This summer we spent 8 weeks in the boat circumnavigating Vancouver Island. Once we were home we had an invitation from our friends who own a house on Lake Coeur d’Alene to come visit sometime around Labor Day weekend. We decided since we were going to be in the neighborhood, we might as well make it a moochdock weekend and catch up with other friends and family in the area. What is moochdocking? Moochdocking means you are boondocking or camping for free on your friends’ or family’s property, most often their driveway. Besides, we knew anywhere with a good camp site was going to be booked and crowded on the holiday weekend, so visiting with friends while still having Nonnie’s Diner to sleep in is delightful.
Our first stop was in the city of Coeur d’Alene, where I got to catch up with my friend Jan Mass (Jan Rednall now). We had worked together on the North Slope in the early 80’s, and only seen each other once in the last 37 years. Of course Facebook makes it easy to keep in touch now, but spending an evening with Jan and Mark was absolutely delightful. It was like we’d just seen them last week. The pix above are from our days working in Prudhoe Bay. A lot has changed in our lives since these were taken, but she’s still the amazing and beautiful person I shared an office with so long ago.
The next stop was at the lake house owned by Ken & Kay Kurtz, parents of our friend Kelly LaCrosse. Kelly was a co-worker at King County, a frequent visitor and sailor on Yohelah, and fellow traveler in Cuba and Croatia (Ken also sailed with us in Croatia). The yellow house above was previously a two story cabin. Last winter Ken added supports underneath, then dug out and built the entire ground level floor below the existing cabin. He added a garage for the boat, sewing room for Kay, bedroom and bathroom and sitting room. It was an incredible piece of work, along with a complete remodel of the kitchen on the main floor.
We spent time on the lake taking a boat tour around the bay and into Coeur d’Alene one afternoon. We cooked some pizzas on the barbeque, and on the night of the Super Blue Moon, Kelly and I took a late night kayak trip around the point to see the moonrise. I have never done an evening kayak trip before but thought it was super fun and want to do that again.
The drive down from Lake Coeur d’Alene to Clarkston was a new route for us, and the scenery was as lovely as you expect in rural Idaho. We stayed a night with my step father and caught up and had a nice dinner, but he’s not going out much so we only stayed the night then headed north to Malden to see my sister-in-law.
And here we are moochdocking at the house my brother Dale build in Malden. The town of Malden was in the national news 3 years ago this weekend when a fire blew through and burned most of the town to the ground. My brother had been recently diagnosed with cancer and I stood that night in my yard literally screaming at any God who would let his home be taken by a wildfire. The fire burned as close as 3 feet to the house on one side and 20 on the other side, but it was one of 25 structures in the town left standing. My brother has since lost the battle with cancer and Jan is here now, making improvements and staying busy with projects around the house. This weekend Rob volunteered to install a water line to her new refrigerator and went into the crawl space and got that hooked up. And, as always, we played Baja Rummy, ate good meals and had a great visit with my big sis.
Tomorrow after the majority of the Labor Day traffic has gone home, we’ll take Nonnie’s Diner back to Bainbridge and park her in her own driveway. Moochdocking at home isn’t too bad either!