We had never been to Idaho or that part of the world. Coeur
d’Alene is listed in the 100 Best Places to Retire book, and I recalled my
mother talking about how beautiful it was, although I can’t recall if or when
she might have gone there. In
researching the location, it seemed as though housing values were better than
any of the other places we had considered, and while the climate is a bit iffy,
we thought we’d give it a try.
To get to Coeur d’Alene from Dallas/Ft Worth takes a bit of
doing. Coeur d’Alene has an airport, but it has no scheduled service and is for
general aviation only. The capital of
Idaho, Boise, has non-stop service from DFW, but it’s four hundred sixty miles
away from Coeur d’Alene. The airport of
choice is Spokane, Washington, about a forty-five minute drive from Coeur
d’Alene. So we booked flights to
Spokane, through Phoenix. This is an old
US Airways or more likely America West route, not a traditional American
Airlines route, and the service is reminiscent of US Airways, meaning very
minimal. Our connection in Phoenix was pretty close, but I decided to risk it
because the chance of bad weather in Phoenix was small. Actually, they had bad
weather the day before our trip. We had
to walk a considerable distance to our Spokane gate, getting there five minutes
before they started boarding. Phoenix is
very busy.
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| Pacific Southwest Airlines livery on an American jet - PSA was one of the companies that made up USAirways, which American merged with recently. |
Spokane’s airport is pretty small, but they have five major
carriers - Delta, United, Southwest, American, Alaska. We had to walk what seemed
like forever to get to the rental car location, and they do not really have
Hertz #1 Club Gold service, although there was no wait at the counter. Our car
was some kind of a Hyundai, but it ran well and sipped fuel. The drive over I-90 to Coeur d’Alene was
uneventful, except I noticed that no one was speeding. Everyone drove exactly the speed limit. When we go somewhere we’ve never been, I try
to stick to the speed limit until/unless the local drivers show me I don’t have
to. This time they were showing me I had
to. Before we crossed into Idaho,
we saw two motorists who had been pulled over by unmarked patrol cars, making
me think not speeding was a really good idea.
We stayed at a La Quinta in Coeur d’Alene, where hotels seem
to be pretty pricy. I was not expecting a lot, but was pleasantly surprised.
The room was quite comfortable, and the included breakfast was pretty good,
although you had to have some patience with the toaster. The hotel was ‘pet
friendly’, and we saw some really big dogs. There were also families with small
children, who were running up and down the halls above us, but they settled
down before bedtime. Our room had a view of a defunct water part. The weather while in Coeur d’Alene ranged
from upper 30’s to 80 or so, mostly from 40’s to 60’s. We could not have asked
for better weather.
Our first evening we ate at an Italian restaurant nearby,
Tomato Street, which was a huge operation with lots of customers. It was the Idaho equivalent of Olive Garden.The
food was really good, but the portion sizes seemed to be designed so that you
would take home leftovers. It was just
of highway US 95, which, we learned, is the road you try to avoid when driving
in Coeur d’Alene. The lights are long
and the traffic can be formidable.
We had contacted a realtor, Kevin Bennett, via a web search.
I sent him information about what we were doing and what kind of house we
thought we might like. He was really
nice and set us up with the MLS service that most realtors use these days, so
we could pick through and find what homes we would like to view. We (meaning Jody) picked out ten or so and
sent them to Kevin. But before we got
there, a bunch of them went to sale pending status. I had rejected a few listings for no reason
other than they were more expensive, so we reinstated those.
Our first full day, we identified on Zillow a few homes to
look at, just from the car, as a way of learning our way around. Coeur d’Alene
is a small community and it takes no time to get anywhere, We found a couple of
properties that didn’t look too promising, and wondered by accident across one
of the ones we were going to see with Kevin. The owners were there, taking out
huge quantities of trash and recycles.
They offered to let us have a look.
The house was pretty nice but a bit tired. The owners had moved to assisted
living and were looking forward to not owning a house, and were happy to show
it to us.
