vacation part 3 - Farragut State Park & Sandpoint

Day 2 of vacation was more fun.  There's just something so exciting about exploring new places!

We started out the day by driving up to Farragut State Park, about 30 miles north of Coeur d'Alene.  The park used to be the world's second largest naval training facility.  Today it is a 4,000 acre park on the shores of Lake Pend Orielle, with 5 camp grounds, day use areas, picturesque picnic spots, and lots and lots of trees.

It is gorgeous.

We walked through the Brig museum - a structure that served as a prison from 1942-1946, during WWII.

In the courtyard of the museum, there was a wonderful wooden wall in front of which both families took pictures.  These are my new favorite family pictures. 

Just outside of the museum, in the Memorial Plaza, is a giant bust of a US sailor that is representative of the recruits that trained at Farragut.  It is a bold statue, solemn, celebratory and commemorative.

Walking the path to the statue.

Callan loves his Aunt Tiff.

After the museum, we drove through the park until we came across a day use area where we stopped for a picnic lunch, and a beautiful, brief thunderstorm.  Hail included.  It was pretty spectacular.

Once finished with lunch, and a little exploring on the guys' part, and before it started to rain again (it looked quite promising that it would), we quickly loaded into the car and headed out of the park and  further north to Sandpoint, ID.  Sandpoint is a beautiful little town on Lake Pend Orielle, full of fun shops and restaurants.

First stop was for the boys - a local brewery for some beer tasting.

Laughing Dog was it's name - the beer is not recommended. 

After the brewery, we drove to the downtown section of Sandpoint.

We spent some time walking through this treasure-filled antique store.  Slightly over-priced, but lots of goodies to look at on each of the three floors!

Out back, of the antique store, was this fun, old light-up sign leaning against a building.  Callan had absolutely no interest in looking at the camera.  I could have gotten some, potentially, cute pictures, but this is the best I could get.

Oh well.

Still cute in the not-even-close-to-looking-at-the-camera kind of way.

From the antique store, we headed down the road, on foot.

We passed this ginormous chair that screamed "photo op".

This place had fantastic coffee.  Just the thing we needed to take the chill off.

No joke.

I loved the fact that I was wearing a sweater in July.

Yum in a cup.

"Campfire Mocha".

Exploring Farragut and Sandpoint took up the majority of the day, so after coffee (and a quick stop at a gun store), we headed back to the house for some delicious, homemade pizza.  

The good thing about activity-filled vacation days is that you sleep really good at night.