head back home (although we will not get there for another two months!)
Our plan was to stay overnight at the Casino at Snoqualmie, Wa.
Some of our friends like to stay in casino's parking lots for a night and then continue their travels, so we decided to try a stay at a casino. When we pulled into the parking lot the casino was lovely, new, as it had only been open for a very short time. Unfortunately the parking lot was not as flat as we need to have for our refrigerator to work. So we left as spent the night in a small RV park in Ellensburg, Washington. Our next destination was Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
Thr RV park that we stayed at was on Blackwell Island, along the Spokane River. What a lovely setting! The weather is perfect! Warm and sunny. We decided to tour the area. Our first stop was to drive around Hayden Lake. It was supposed to be a very pretty drive. It was but all we could see were the trees, there were very few spots to pull off to view the beautiful lake.
From Hayden lake we headed north to Bayview, along Lake Pend Oreille. We discovered that Lake Pend Oreille was glacially formed during the ice age. It is also believed that the eastern side of the lake was in the path of the ancient Missoula flood. The dam for the Missoula flood is believed to have existed just east of the lake along the Clark Fork River, between the Cabinet and the Bitteroot mountains.
The area around the Lake is the traditional home of the Kalispell Native American Nation. A French fur trapper who entered the region in the 1800's
is believed to have given the lake its name. The words "Pend Oreille" are French for and ear-hanging or pendant. Ear pendants were characteristic of the Kalispell Tribe. The lake is shaped much like a human ear when viewed from above or on a map.During World War II, the south end of the lake was the second largest navel training ground in the world. Built as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the training station is now Farragut State Park. (Faragut State Park is the second largest State Park located in Idaho.) The lake is still used by the Navy's Acoustic Research Detachment to test large scale submarine prototypes: the significant depth of the lake gives acoustic properties similar to the open ocean.
It was a beautiful setting and we stayed for lunch on the floating dock restaurant.
Tomorrow we are off to the Farmers Market and Post Fall.....
More later,
Until then,
Candy and Johnny
