356 miles
Today was the last day in Stevenson but heading out and setting off home. I planned to go up to Coeur d’Alene Idaho and meet my friend Jason Hover who I worked with for three years at Datasource Consulting on the Kaiser Permanente Colorado account. The day greeted me with this beautiful sunrise not a cloud in sight.
It was fun catching up with everyone at breakfast and saying our goodbyes. After breakfast, everyone was busy. Those who had ridden in packed their bikes and panniers. It seemed everyone had learned what a hike it was to the parking lot to carry stuff and the bikes were all lined up outside. Those that trailered their bikes in were loading them up and heading out.
After I left, I took the north side of the river as far as I could before crossing over to the south side at Murdoch Washington crossing the river back into The Dalles. On the run down to the river this is the view I had of Mt Hood.
The ride up to Coeur d’Alene was pretty uneventful. I tried to get some “scenic” roads in but they just tended to be slow neighborhood roads with lots of stops and not many curves. I did stop at a Starbucks for a tea at one point and was admonished by the barista that because I only asked for green tea and not a specific type that I was lucky I didn’t get iced tea. It takes all sorts, I guess. I showed them; I put my camel back down and it decided to leak all over the floor. I got into CdA – localspeak – around four and got myself down the lake for a quick picture. That left me enough time to get to the hotel, shower, change and get back into town to meet Jason.
Jason was full of options of where we might want to go to dinner and we had to check out a couple of menus before choosing. This was the place, patio, burger, beer, and garlic fries. What is not to like?
I had a great time catching up with Jason. His kids are growing up and leaving home. His second youngest had just been dropped off at school in Arizona. His oldest is getting married next summer. We reminisced about work at KP and who we were still in touch with.
After dinner, we took a stroll around the town. It was getting dark but it was a lovely place. We happened upon a concert going on in the park. It was a bunch of “famous” songwriters who seemed to have worked with a lot of the current country stars. It was quite easy to discern why the are songwriters rather than singer-songwriters.
The lake was beautiful at night with the pier and docks lit up. The lights you can see in the distance are where the ritzier folks live. They come into town on their big cruisers for dinner and then head home to their compounds. It did have a bit of a Lake Como feel to it.
We ended the night with a pint and pudding at an English Pub – The Crown and Thistle. Jason was curious how well it stood up to a real pub. The draft beer was top notch. The sticky toffee pudding was OTT on the toffee and came with ice-cream and not custard. It did get me thinking that some versions of ice-cream are frozen custard so not too far from the mark.
After pudding, we walked back to Jason’s car and he gave me a ride to the hotel rather than leaving me at the mercy of Uber. As we were walking around, I told him that one of my worries about northern Idaho was the supposed white supremacist attitudes. I imagined gruff, white men with big beards and shaved heads in pick-up trucks. Think of “Deliverance” not in the south but in the PNW. Sure as shit, that was my Uber driver to take me into town – bald, bearded, driving a Chevy Silverado. Turns out he was a really nice guy and we had a great chat. Turns out everyone was really nice everywhere I went.
