Red hot auto

Follow this simple advice, and you'll probably do just fine here in the middle of the Idaho panhandle, where the lakeside city of Coeur d'Alene auto red hot draws travelers and second-homers from all over the West.At the docks, you can catch a ride to the golf course, take a minute cruise on Coeur d'Alene Lake, hop on a float plane or rent a kayak. At McEuen Field, a youth baseball diamond between the main drag and the lake, you can sit in the bleachers, munch on a $2 hot dog from the snack shack, then stroll down to the water's edge or up to the Moose Lounge for a cold one. At the Wolf Lodge Steakhouse on the eastern end of town, you and your beloved can share a ounce sirloin steak.Now that I've spent a few days here, I have an idea why many Southern Californians including more than a few Los Angeles cops have retired to northern Idaho, why so many travelers arrive every summer and why some stay away. Whenever somebody starts talking about "the light at the end of the tunnel," I'll think of Idaho for reasons I'll explain in a minute.The hub of action in Coeur d'Alene is the lakefront, where the story Coeur d'Alene Golf & Spa Resort rises next to City Park. On a grassy expanse here, the Rotarians and the Kiwanis appear to be locked in a vicious struggle over who can provide more benches, playground structures and bandstand improvements. Wooden lifeguard towers overlook a family-friendly beach. Float planes, cruise boats and a gaggle of rental watercraft line the dock, and a sculpted moose stands sentinel at Independence Point, where local teens like to sunbathe and practice their slouches.Every few hours, though, the sun or the scenery overcomes one of them, usually a boy. He'll slowly back up, like a gymnast preparing for a floor exercise, then rush forward, hurl himself through the air, soaring over the concrete steps and the stenciled letters saying then splash down into the water. They do the same from nearby Tubbs Hill, but from boulders and cliffs.Maybe the water exerts some sort of gravitational pull. The lake stretches south for miles and fills with all sorts of pleasure craft in the summer. Hiking and biking paths are threaded around its auto shine miles of shoreline.The city is neatly spread around the resort. The lakefront area's main drag, Sherman Avenue, is peppered with restaurants, a few motels and numerous galleries, including several that focus on glass art and Western art Apparently, Coeur d'Alene's name comes from the early days of interaction between this area's Indians and the French-speaking traders who eventually showed up. As this story goes, the American Indians were tough traders, so a settler concluded, in French, that these bargainers had the heart Tastes are conservative here. The city is about white, and the county, Kootenai, voted for John McCain. Over the years, there have been some whose politics have fallen beyond the Democrat-Republican spectrum. One of the nation's most notorious white supremacists had his clubhouse just outside town for three decades, until nine years ago, when neighbors and lawyers shut him down. For more on that, see sidebar: Once home to Aryan Nations, northern Idaho makes progress. I kept an eye out on Sherman Avenue for hints of those troubles, but in four days I never saw any. Instead, I kept seeing signs that Coeur d'Alene, with its growing trade in tourism and second homes, could begin to look a little bit like Sun Valley, at least in summer. If the clocks around here once seemed stuck in, they're ticking now.The resort, the pound gorilla of tourism around the lake, opened in the , then expanded in the '. And then in it added a widely admired golf course with a floating 14th hole. You see lots of expensive boats in the hotel marina, including one that carries guests to the golf course. You get spectacular views from the hotel's upper floors, including from the fancy Beverly's restaurant.Whether you stay in a resort room or a motel room as I did, at the Resort City Inn, it's easy enough to pass a summer's day: If you're not golfing or fishing, you're on a lake cruise boat, on the beach, paddling in a kayak or dangling a few hundred feet above the lake on a parasailing ride.To get lunch or get out of the sun, you walk up to Sherman Avenue. And if it's a Wednesday afternoon in summer, there will be a little farmers market at th Street.Instead of spuds, it's huckleberries that show up everywhere, in pies, smoothies, beer, ice cream and more. Beginning late this month, they usually start appearing at the Kootenai County Farmers Market, alongside the smoked meat, organic soap, organic tofu and organic hummus.The afternoon when I browsed, many shoppers showed up on bikes not surprising considering the growing network of trails around town. The North Idaho Centennial Trail carries nonmotorized traffic 24 miles west from Higgins sometimes spelled Higgens Point on Coeur d'Alene Lake to the Washington line then goes on more miles under the name Spokane River Centennial Trail The Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes, another paved path for nonmotorized riders, runners and skaters, was completed in auto. It runs miles along an old rail route between the towns of Mullan and Plummer. The federal Environmental Protection Agency, eager to seal old mining byproducts below the asphalt, was key in creating the trail.In winter, the area draws skiers to Silver Mountain Resort auto hot and Schweitzer Mountain Resort minutes north in Sandpoint. For the last several years, the summer calendar has been highlighted by the Ironman triathlon and the Car d'Lane auto show, both in June, and a downtown street fair, restaurant showcase and art the green festival, which fall between Friday and Aug. this year.Besides the resort course, many golfers hit the Circling Raven and StoneRidge courses nearby. Many families leave room in their itineraries for Silverwood, the biggest theme park in the Pacific Northwest, miles north of town.

One thing Coeur d'Alene doesn't offer, at least so far, is desperate recession discounting.Dani Zibell Wolfe, vice president for tourism at the Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce, inmid-June reported that hotel occupancy was running less than behind last year.In tumultuous times, maybe old school American atmosphere sells better. Surely that should please John and Tina Hough, owners of the Roosevelt Inn. Their four story bed-and-breakfast began life as a red brick school in and remained an active campus until . In fact, John Hough attended grade school there. Now, most of the rooms are named after former teachers, and the halls are lined with old class photos.The same day I checked out the Roosevelt Inn, I wound up on one of the Tubbs Hill trails, shooting the breeze with the Holt family as they lazed and clowned on a big rock.She's trying to catch some fish. But the fish are jacking her worms," said Dallas Holt, giggling, as his stepmother, Tiesha Holt, cast and cast again.was looking pretty good, and I was already imagining the Fourth of July fireworks. But to appreciate this territory properly, you can't just stand and stare.Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond, who has a passion for blowing up old touring caravans, is being invited to take a break with his family in a luxury caravan holiday home on a five star park in Mid Wales.Think like a train," said the man in the Lookout Pass bike-rental shop, handing me a mapI was about miles east of Coeur d'Alene, in the Bitterroot Mountains on the Idaho-Montana line. My rented bike and rack in place, I drove up an unpaved mountain road to the mouth of a railway tunnel.It looked dark in there.For decades, this was the route of the Olympian and Olympian Hiawatha passenger trains running between Chicago and Seattle-Tacoma. The trains stopped operating about workers hauled away nearly auto miles of tracks. Just like that, a mountain bike trail was born.