COUER d' ALENE

So, my loving niece has told me that the blog is "Corney" & Mel & I are "Cute". This coming from a 19 year old beauty queen, newly wed. She & Mason have been married 3 months & she thinks she can give me love advise. (I'm the married one she told me!) HA!

Corney or not I'm ready to tell of our next road trip. We started out early Friday morning on Labor Day weekend, for Couer d' Alene. Never been there myself, but have heard many times how beautiful it is, so I was very excited. Mel's grandparents live near Couer d' Alene & we were meeting his parents & sisters there. I hadn't met any of Mel's family yet, so this was quite an adventure for me. Nervous doesn't even begin to describe the nausea growing inside me. But I'm a trooper & was pleased that Mel had asked me to go with him & wanted his family to meet me.

We went up past Idaho Falls to Salmon, where we ran into some friends while getting fuel & Frank warned us that we better get our rain gear on. We laughed off the advise & got back on the road. By the time we got to North Fork it was starting to cloud up & get cold. We stopped at a little store & put on our hoody's & jackets (just in case). A little further down the road the rain came. We tied up our hoods & cussed Frank for cursing us! A little wet but none worse for the wear, we rode on.

Our first major stop of the day was at the Missoula Harley Davidson shop. WOW!! Huge doesn't begin to describe it! This store was amazing! We had alot of fun looking & planning how to fix up the Harley.

We got to Mel's grandparents house about 6 that evening. (I think we made pretty good time, since we didn't leave home till about 9:30 that morning!) Meeting the family was out of the way, so now we could relax & enjoy the trip.

Northern Idaho is a total different world than Southern Idaho! It looked as if we had entered a different state. Southern Idaho is more flat, desert & sage brush. Northern Idaho has mountain & pine trees galore. It was breathtaking! Everyday we went riding. There was so much to see! We rode into Couer d' Alene & rode around the lake. It was amazing!
The Lake is the most beautiful blue & the homes were out of this world! Great spacious homes- the next larger than the last!

Since we were so close to Spokane, WA, we had hoped to visit the Harley shop there. But Washington is a helmet state so we weren't sure how we were going to make this happen. We were in a motorcycle store one afternoon & mentioned this to one of the salesman. He offered to let us borrow a couple of his helmets for the trip. This was way too cool! He wouldn't even accept a deposit, just asked if we were honest people. We were off to Spokane! The store was well worth the effort! We had far too much fun & spent way too much money!

The weekend went far too fast but is a memory we will never forget. After many good-bye & tons of photo's it was time to head for home. (see our pics from our Couer d' Alene trip at:)
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