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Driving Jenny to a writers’ conference in Southern Idaho turned out to be a real treat. Since I was just was stuck in the hotel room I needed to find something to occupy my time. Hmmm, what could I… BINGO! I just so happen to have brought along the ATV. Just my luck! And it just so happens that southern Idaho has sand dunes open for ATV riders. So, I was off.

What I didn’t realize is that these amazing mountains that were off in the distance were in fact, the Grand Teton Mountains almost 60 miles away. I just thought they were cool.

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… oh yeah… Jenny’s conference was nice, too.

I’ll try not to bore you with too much talk but we won tickets to a boat cruise on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

I was a little skeptical but this 6 hour tour was nothing but eye candy. We left the Coeur d’Alene resort and headed out to from the North end to the South end of the lake.

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The cruise included a lunch. However, the beans weren’t ready when we left. Instead they were delivered via special delivery just before lunch time. If you look closely, you can see the pan of beans on the front of one of the pontoons. I thought it was staged but they said they’d never done this before.

The wild life and view were amazing.

 

Here’s a great shot to look at. It look like a flood. Nope. Those are floating houses. Not exactly house boats as they don’t move or have motors. Apparently there are no property taxes on these houses.

At night around 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. you can hear the distant howl of wolves from our house. Some 20 wolves are owned and kept by a couple who run a wolf education facility in town. Hardly anyone has ever been allowed to tour the compound where the wolves are kept until this year. So, for our men’s fellowship even we invited men and their families to head up for a tour.

The wolves were beautiful as you can see. We were always kept behind a fence as these wolves are still wild animals.

All of the wolves were interested in the audience. Some more than others. If you’re wondering, they eat raw meat from a local butcher.

Fortunately, as you can some wolves love the attention and are very affectionate.

The Hiawatha trail is yet another bankrupt railroad turned bike path in it’s second life. Jenny and I road it this weekend and made a very interesting discovery. This is the very railroad that Thomas commuted into Chicago Union Station when he worked in the Sears Tower. Note the logos on this sign that tells the history of the Hiawatha.

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Some of the features that the Hiawatha trail is noted for are the very high trestles and many tunnels. The longest tunnel is almost 2 miles long. Here’s Jenny in front of it. The lights you see are “not” the other end, they’re simply flashlights of oncoming bikers. The second image is her on a trestle. (Side note: The bike is Jenny’s new toy bought for $25 at a police auction)

 

The trestle are dizzying in heights as shown in this shot. That’s my foot at the bottom.

Here’s a shot across the valley at some testles we’ll be riding across later on our ride. As you can see the landscape is magnificent. The second shot is of a little friend we made along the way.