche, as indicated by the following conversation, held yesterday as DJ was headed out the door for lunch:

DJ: "do you realize I saved your life last night?"

CK: "What?"

DJ: "Yeah. Yeah you're lucky I threw that Japanese grenade out of bed before it exploded!"

CK: "BWAHAHHAHHAHAHH!!!! WHAT!?"

DJ: "Yeah, I was only kind of awake; I woke up with my fist clenched around something, but I knew that if I got out of bed you'd wake me up. So I patted you, said that I was only getting up to pee, and nonchalantly threw the grenade out into the hallway while I walked to the bathroom. You owe me your life."

CK: "HA, that's so funny! I thought you'd gotten up to pee, for reals, since you gave me the disclaimer!"

DJ: "Yeah, only after I 'threw' the grenade did I realize I'd been clenching my thumb in my fist."

CK: "crying laughing"

DJ: "By the way, that's a really good book."

Quiet week

Remind me next year that being in the office around the holidays is ridiculously boring. Sure, I could use the quiet time to get big projects done. To think ahead, and write reports that are due at the end of January. Instead I just cruise the internet and wish we had the expendable cash to buy furniture for our house.

At the very least, I should have taken one day off this week to be home by myself. I have an itch to sew, to clean and to organize our closets and paperwork files. And to hang out with Harlow. I mean seriously:

I'd like to snuggle with my blankie too!

Oh well. Hoarding vacation days for better weather. We're supposed to get some snow today before seeing a high of zero on Friday and a low of -19. Being gub'ment workers, we get Friday off for New Years, so I can do inside house things then.

Moonlight Weekend

We spent Friday night in Moonlight Basin with three other couples. I know all of the girls through AOII, and all of them have married great guys.

We scored this awesome rental house, that sleeps 12. It'd be an awesome place to spend extended time in both the winter and the fall.

I'm not a fan of "rustic" decor, but this place did have a nice warm, stury feel to it. Couches and chairs to sink into. Fireplaces to light. Amazing views to watch.

All of those things, combined with great friends and random word association games, make for a really fun time.

Especially at 2 am, after a long round of beverages.

It's awesome to have friends with whom you can so easily fall right back into the groove with, even if you don't see each other often (yet live in the same town).

And Kelly and Ryan brought the entertainment. A gets cuter, funnier, and cooler to be around every time I see him.

Especially if there is a hot tub, rubber duckies and Mark to hang out around.

Kel thanks for setting the Moonlight weekend up! Sorry we had to bail early; I hope you had a great time snowshoeing!