We also wandered down to the lake, in the morning. The lady
at the La Quinta had told use about the free parking available downtown, and we
parked there. The lakefront is
absolutely gorgeous, no doubt about it. Hardly anyone was there, just a jogger
or two and some dog walkers. It was a
bit nippy, probably in the low 50’s with a bit of a breeze. We also wandered around the downtown area,
looking at all the quaint little stores that weren’t open yet. We went to the Visitor Center downtown and in
addition to clean toilets they had tons of information about the area and
nearby areas, and some blurbs from various restaurants. I picked up a couple that looked vegetarian-friendly.
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| Lake Coeur d'Alene |
We ate lunch at one of those restaurants, Pita Pit, part of
a local chain, which was a bit tricky to find. It was in a strip shopping center near a
mall. They make pita sandwiches to
order. You have to be more involved in
the process than I was expecting. It had
a wide variety of veggie options. In
nearly every eating place we visited in Coeur d’Alene and in all the places
around it we visited, there were decent vegetarian options. Jody was pleased.
Our first impressions of Coeur d’Alene were that it was
absolutely beautiful. There is not a
speck of trash to be found anywhere; there is no graffiti; the people are
friendly and impeccably polite. We had heard that there were more gun shops than
gas stations in Coeur d’Alene, and while we did see gun shops, there were a lot
more gas stations. The area is booming
and the housing market is very active.
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| Fish tacos at Seasons |
We found our way back to downtown for dinner, at a place
called Seasons of Coeur d’Alene, supposedly featuring whatever was seasonal. It
has a very busy bar and a not so busy restaurant.
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| Grilled cheese |
We ate at the restaurant and
were pleased. People in Coeur d’Alene are just so nice.
The next day (Saturday) we met with Kevin Bennett from the
Coldwell Banker Schneidmiller Realty.
Kevin took us to see eight different homes, plus the one we had stumbled
on the day before. We liked them all, although a couple of them were too much
for us to handle due to the size of the lot or a storage unit the size of an
airplane hangar. We saw homes with
natural gas stoves, heated by natural gas, but with air conditioning. Lots of
open floor plans and all the new stuff we are looking for. One or two of them
had sickening paint jobs, but it’s just paint. Kevin explained about the
different areas, about how Coeur d’Alene is booming, how the different
localities cooperate on educational and development projects. Lots of volunteer opportunities all around,
and non-existent crime rate. One home
in particular, in the Hayden Lake area, north and a little east of Coeur d’Alene,
appealed to us, although it was a bit distant from town.
After our tour, we had lunch in an excellent place near
Kevin’s office, called Rivelle’s River Grill. I had some pulled pork sliders,
unlike anything I’ve ever had. Sloppy
but good.
During the morning I had noticed that a pain I had behind my
left ear was getting worse. I had this problem on and off for years and it had
not been diagnosed. I decided to go to
an Urgent Care place, which was near our hotel and part of Kootenai Health, the
big medical center in Kootenai County in Idaho.
They took me right away, accepted my insurance, and after a few minutes
I was being examined by a doctor. I
thought I might have an ear infection, but he determined that I had an inflamed
and probably infected salivary gland, back under my jaw, which could easily be
taken for an ear infection. He called in
a prescription to the pharmacy across the street. I went over there and they
addressed me by name before I could say anything, and I had my medication in a
few minutes. The whole medical event
lasted 90 minutes from walking in the door to Urgent Care to walking out the
door at Rite Aid. I have to say, I was
impressed. And everyone was very nice. At this point Jody was ready to move and I
was not far behind.
The next day (Sunday) we had nothing planned, so on a whim
we decided to add another state to our list of states visited. Coeur d’Alene is not far from Montana, and it
is 177 from Missoula, about which I knew nothing except it was mentioned in “I
Miss You So Badly”, a song by Jimmy Buffett.
Off we went. It was an amazingly
scenic drive, through the woods and over the mountains. Absolutely gorgeous. Minimal traffic on a Sunday, but some very
significant construction zones. I am
guessing that in the mountains they have to get road work done during
summer. Once we reached Montana, we
found another thing we had not seen before – 80 mile an hour speed limits.
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| 65 for trucks was a joke. |
I-90 is a road which is very winding, through
valleys cut out by the Clark Fork River (after the Clark of Lewis & Clark),
and the road is in bad shape at some points.
So you are driving around sharp curves, on a rutted highway, and you are
going 80. Well, not for long. I slowed down until that road straightened
out, and it wasn’t like I was holding anyone up.
