Little Diamond & Sandpoint

August 8 was expected to be hot across eastern Washington, so an early start in the cool of the morning was essential.  We said "Goodbye" to the Leavenworth campground that had been home for three weeks, passed through Wenatchee and connected with I-90 at George. 
We arrived in downtown Spokane before 1:00 PM and it was already hot.  The six mile drive up Division Street to Highway 2 seemed to take forever.  The traffic was intense and we must have hit a hundred signals . . . all red.

We finally arrived at Little Diamond Lake, about nine miles west of the town of Newport.  We got checked into our campground, unhitched the car and immediately discovered that the RV had no brakes.  Apparently, the Spokane stop-n-go traffic had taken its toll.  Ron was a little reluctant to drive the ten ton motor home much further without the ability to stop it, but he did manage to ease it into a nice campsite and bring it to a safe stop.

The next day we drove into Newport to do a little grocery shopping and talk to a brake shop.  The proprietor listened to Ron's description of the problem and concluded that it was probably a blown brake line or master cylinder . . . nothing that a little time and money couldn't fix.  They don't do house calls in this area, so he suggested that we arrange for a tow, which we did.  Our Good Sam Emergency Road Service will have a truck here tomorrow morning to tow us into Newport and, hopefully, have the problem fixed in no time.

We returned to our campsite to discover the power was out.  Some construction guys were digging a trench for a fiber optics line nearby and accidentally cut through the campground's power cable.  The problem was fix in a matter of hours and life was back to "normal" as we know it.

Bonnie relaxing at our campsite

We camped here five years ago.  It's a nice spacious campground, surrounded by rocky hills and forests and miles from the nearest highway.  It's very peaceful and quiet, especially at night.  Last night's sky was clear and excellent for viewing stars.  It was also the best night to see the Peried Meteor Shower.  So, in late evening, dozens of star gazers made their way by flashlight to the central meadow with their blankets, lawn chairs, drinks and snacks, to watch the meteors streak across the sky.  We also saw the International Space Station pass by.  A couple serious astronomers brought large telescopes so people could view various stars and constellations.  Watching meteor showers is not the most exciting thing to do, but it was a fun and unique experience.

Little Diamond Lake on a nice August afternoon.

The swampy side of the lake has some nice habitat areas.

The most interesting end of the lake.  Lots of critters live here.

The weekend of August 11 was "Festival at Sandpoint".  Sandpoint, Idaho was only about 40 miles away, so we drove over and spent part of the day in one of our favorite towns.  The Saturday Farmers Market offered a good variety of fresh food and flowers, as well as interesting crafts booths where Bonnie found a very nice pendant necklace and errings.

An excellent arts and crafts show was being held at the City Beach, on Lake Pend Oreille.  Parking spaces were non-existent at the beach so we parked downtown for four hours in a two-hour zone (no ticket) and walked several blocks to the beach park.  It was hot but the festival was worth it.

City Beach - Sandpoint ID

Festival at Sandpoint - Arts & Crafts Show

Bayfest (British-American Youth Festival Theatre) put on an interesting short play with large puppets.

We had a good time at Little Diamond.  Our camp neighbors were nice folks from Spokane who had two friendly little Pomeranians, Snickerdoodle and Ewok.  Now it's time to move on down the highway to Newport, even if it's behind a tow truck.  Hopefully, the brake problem will be fixed and we'll be in Montana very soon.