Today was one of those days that we will talk about when we are old. It was just about perfect.

We all woke up much happier and well rested. We grabbed our free Holiday Inn Breakfast, met a nice family from Oregon who were vacationing here too, and headed back to check off the other “must do” in Coeur d’Alene – cliff jumping!

Directly beside the Coeur d’Alene Resort is Tubbs Hill. Tubbs Hill is technically a great big hill surrounded by water. It is a city park that doesn’t have playgrounds and ballfields, instead it is trails and forests and beaches.

The trails are beautiful and being right on the water, the breeze made the weather perfect a couple of miles of hiking… which we did intermittently because… did I mention the cliff jumping?

I don’t think I have ever seen a lake this blue and clear. You could see clearly underwater and the water just felt different. Obviously not salty like the ocean, but not that normal “lake water” feel. We hiked, and they jumped

Then we hiked some more and they jumped and swam

As we started heading back, I decided I was ready to jump too… so obviously I had to find the highest rock…

So scary and so awesome all at the same time!

We jumped and jumped off the cliff… and someone may have done the tushie equivalent of a back buster and now has bruises on her backside. 🤣🤣 Should make for interesting conversation when I wear a bathing suit later this trip 🤣🤣

But wait! To the boys and my absolute delight, Mike was ready to join us in the water!

Here what we learned today, in your 40’s, it’s not the jump thats hard – it’s the climbing back up the rocks that kicks your butt!

We spent close to 3 hours hiking and jumping. It was just the best day! I made several mental pictures to hold onto 📸♥️

Finally we headed back to the car to change from our swimsuits and grab a hamburger at a place we passed yesterday. Let me just say that you haven’t lived until you can check “changed clothes in a parking deck” off your bucket list – that’s a big ✔️✔️✔️✔️ for all the Brown’s 🤣

Hudson’s Hamburgers has been serving hamburgers and cheeseburgers in Coeur d’Alene since 1907.

And much like the John Belushi/SNL sketch – it is JUST hamburgers, cheeseburgers and Pepsi products.

Toppings are onions pickles and cheese. That’s it. You can add ketchup, spicy mustard (heavy horseradish) and spicy ketchup (shiracha sauce). Honestly, i thought the toppings combo was weird but HOLY COW! This may be one of best cheeseburgers I’ve eat had!

Of course we had to stop in for some ice cream, and found some interesting soda choice 🤢

We jumped in the car and headed east. Goodbye for now Idaho!

And hello Montana!

What a gorgeous drive! The landscape changes from evergreens, the mountains to a lake so blue it almost looked fake!

We arrived in Kalispell, Montana around 8pm. The plan had been to go to hotel, run to Walmart for a cooler and groceries for the week, and grab dinner. And we would have been on track except… it’s the 4th of July weekend, and there’s Covid and people are crazy. So, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, all sold completely out of coolers! (Wait what? When do you sell out of coolers 🥴) We finally found one at Lowe’s… at 9:15! So dinner ended up being Chick-fil-A

A bit of a late dinner but we are ready to celebrate July 4th at Glacier National Park tomorrow