Missoula is hardly a tourist attraction. We found a place to eat lunch, walked around
the riverfront a little, and left. Jody drove back, so she could experience
life at 80 mph. Our little Hyundai was
not really built for it, though.
That evening we went back to Seasons for dinner, and had a
completely different experience. They were short staff and we could not get
anyone to seat us in the restaurant. Jody talked to someone in the bar, and
they recommended we eat in the bar (same menu available) because we would be
forgotten about in the restaurant. I guess this illustrates a problem about
Coeur d’Alene. It is booming to the extent that there aren’t enough young
people around to take the entry level jobs.
At any rate, we ate in the bar, and I stuck to a burger, figuring that
was a safe choice in the bar, which it was.
The next day (Monday) we checked out of our hotel, and
decided to try to look at the one house we had really liked in Hayden Lake, and
to try to find Costco, and to look at some of the new housing developments that
have sprung up in Hayden and in Post Falls (just west of Coeur d’Alene). We managed all of those. The new housing places are very nice and we
liked one of the floor plans, but most of them are much larger than we would
like. Prices are cheap, about 2/3 of
what they are in the DFW area. We found
Costco, and even there gas prices are 50 cents/gallon higher than Texas. Costco
had some different stuff – lots of heavy flannel shirts, and gun safes. We don’t see those here.
We had lunch in a Mediterranean restaurant in Post Falls,
called White House Grill. But, unlike Dallas, in Idaho Mediterranean means
Greece, not Turkey or Lebanon. The gyro
was excellent. They have belly dancing
on Thursday. We were leaving Tuesday..
We drove to our next hotel, a Courtyard in Spokane. We had a very early flight on Tuesday morning
and didn’t want to miss it, so we got a little closer. Spokane has a really nice park along the
river, where they had some sort of an Expo in 1973 or so.
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| Along the river in Spokane |
It was popular with strollers, joggers,
skateboarders, and, sadly, bicycle riders,
So you have to be careful. That
night we used the river walk to get part of the way to a restaurant, called
Saranac Public House, on Main St. It was
busy, but service was excellent and the food was quite good. And I finally hit
10,000 steps on my Fitbit for the first time in a week.
We went to bed on the early side, and set the alarm for 5
AM, but consoled ourselves by considering it was 7 at home. We drove to the
airport and took a while to find a gas station to top off the rental, and there
was a back way into the airport which made returning easy. The Spokane airport
has the best marked rental car return in the world. We were really early. We walked a considerable distance to the
second terminal where American and Alaska are the only two airlines, and while
there were kiosks, there were two absolutely bored looking agents at the
American desk, so we went over there to give them something to do. The agent who waited on us congratulated us
on going through Phoenix instead of Seattle, which I guess is what some people
do. I just knew a connection in Phoenix
would be more dependable than a connection in Seattle, due to the weather in
the two locations. Spokane does not
really have TSA Pre-Check – they fake it with the standard lines. But they did not care about my TSA compliant
corkscrew.
Our flight home was uneventful, but we may need to reconsider
these mid-week departures and arrivals, because we drove home from DFW Airport
at the height of the evening rush hour.
The conclusion is that we liked Coeur d’Alene better than
any other place we have been. So far, we
have visited:
·
Port Townsend, Washington
·
Sequim, Washington
·
Sun City, Georgetown, Texas
·
Robson Ranch, Denton, Texas
·
Port Saint Lucie, Florida
·
Fort Myers, Florida
·
Mount Dora, Florida
·
Ukiah, California
·
Fort Bragg, California
·
Mendocino, California
·
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
The place we like best is Coeur d’Alene, but we did not go
at the worst possible time, which is mid-winter. So that is a consideration. Other considerations about Coeur d’Alene are
that it does not have an airport, and Spokane, 45 minutes away, has a nice airport,
which claims to be international., but by ‘international’ they probably mean
Canada. Another is that it is far away
from any of our families. And finally,
if you Google ‘Indian restaurant Coeur d’Alene’, it comes back with some in
Spokane Valley (Washington) and some for that other kind of Indian.
We're not done looking, but we have a new leader in the clubhouse.
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