I believe all Idaho transplants have a story.  Here is mine.

            On occasion, I think we all ask ourselves "What if?"  I am no different.  How the meeting of one person or making a certain decision can change your entire life.  Like most people, my husband Terry and I dreamed of someday retiring and moving to "the ideal spot."  The trouble was, we had no idea where that spot just might be.  We knew we wanted to get out of California, so we had been actively looking for real estate in the Oregon and Washington area for about ten years, but we could never quite find the right piece of property that would suit our needs.  We knew we didn’t want to get too far east, as we have five children between the two of us, as well as other family we didn’t want to get too far from.

            During this period of property searching, I was a police and fire dispatcher with the Fresno Police Department, as well as a volunteer Reserve Police Sergeant.  After ten years as a reserve and eight years of being a 9-1-1 emergency services dispatcher for Fresno PD, I went to work for the California Department of Forestry as a fire dispatcher and trainer for the State of California.  Needless to say, anyone familiar with a large police or fire department knows the stress as well as the excitement such careers can foster.  You also know what goes on in the city that the general public never hears about.  I knew that when I retired I wanted a simpler life; to find a place to call home...away from the stress of the job, the high crime rate of the city, and the anonymity of it all. Basically a place to feel "safe and at home."

            By chance we met a couple at a Corvette exposition in Fresno.  Terry and I found that we had a lot in common with P.J. and Dennis and became good friends.  Before moving to Fresno for his job, they had lived in North Idaho, and suggested we check out Idaho before deciding where to retire.  What they told us about the state sounded good, so we decided to take their advice and we spent five days cruising the state of Idaho.  Of course you can't see everything in five days and 2500 miles, but we got a taste of the state, and liked it.  But Idaho has a lot of square miles, so we were still in a quandary as to exactly where to settle for our retirement in the state.  As it turned out, Dennis ended up moving back to Idaho for his job, and settled in the Coeur d'Alene area.  We came up to visit several times a year, and continued our search for the "ideal spot."

            Then it happened.  Dennis and P.J. suggested we go up to Hope, Idaho, and have Sunday brunch at the floating restaurant on Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced Ponderay).  That's all it took.  We sat on the deck looking out at the breathtaking lake and awesome surrounding mountains and knew we had found what we were looking for!  Unfortunately we had to leave for California the next day, but we were soooo excited about finding this place of beauty.  We didn't really know where to start, but the first thing we did when we got back to Fresno was to plan our next trip to Idaho at the first opportunity.  Several months later we were back up here with our 5^th wheel trailer and found a camping spot for our base of operations for our search for our future home.  We didn't know a soul, didn't have a realtor, and just started picking up every real estate publication in the area.  With the help of a local Realtor, we finally found "the right property."  Ten acres on Blacktail Mountain, with a filtered view of Cocolalla Lake and a great view of Mt. Baldy.  That was in 1995 and just the beginning of our new adventure.

            At the time we bought our property, we thought it would be another five or six years before Terry could retire.  As it turned out, he was able to retire the end of the next year and we left as soon as we sold our house.  Over the next two years, we made improvements to the property, which included a driveway, a large shop with an overhang to shelter our 5^th wheel, a well, septic system and power .  We had been moving the majority of our things up here and storing them in the shop.  So, when we came up here, we had a moving van with our essentials, our pickup truck pulling the Corvette, and my Explorer.  I felt like a pioneer woman heading to the Idaho wilderness in my modern covered wagon.  This was the winter that is now referred to as "the hundred year snow", the "winter from hell", and the "winter that it never stopped snowing", etc.  I think you get the picture.   We now came close to arriving at our destination, Dennis & P.J., helping us with the move.  While the guys contemplated the logistics of getting all the vehicles up the steep, icy, county road, P.J. and I headed up the road to check out the conditions before we got to our private road, that we would share with our neighbors.  P.J. got out of my Explorer and said she would wait for the guys, and for me to go on up ahead and see what our driveway was like.  I looked up the snow-covered road, and thought, "Sure-I can do this.  I have four wheel drive, even if I’ve never had to use it before.  Sure, I’ve never driven in snow before, but how hard can it be?"  And I knew that Terry had arranged to have our driveway plowed a couple of days before, so I pushed my little 4 wheel drive button, the orange light came on, and on up the snow covered road I went, slipping and sliding all the way, but by golly, I made it up to the shop.  I was as pleased as I could be with myself, that the city girl had driven in her first snow and did all right.  However, coming back down the road was a different story.  I started back down to give the guys my report, and it wasn't too bad at first.  As I started to gain momentum, I started to feel a little bit like a toboggan, but it still wasn't too bad.  But as I got towards the bottom of the private road, it became steeper, and there was a curve.  As I went around the curve, there was Dennis' brand new pickup truck, trying to pull the moving van up the hill.  I tried to put on the brakes…no luck.  I tried to turn into the nearest snow bank…no luck.  Kaboom!  Hit him bumper to bumper.  No one hurt except my pride, my bumper and his bumper and oil pan.  So much for my first adventure driving in the snow.  It was at this particular moment that I questioned my sanity of leaving the city and dry paved streets.  Since I wasn't given any time to feel sorry for myself, I had to wait for a later time to do that.  Dennis had to get his pickup towed, and by now the few neighbors that we had knew that we had arrived.  Before another hour had passed, the neighbor with 80 acres above us had his D5 Cat there to pull the moving van up to the house, about 3/10 of a mile from the county road.  Dennis and P.J. had to leave with the tow truck, and we found several of our neighbors pitching in to get the moving van off loaded.  I was now busy with a shovel, trying to find the door to our fifth wheel that was covered with snow from the shedding roof of the shop.  Of course I did not pay attention to the foot of snow still on the roof from the snowfall the night before, that is until it all shed off the metal roof on top of me.  In a very unladylike manner, I cursed the Gods, and had to dig myself out of the snow now up to my waist and start over getting to the door.  When I finally made entry into the 5^th wheel, I discovered a lot of food items in glass jars and carbonated cans had exploded from the cold.  City folks from Fresno, you know.   "Oh, darn", were not the exact words I said (remember I used to be a police dispatcher).  Got the heat going in that snow cave of a vehicle, and started cleaning.  Clint, our new neighbor just down the road, stayed and helped Terry finish off loading, and then showed us how to cut ice stairs in front of the 5^th wheel door so we could get inside and out much easier.  When he came back several hours later that afternoon with a hot dish for dinner, I was dumbfounded.  After the accident, digging through snow, cleaning up exploded gunk all in a matter of one afternoon, I was physically and emotionally drained.  But with this one gesture of showing what good neighbors are all about, with my tears came the realization that we truly had found "our ideal spot", stepping back in time where neighbors are truly like family.  Where people you don't even know wave at you going down the road, or stop to chat with you walking down the streets of Sandpoint.  This is what I have found to be true in most cases - it’s what Sandpoint is all about.