My own private Idaho

Lovely! Well, once I got past the roadside gun stores. Literally.

The lake, attached to Couer d'Alene Lake by the Shadowy St. Joe River, is gorgeous. Warm, clean -- beautiful swimming this afternoon with my sister. We also took the boat out along the St. Joe, which is really spectacular. Cottonwood trees line the banks, and the breeze was cool and carried the scent of the trees and the river as we cruised past dozens of osprey nests where mated pairs fed their babies.

We saw blue heron and cormorants, too, but the osprey are amazing. They are fish-hunting eagles, and the babies should be leaving the nests in the coming few weeks, but today, the parents were carrying fish in their talons to feed the young. There's one nest, atop a pole in the middle of the lake, where boats pass by all the time. We pulled right up to it, and the mother osprey stared us down with her big, yellow, fierce eyes until we moved far enough away that we were clearly no threat to her babies.

The river is calm and used to be used for steam boats traveling up. The remnants of the docks remain along the banks, but the grass and trees have taken back the landscape. There are hundreds of water lillies near the boat house, too. They had all gone to sleep for the day when we went out, but we're planning another ride in the morning so I can take some photos, and they should be out again then.

The smell along the cottonwood lanes is incredible.

It's very tempting to stay here for the rest of the week, which is possible. I'll just have to see how the timing will work with my Utah-Colorado-Missouri plans.