RVing Around America with Ron and Kathy: Sandpoint, ID

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Today we drive further north through numerous small communities on Highway 95 (A State Highway we have been traveling north on since we left McCall.) to see what there is in the community of Sandpoint about 50 miles from Coeur d’Alene. This highway is mostly two lane with good size shoulder and sometimes divided four lanes. It is a good road for the most part to drive an RV on and affords you the opportunity to see the countryside or detour off as the mood strikes you. Logging is still a big industry here and we have seen many trucks loaded with logs along our drives and passed several sawmills.

Sandpoint is on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille, pronounced pond-ah-RAY, (how do they arrive at that ?) which is said to be the 5th deepest lake in North America, 43 miles long, one of the largest freshwater lakes in the Pacific Northwest and stocked with Kamloops rainbow trout. It was formed by glaciers and encircled by the Selkirk and Cabinet Mountains. Passing across the car bridge to town, you get a good view of the railroad bridge across the way and the hills in the distance.

The town is identified as one of the West’s great railroad towns where the Burlington Northern, Montana Rail Link and Spokane International rail systems all converge making this town known as “The Funnel.” More than 40 trains a day come through. We want a picture of the historic train station, but apparently you can only access it by foot so we get a quick picture of the end of the station as we drive by on the major highway below the station level.

We did observe a couple of trains going through town, one of which you will note is on a train bridge going across the Lake. To us it did not seem that many trains came through after spending time in Gallup, NM where trains come and go all day and night.

We take a stroll around the historic area of town just off the Lake. The Cedar Avenue Bridge Public Market is housed in an old enclosed bridge which once went across the Sand Creek Slough to the railroad station. Today it is sad to note so many of the stores are now empty. We find out that Coldwater Creek once had their first store located across the street from the Bridge but unfortunately went into bankruptcy.

This is unique archway leads to the Creek running behind the buildings and many barrels filled with flowers line the streets of the historic downtown.

The restored Panida Theater built in 1927 is a landmark along this main street.

Passing an ice cream and candy shop, we stop in to purchase our second Huckleberry Ice Cream cones on this trip. Huckleberries grow here in old logging areas and other places with products produced from them available everywhere including jam, syrup, pancakes, scones, candy, etc. I think they taste a lot like blueberries and are almost the same color but smaller. Delicious.

We had also hoped to go through the local Museum but found it is only open the first Saturday of every month. Oh, these small towns. Before leaving town we find this lovely old home and Ron stops at this antique store for me to poke around. The store was three levels and also had a nice cafe.

As we drive around to the highway we encounter this back street and are reminded of our trip to Canada with these many Canadian geese making their way to the water behind a nearby home.

Our plan was to return to CDA (as it is identified in many places) on a different road, but since it was late in the day and it would have been a slow two hour drive back, we returned the way we came getting on I-90 once in town and heading for Post Falls which is located along the Spokane River near the state line. It was founded in the 1800’s by Frederick Post when he harnessed the falls to generate power for his sawmill.

At the Park in town we are able to view the Falls and the gorge. Not a great deal of water flowing through here now, but it was a pretty park with covered picnic tables, playground, pond for fishing and a lot of families and others having evening picnics or taking in the view. The dam does control the water levels of Lake Coeur d’Alene.