DIAMOND DAYS WITH SOTF

Another happy and fun time with the Sisters was in store for us at Little Diamond - Diamond Daze.

All set up and ready for us with good use of the many bandanas.

Intertwined amongst the bandanas were uplifting, happy thoughts and reminders.

The first few hours provided everyone time to chat and get to at least know each other’s name ;’-). 

The remainder of our first day was for relaxing, and more getting to know some of us. The following morning people met at the coffee urn and discussed what everyone planned to do for the early part of the day as we were on our own for a bit of exploring. Susan and I took a little bike ride to the shop that everyone else drove to. The store store is run the Mennonite folks and has a fresh produce section as well as some souvenir type things, a deli, and basic grocery supplies. 

We saw only a few things on our short bike ride, but sure enjoyed the ride.

A hare! I seldom see one and it sat still for my photo.

Of course I can never pass up anything bicycle related.

Happy rocks cheering us on.

And though we did not see this next one as I was on my solo ride the following day, this is a good place to show this cute little family.

I kept a distance as I could see that the parents were getting a little nervous about my presence. The babies are so very young.

Cows often watch curiously as I ride by them and I always wave and say a greeting. I’m always happy to see the farm animals out in the countryside.

A very rural mailbox along a very quiet country road.

Back at camp for a short rest before everyone ‘dressed’ for our ice cream social.

Kathy has a social chat with Leslie.

And Allie has a sun moment…

Regina prepares to capture the group photo. Ain’t she cute?

This next photo is the in waiting for the final word. There had been several photos taken but they all needed to be checked before people could move. So many different expressions as they wait yet again.

Here is the final outcome and pay off for their patience - all proper and smiling now.

THEN we got to enjoy ice cream made by Carolyn. Yummmy!

It is difficult to keep up here, but — we had chosen shot glasses the day before and were asked to bring them with us for our circle gathering.The glasses were either cities or states. Susan had the Seattle shot glass, mine was Pennsylvania.

Once gathered, and retrieving forgotten shot glasses, we were each to tell a made up story about the one we had chosen. The stories were basically hilarious! We laughed and giggled a lot and found out that many of us have quite the imagination, especially on the spur of the moment. It was really great fun and lasted well into the evening.

Susan took her night photo and we were on our way to sleep land.

The fun of course — was not over yet! The next day while I took my solo bike ride into town to mail a couple of cards, that two people will receive late, there was a horseshoe competition that I would miss. Susan agreed to play for both of so was actually on two of the four teams. 

But first — someone said that Susan was being hauled off!

And that I had to go catch her and bring her back. Here I show off my lip gloss holder that we ALL got in our prizes ;’-). I used mine right away.

The four teams (in partial costume — bras for one team, red hats, tiaras, gold belts — had fun at ‘shoes, and Susan apparently scored the most points of any one person. Brought her team up and mine to tie for the last.

Susan was on the BRA team and the Gold belt team (playing for me). She so proudly wears the bra.

She gets to the task.

We had a catered dinner tonight of barbecue ribs and chicken with sides. Last night our dinner was Tacos and everyone brought an item for that. 

After dinner was our next activity. We had each chosen a bell the evening before, and were told to practice a song to play for others to guess the tune. Imagine — a song with a single bell that others would get!! Seemed like an impossible task to me, but I diligently practiced. I played over and over, John Denver’s song Country Roads, but when Susan had no idea what I was playing, I switched to Happy Birthday and thought maybe, just maybe I had a chance.

We brought our bells to the evening circle and paid rapt attention to hear the details.

Jody was doing her best to keep our attention as she told us the NEW RULES! They switched on us and collected our bells to be sorted by sound and retrieved afterward as we were put into groups to perform a melody for everyone. 

HUH? This wasn’t part of the plan as we knew it — we all, en masse, skedaddled to try hiding from our leaders.

Joi found us and we were brought back to the bell table. There would be no escaping.

Jodi had our bells all in order.

We chose our bell (the same one we had had but was now put into a group of complementary tones), and told to take our group away and practice our performance. The practice alone had us in stitches and not at all convinced (in my group) that anyone could ever guess the song. The groups were laughing more than playing. The first two groups played “We Will Rock You”. Both got correct guesses of the song title.

One Two Three..

Oh no, I missed a beat!

Susan had practiced so diligently and so hard, she broke her bell.



No one guessed my groups “Sweet Caroline” to no surprise!

