8-31-19 Coeur d'Alene, ID

Birthday dinner

Turning seventy-one years old doesn’t hurt much when another person offers to take you to dinner upon arrival at a floating restaurant on Lake Coeur d’Alene!  Originally, Cedars floated freely on pontoons made of concrete and Styrofoam.  But rough weather and rough water on the lake caused a lot of damage to the restaurant.  Restoration and anchoring the restaurant to piers saved the 55 year old enterprise so that Krauser and Rob could have a cold toonie and seafood dinner.

Cedars Floating Restaurant

Our first day here involved administrative duties and you know what that means.  Our second day here, it rained like a sunuvabitch and you know what that means. 

Lake CDA, cruisin'

Lindy cruisin.'

Rob cruisin.'

Day 3:  “Good morning, Sunshine!  Here’s your coffee and look what we have here!  Blue sky, sun, tickets to cruise on Lake Coeur d’Alene and lunch at the golf course!”  Oh yay, great reasons to quickly work my Sudoku and get moving!

Lake Coeur d’Alene is not the deepest lake in Idaho at only 250 feet.  Lake Pend Oreille, just north of us is 1,500 feet deep, by comparison.  Lake CDA was created by a dam and the fish here are considered landlocked so there’s only one thing to do:  catch and eat ‘em.  The area got the name “Coeur d’Alene” from the French explorers.  The French tried to do biz with the Indian tribes by trading beads and trinkets to the Indians in exchange for furs.  The Indians were hard-nosed.  They said, “What the hell are we supposed to do with a bunch of beads?” (or words to that effect).  (They may have wanted horses and weapons.)  The French learned that the Indians were “sharp” negotiators.  They named this “the area of coeur d’alene,” or “heart of the awl.”

Gold was found here and then silver.  The miners were working hard, long hours in the mines and union members began to grumble and revolt.  The governor, Frank Steunenberg, got involved in the affairs of the union and bad grew to worse.  A guy named Harry Orchard, a union guy, murdered the gov by placing a bomb at the gate to his home.  The Pinkerton guys figured it out (Remember them?  They caught Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid!) and Harry pled guilty to this and 17 other union-related bombing-murders in Cripple Creek, CO.  His defense lawyer was Clarence Darrow but ol’ Clancy didn’t win this one.  Harry died in the Old Idaho State Penitentiary at the age of 86 after spending 48 years in prison, the longest time ever done there.

The rock house

The lake is bordered by beautiful mountains and homes.  One is the rock house.  It is not the original house, that was destroyed.  This one was built later and it is still occupied by two happy individuals who apparently do not care where Albertson’s is from here.

This is Kidd Island.  It was named by "unknown"
after he read the book, "Treasure Island."

Didn't have time to do this.  Rain and
laundry interfered.

Nobody knows how this truck got
here.  It is suggested that he
didn't tip the valet.

After the cruise, we learned that we could take a free boat shuttle over to the CDA Golf Resort which is spectacular even from my perspective, a non-golfer.  That sounds like a good place to have lunch, yes?  

Six-hundred horsepower, Baby!

Rob gasps, “A 600 hp 1950’s vintage boat wide open, how cool is that?!  Aaaaargh, aaaaargh, aaaaargh!”   We arrived, disembarked and strolled off to the restaurant, passing the famous floating green of hole # 14.  This green is situated out on the water;  it weighs 5 million pounds and is anchored to an intricate underwater cable system that can move it around from 75-175 feet in several directions.  So don’t any of you golf pros out there think you can fool this one, Baby.  Thousands of golf balls lie at the bottom of the lake.  (They are retrieved by divers and cleaned up and re-used in “buckets of balls.”)

The elusive green of hole # 14
at CDA Golf Resort

A glorious sunny day on Lake Coeur d’Alene!    It’s Fall, though.  A thousand geese flew overhead in Vs, heading south.  We will roll up the carpets tonight and head for Leavenworth, WA tomorrow morning.  Wienerschnitzel und pom frits for my beloved.  Sauerkraut, brat and a beer for Lindy.  Ein prosit! 

Heading South

71 doesn't hurt at all!