This upcoming Saturday morning my youngest brother, Devin, and I will be departing Cincinnati and heading to the northern Panhandle area of Idaho for some sightseeing and the experience of making the trip. Unfortunately our middle brother, Danny, was unable to get off work.
This is going to be our route out there. We're looking to get out there as directly as possible so we can check into our lodging as early as possible Monday.
We didn't start out with much of an itinerary but we have developed a few points of interest each of us wants to visit throughout the trip.
On the drive out, my brother wanted to stop off at the Antique Archeology/American Pickers shop in Le Claire, IA and the world's largest truck stop in nearby Walcott since they are both on the route. Probably just going to sleep in the van half way through the trip somewhere in South Dakota.
We'll be getting into Sandpoint sometime Monday evening and staying in either the La Quinta, Quality Inn, Days Inn, or Ruby Ponderay. We haven't really decided yet.
Tuesday we'll checkout Sandpoint and the areas north like Bonner's Ferry. Places recommended to me were Sweet Lou's and Laughing Dog Brewery. Interestingly, we can get Laughing Dog here locally at Jungle Jim's. Can't remember off hand if I've tried anything from them. I need to pick a couple up before the trip out. I hope I can find some of their Devil Dog even though their site lists it as unavailable, I'd like to bring some back for Danny.
Wednesday we'll probably head down to Coeur d'Alene to see what's there. Didn't get any specific recommendations for around there but I'm sure we can find something to do.
Thursday we'll check out of our lodging and head south to check out Moscow briefly since that's really further south than I am interested. Rants And Raves Brewery and Hunga Dunga Brewing were recommended. From there it was suggested we take 95 down to Lewiston and then take US-12 through the Clearwater Valley back to 90 around Missoula.
On the way back the plan is to make a stop at Mt. Rushmore. We may end up bunking for the night around there and then heading out the next morning to finish the trip. We should get back home late Saturday possibly Sunday depending on how we're feeling.
Many pictures will be taken and posted!
Last night I had the opportunity to talk with an ARFCOMmer who, while he isn't a local yet, is intimate with the area and owns property there he will be moving to soon. Learned things that only people who know the area would know like how bad bugs can get (thankfully not too bad save some mosquitoes), the fire danger and how to mitigate it, how restrictive property modification is (not at all, there are no building codes!), how marketable my job skills are, what the locals are generally like, etc. Even got a recommendation from him on a prepper/homesteading group that can probably help me as well as his real estate agent he used to purchase his property (20ac/$100k with electric access if you were curious).
From what I learned, it pretty much confirmed everything I had generally read. It really sounds like an amazing place to be able to live and I can't wait to see it first hand!
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