#2 - Little Diamond

Starting Off: We began our vacation on Bonnie's birthday (Aug. 6). We were fully loaded and towing our Honda and weren't sure we'd make it over Snoqualmie Pass. We had to slow down a bit but made it over okay. Our first stop was Yakima where we spent a couple days relaxing with Ron's family before continuing to Spokane via the Tri-cities.

Little Diamond: This is one of the Thousand Trails/NACO campgrounds. It's about 40 mi. north of Spokane near Diamond Lake. The campground (or "preserve" as they call it) is near Diamond Lake but has its own Little Diamond Lake for fishing, boating and hiking. Very pretty. We'll be here six nights before heading to Montana. This preserve has 300 spaces but fewer than 50 campers, so it's not at all crowded. There's a very nice lodge, pool and hot tub, a smaller TV lounge where folks take their computers to tap into the Wi-Fi, and lots of other outdoor activities. Saturday was the big day of the week. There was a nice breakfast at the lodge, a chat with the park ranger, BINGO and kids activities in the afternoon and a steak barbecue dinner in the evening.

Sandpoint: Yesterday (Sunday) we followed the beautiful Priest River down to Sandpoint and spent several hours at the 35th Annual Arts and Crafts Festival. It was held in the big waterfront park on Lake Pend Oreille and was packed with people. Fortunately, we found a convenient place to park and did a lot of looking around, listening to live music and snacking. Later we placed our folding lawn chairs under a nice shade tree near the beach and watched the boats on the lake with the mountains in the background. Very relaxing. We also did a little downtown shopping for hats and T-shirts before heading back to camp.