Of course, this being Diamond Daze I suppose, we all collected more prizes for our efforts — or for no effort. The prizes never stopped all weekend! Susan has an idea to put all our prizes together when we get home and take a photo of it all. I may post that later if we do end up doing it. 

We end our happy time event with our morning gathering over coffee — and THIS morning with temps in the 40s — we definitely need the fire.

We say our goodbyes and “see you round the camp fire” and each depart for home. It has once again been a wonderful Sisters event that we all treasured and will keep good memories of. We thank the leaders all (Joi, Vi, Carolyn) and especially say to Carolyn, thank you for all the games, the laughs and the prizes.

SANDPOINT IDAHO AS WE NEAR NEXT SOTF EVENT

Perhaps needless to say, we got yet another tip from a Sister. Rosalie, our coordinator for the Big Sky event, told us about a camping possibility in Sandpoint at the Fairgrounds. Well, we thought, it cannot be any worse than this Beyond Hope RV park! Not expecting much, we drove to check out the Fairgrounds.

Imagine our surprise when we found a tree shaded campground not only with electrical and water hookup, but with wifi (which you had to buy at that other place). All that and it is about one third the cost for this delightful spot tucked under these cooling trees.

We have have plenty of space between all rigs and a quiet little place to relax. Relaxing and reading were our activity for this day as we plan to do a bike ride into and around town in the cool of tomorrow morning, and spend another night here.

Susan prepares us for lunch under the tree.

Then she naps off and on while listening to the Mariner’s baseball game. We both seem a little tired and are happy for this day to rest more than we have been over the past several days. I took a little nap inside the van, Susan snoozes under the trees.

Next morning we are up early to have what turned out to be a wonderful bike ride. Yesterday’s rest served us well. Susan had been kind of ‘dragging’ and apparently really needed this rest because the next morning she was ready to ride before I was!!! That is one for the books for sure.

We took off from camp wended our way through some road work detours and found the trail that would lead us into town. Susan is most often wanting to be ‘playful’ in some of my photos. Here she pretends she could fall through the “imperfect” fencing on the bridge.

As we move along the shoreline of the Lake, this looks like a long and detailed covered bridge…

It is a shopping center with a cafe ;’-). Thinking back, we may have walked through here on a previous trip to Sandpoint.

The trail got us right to the City Beach.

The wind was swift and hard but did not deter any of the kite sailors! There were about 5 of them doing their thing but getting a photo of any of them was difficult to impossible.

The waves looked a little mean.

This sailor was using a smaller sail that he held onto.

Others flew with their kites.

We liked the view across the beach.

Playful Susan plays again.

From here we were ready to head into town, find the next trail and ride across that bridge.

At the trailhead we remembered this guy from our past trips.

He has been here a long time. Fishing must be good.

To give an idea of where we are about to ride across the bridge. The route along the bridge goes along that spit at the bottom right.

The bridge, with Susan far in the distance. When they built the “new” bridge years ago, the kept the old bridge and made it for bikes and pedestrians only. Initially it feels somewhat strange to be riding along with fast traffic coming in you direction. We had a big tailwind going out that made us feel like speeding Olympians ;’-). Coming back we were wind fighting warriors. 

The plan was to turn around at the end of the bridge and return to town, but Susan was SO refreshed from the relaxing day we had had that SHE wanted to ride on! So we continued to ride to the Springy Campground where we have camped a few times in the past. This rather serene place caught my eye.

Having left camp early (recall that Susan was ready so quickly), it was a little early for lunch so we dawdled a bit before finding Connie’s Cafe. Connie’s has quite a history as Conrad owned a couple of restaurants in Seattle but his family lived here in Sandpoint. He came here and eventually the Conoco Gas Station went up for sale. He bought it (in the late 1950s) converted it to the restaurant and ran it for many years. There have been several different ownerships but it is still there and serves great food.

We had our lunch on the deck and the wind was so strong it moved this big tree against the rain gutter to give us a squeaky lunchtime seranade. 

Got home to the Fairgrounds that we have enjoyed so much.

This is the best place for camping — $25 a night, electrical and water hook ups, bathrooms and showers (free) AND Wifi!! Biggest bargain yet.  Works really well for us as we can easily bike into town or explore other places We highly recommend it for anyone looking for an RV spot — not tents allowed.

No time to proofread before trying to post this, so please excuse any typos you find.