Nancy, Where Are You?

Before leaving Missoula we realized we had two more nights before we have a room reserved in White Fish. We decided to head for Coeur D’ Alene, ID which we had head was an interesting, ritzy little town. We drove to St. Ignatius where John Hartlieb had told us there was a lovely old mission. We found the mission, built in the 1800’s but didn’t go in or even take pictures because it was raining. We thought we would return -wrong! We went to the Bison Range and drove around for about 20 minutes but left after seeing a herd or two from afar. We have had up close and personal encounters with bison all summer at Yellowstone. We weren't impressed.
We continued on country roads until we reached I-90. As we were driving towards Coeur D’Alene I had to go to the bathroom so we got off at the “Historic” town of Wallace. This turned out to be a fabulous move. The town was darling - really old. We took a trolly tour to an old silver mine and then a tour of the mine. When the trolly picked us up again we drove around town while the driver showed us some of the houses that were built during the heyday of the mines. They were built so close to each other you could probably stick your hand out of your bedroom window and shake hands with your neighbor. We walked up and down the street going into stores, even buying a few things.
We arrived in Coeur D’ Alene at 5:00 and began looking for a cheap hotel. It is a lovely city, but it’s a city, not a village as we were thinking. They have a waterfront with sandy beaches, lots of boats and a resort. We walked up and down the main street and finally ate at a place called Crickets. We were both so tired we could hardly eat. Part of it was the heat, someone said it was in the 90’s. We sat outside eating and began to cool down and revive.