Back in Idaho...Again!

Hi! Since I've last written a lot has happened!

Paul was amazing and found us a great house in Coeur d'Alene that we signed on to rent for a year. It's semi-downtown, actually in midtown, but really close to where all the good stuff happens in CDA. It takes us 20-30 minutes to walk downtown but only 10 to walk to some of the local bars and restaurants. Sure beats where we lived last time, which was in Hayden but not accessible to anything good. For some reason the city of Hayden doesn't really believe in sidewalks on some of its main roads and that made everything really hard to get to on foot and even on bike sometimes.

I ended up living in a hotel in Montesano, WA for just over three weeks. This had its perks (housekeeping!) but was also a lonely experience. It also sucked to not have a couch or armchair to sit in to watch TV or read. I had to sit on the bed for everything or else use the hard chairs supplied by the little table in the corner and these were not comfortable!

Some pictures of Montesano and my hotel room:

 Me, reading and eating Junior Mints, sitting on the bed because there was nothing else to do and no where else to sit!

 

 The train that would come through town about twice a day RIGHT outside my window and since there is an intersection right outside my window it would blare its horn every time and scare the bejezzus out of me. 

 The main intersection of town. The Bee Hive restaurant is white building and the Mexican restaurant is in the brick building. 

 The street I would walk down from my hotel to get to the restaurants mentioned above. 

 The Crows Nest Diner with my hotel building in the background. 

 A feed store. Yay. 

 The stairway up to my hotel room. 

 View of Montesano from the top of the stairs. Breathtaking. 

 My hotel room key. Very old fashioned. No card swipes here!

 My hotel room set up

 My "kitchen" and "pantry"

 "Hi" from the bathroom!

You can also see I didn't have much for meal prep. I had to eat cold items or things that could be heated up in a microwave. One of the things I was most excited about when I got back to Idaho was to go grocery shopping so I could make REAL meals! I never thought I would say this but I was looking forward to cooking at home vs going out for dinner. I ate out a few times a week when I was staying in my hotel room but Montesano only had 3 real restaurant choices for dinner and none of them were really extraordinary. Small town diner food, Italian, and Mexican got old fast.

I started my job at Life Care Center Post Falls (in Post Falls, ID) on Monday and so far I really like it. I am a little concerned because I haven't got all my hours yet this week and will be short for the week but with it being my first week it's kind of nice to not have to worry about rushing to get everything done on time to get out of there in 8 hrs. I've been working 6-7 hr days instead. I may ask if I can work Saturday since Paul is getting his wisdom teeth out on Friday and won't be up for doing anything fun anyway.

The dogs are loving being back in Coeur d'Alene because they get to go to the dog park almost every day! Stella has made some new friends and Kobe just lays there in the grass but he looks happy so it's all good.

Last weekend we went riding around Spokane on this 12 person bike contraption and it was really fun. It's so nice to be able to do social things again; when we were travelling it took awhile to make friends and there would be long spans of time where it was just Paul for company. He's awesome to hang out with but we kind of get stuck in a rut when we're just hanging out together. It's nice to have friends suggest new experiences.

I have a lot of things to write about, including recapping the rest of our Texas adventures and writing book reviews for the 5 or so books I read while in Montesano and since I've been back. I will try my best to keep posting but I say that every time. We shall see. ;)

 Me on my way home from Washington stopped at a gas station and ready to get home!

A dust devil I tried to get a photograph of as I was driving through Eastern Washington. Can you see it?