Sandpoint, ID

That’s right – go garage saling in Sandpoint! The only catch is you will probably want to get up as early as possible to get the choicest goods. To find out where the big ones are (the church rummage sales, the benefit sales, the multi-family extravaganzas), check the Nickel’s Worth. A new one comes out every Thursday, perfect to plan for Friday and Saturdays. Yes, now people regularly have sales on Fridays. So if you’re lucky enough to be off on Fridays, you are set. For the rest of us, Friday lunch hours are good for surreptitious saling. One of the most dependable venues to pick the Nickels’ Worth up at is Yoke’s, at the Bonner Mall. You’re there anyway, it’s great.

Each August the Bonner County Fair starts out with the annual rodeo. The rodeo is always the Friday and Saturday before the fair starts. I rounded up a few of my friends and went on Saturday night. We showed up about 30 minutes early and found that the grandstands were not full.

So you’ve grown a monster zucchini and you just can’t wait to show it off? Or maybe you’ve spent that last two years hand-stitching a beautiful quilt. Perhaps you’re sure your sow is the shapeliest porcine example in town. You’re certain your rabbit is the most adorable in Idaho? The Bonner County Fair is where you can see how your projects measure up to those of fellow citizens.

The Festival at Sandpoint is an annual event of summer music fun. Each year the line up is released in mid to late May and the mad dash for tickets begins. For eight days in August there is a different act to suit every taste. There is usually a country night, rock night, a family night, which is a great way to get the kids to the festival and each year ends with the Spokane symphony

The show begin with the usual novelty attractions. There was a boy who was incredibly flexible and put himself in a box. There were the hula hoop girls who swiveled and swayed and hula-hooped like there was no tomorrow. There were the circus ponies and the circus dogs, all doing cute little tricks. Then the show increased it’s pace with bigger attractions, like the quartet on the centrifuge wheel, and the tightrope walkers. And our daughter’s favorite: the motorcyle riding on a high wire.

People were talking about the storm, using phrases like “gully washer” and “frog choker.” A few individuals were propping up canopies and wiping rainwater from valuable artwork as a tentative crowd started milling through the fair. Several vendors, having attended to their own booths, were helping others tidy up.
Such is the life of an artist.

So. You don’t particularly relish the idea of wandering from booth to booth, peering at lampwork beads, hand-carved stone, high-quality photography, watercolors, textiles, wood and ceramic art, or forged ironwork. And you’re not a fan of strolling in the park while your mate browses for finely-crafted items that can be found in this one place only once each year. You’d rather spend a perfect summer day at home…mowing the lawn, perhaps.

Beauty abounds in Sandpoint as I think we are all aware of; but during the summer months often times we focus in on what we feel embodies that beauty: the lake. Pend Oreille Lake offers many refreshing activities when the mercury is rising outside. From boating and all the activities that inherently brings, to just [...]

It has been said that nothing is as strong as the heart of a volunteer. Nowhere could this have been more evident than at Sandpoint’s 14th annual Long Bridge Swim. If not for the many people who organized, oversaw, directed and managed this event (right down to the homeowner who provided the starting line), we swimmers would have never made it into the chilly waters of Lake Pend Oreille.

Camping in North Idaho is such a perfectly easy thing no matter where you are, it seems like you are minutes away from great camping. We decided to get out of town and we quickly landed on Priest Lake. Less than 50 miles from Sandpoint this seemed like the perfect place for a weekend getaway.