Pond-a-who?

Another beautiful Idaho day loomed on the horizon and we wanted to take full advantage of the sunny skies and temperate weather.  We planned a day trip to Sandpoint which is about 50 miles north of Coeur d’Alene.  Sandpoint sits on the northern edge of Lake Pend Oreille.  It’s time for another pronunciation lesson … seems like I have a lot of those, huh?  Anyway, you can go ahead and give the name of that lake a try, but I’m telling you unless you’re French you will most likely botch it badly!  So, here’s how you enunciate Lake Pend Oreille … pond-da-ray … that’s right!  I learned that from an Idaho publication we picked up at the visitor’s center in town.  I was so happy they gave me the pronunciations for all these names because only God knows how I would have articulated them on my own!

We packed a picnic lunch, packed the dogs’ dinner (just in case) and headed off on what we thought would be a daylong excursion.

We were pretty excited about seeing Sandpoint and went directly to this great public picnic and boat launch area.  We were stunned, disappointed and dismayed.  There were numerous signs that declared “NO DOGS ALLOWED!”  Not even on leash!  Well, we had both dogs in the car.  What were we supposed to do?  So, we simply left Sandpoint and took Highway 200 south on the eastern side of the lake for a nice scenic drive.   So, folks, sadly that’s all we know about Sandpoint L.

 

But that doesn’t mean we didn’t see beautiful scenery—we did!  Here are some photos of beautiful Lake Pend Oreille at Oden Bay.

 

On our continuing scenic cruise we drove by an RV park tucked in lakeside where we spotted these four deer enjoying a late afternoon snack.

 

We stopped for a picnic lunch at the Sam Owen Recreation Area off the Denton Slough at the lake.  Do I look like I barely made it to the table before the camera snapped?  Truth is, I barely did!  Also, see my yellow jacket?  Well, we were harassed by yellow jackets at this rec area.  Actually, most of our time in both Washington and Idaho has included yellow-jacket-harassment!  I'm going to file a harassment law suit if it doesn't cease and desist.  Someone, somewhere in our travels in these two states said it was a particularly bad year for yellow jackets.  I’ve just about had it with yellow jackets … really … I’m not just blowing smoke … I mean it!

Talking about harassment, when I set up the camera between those two trees to take our photo (did I mention we finally found a camera shop?) there were dive-bomber yellow jackets trying to keep me from setting up the "Gorilla" to take that picture.  I just didn’t care how that photo turned out because I was so mad at those YJs.   To get back to the camera shop excursion, I also found out that my Nikon doesn’t have a threaded lens so sadly no filters for this camera L.

On our drive home, we detoured to see Spirit Lake.  Here’s a photo of Spirit Lake, which is another lovely little lake in lake-proliferated northern Idaho.

 

It may not have been an all-day expedition, but we did enjoy the beautiful lake settings.

 

Luke 5:1-3 // Now it happened that while the crowd was pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret; and He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake; but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets.  And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little way from the land.  And He sat down and began teaching the people from the boat.