We're heading today to the northern Idaho lakeside town of Coeur D’Alene, the final stop on our road trip before returning home to Seattle. But before we leave Montana, there’s one more more stop we need to make. Montana it seems is pretty hooked on gambling. Just about every strip mall and every service station of any size boasts a “casino”. So how could we resist stopping at “Lucky Lil’s” which boasts both fuel and a “casino” as well as a pretty decent supermarket. The “casino” it turns out, is little more than a darkened room closed off from the rest of the supermarket with a cashier sitting behind a plexiglass screen eyeing the few zombie-like (or spaced out) punters hitting the buttons on space-age looking slot machines. The temptation was just to much!! We fed cash into a machine, hit the buttons and within a few minutes, Sandra had more than doubled her money! Much to the disgust of the cashier, we cashed out and left the casino with.....$10.85!
if this is casino Montana-style, LasVegas doesn’t have too much to worry about....
And so on to Coeur D’Alene. This is a somewhat unusual place. The town itself and indeed northern Idaho (and for that matter, much of the rest of Idaho) has a reputation for being very conservative. But its beautiful setting on the banks of a large lake surrounded by mountains and its distance from any large population centres, has made it a magnet for the rich and famous. Such well-known conservatives such as Oprah, a Kardashian or two, a bunch of sports stars all apparently own big mansions that fringe the lake!
I would doubt though that any live in the very prominent lakefront condo building on the edge of the town. Each of the units in this building is around 6000 sq ft (let’s round that to 600 sq m for the sake of convenience) and comes with a “free” lifetime membership for two to the adjacent country club and golf course as well as a bunch of other fringe benefits. The golf course, reputedly one of the best tended in the US boasts a unique feature - a floating green which can be moved around to vary the challenge faced by the elderly clientele who are likely the only people who can afford to play here
And so back home to Seattle. We’ve been on the road through the interior West for 19 days, seen some of the best scenery and the most interesting wildlife the US has to offer and covered just shy of 3300 miles (5300 km).
And here’s the fitting end....
Day 17: Greenough, Montana-Coeur d'Alene, Idaho: 202 miles
Day 18: Coeur d'Alene
Day 19 Coeur d'Alene, Idaho-Seattle, Washinton: 315 miles