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Hayter article for October 17, 2021
“More Ducks than Moose”
SANDPOINT, IDAHO -- I don’t mean to pooh-pooh anybody’s moose-sighting story, but I’m beginning to think that Bill and Debbie out of Santa Barbara never saw a moose outside this house. I’ve been standing out here before sunup and haven’t seen or heard a moose one. Regardless, I refuse to let this one setback ruin our North Idaho vacation.
The origin of the moose story came from the Airbnb guestbook located near the entrance of this beautiful house. When I write my story, I will include the wonderful sight from this pier. If you’re through looking at the house I need you to carefully do a 180 on this narrow pier, so you can see the four separate lines of ducks sitting out there in some cold water. Duck bottoms must be coated in ox-hide. David Attenborough could tell you the name and the genius species of the quackers out there, but he’s not here. He’s in Uruguay studying the eating habits of the Gray Cave Monkey… not to be confused with the Red-bearded Zanzibar Cave Monkey. I choose to call the ducks “short-necked popups”. They’ll float out there like they’ve got good sense, and then all of sudden go underwater and pop up seconds later.
By the way, the lake you’re looking at is called “Pend Orielle” (Pen-da-ray). It stands for “pendant hanging from ear”. It was given the name back in 1810 by a French trader, who chose to reference the jewelry hanging on the ears of the Native inhabitants of the area. (I kid you not.) I might’ve named it after the animals that inhabited the LAKE, “Lake Short-necked Pop Up”. The French?
The width of Lake Pen-da-ray varies, but the length is 45 miles, and the depth 1200 feet. That makes it the fifth deepest lake in the country. As such, much of the area around here was confiscated by the Navy Department early in WWII so they could establish a naval base here to train crews for submarine duty and to test new devices invented for submarines. The navy preferred to do this inland for fear Japanese subs might come in and steal our secrets or sink our subs before the sailors had been properly trained. It is said that at the bottom of this lake is housed equipment and perhaps a submarine that our navy chose to leave in place. Kind of like an underwater Area 51. If we could communicate with one or two of those short-necked pop ups, we might learn the truth.
I would’ve side-stepped the history lesson, but I thought it too fascinating. Almost as fascinating are those who have accompanied me here. There they are. “From Washington State, we have my niece, Rhonda and her husband Curt, who bought a lot of the grub, including Duncan Donuts coffee, but also hauled Kay and my buns out here. Give ‘em a big hand! Then we have my sister Susan and her husband Don who live on the western side of Washington. Sue, you and Don show yourselves! Col Don, if you will, sir, stay out of the woods. I’ve already looked and there are no moose out there for you to manhandle.”
I wanted to introduce you to my family here because they are largely responsible for making this trip such a grand experience… them and the ducks. Oh, and the hot tub. The owners of this place put up a hot tub just off the back deck. I’ve never been in a hot tub when it was cold outside. Or warm. Turns out, hot tubs are best when it’s cold outside.
Rhonda did a superb job picking out our Airbnb. It has a large living space that includes four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a footlocker full of board games, bookcases full of novels and CDs, a washing machine with a spin-cycle that creates the noise and speed of a WWII, P-51 Mustang. And the homeowners included more amenities than I have in my house back in Conroe. They’ve got several canoe-like boats, three coffee pots, and a spatula the size of a shovel.
Yesterday, Curt found a backgammon board and challenged me to a game. After I gave him my answer, he forced the challenge on me. I’ve only seen backgammon played in movies. It looks way complicated. And when the rules are read to you, it sounds even more complicated. Curt was just learning, but pretty much had to tell me the proper moves to make after the roll of the dice. Get this. I won the first game. More accurately, Curt lost to himself. I now know a little bit about how to play backgammon, but I find it too challenging. Too much strategy involved. Maybe if I was in prison and it was the only game on the cell-block, I could get to enjoy the game, but it’s just not worth going to prison for.
I’ll tell you this, we’ve sure been eating a lot better than we would in prison. Rhonda, Curt, and Susan have cooked some really good stuff. Rhonda prepared about the best bbq ribs I’ve ever had. And, she’s a Washingtonian! Curt grilled salmon last night, and then made pigs in a blanket and then scrambled eggs with cheese and every vegetable in the house. And, get this, each of the pig blankets had two sausages in ‘em! I didn’t even know it could be done.
Tomorrow? Who knows? Maybe we’ll see a moose. We’ve yet to see old-town Sandpoint, so we’ll probably do that tomorrow. Oh, while there’s not any noticeable sand out here, the town was named from an entry in a diary where a French trader wrote, “I left point of sand in the early morning.” Upon finding the trader’s log the people of the area called their new town “Sandpoint”. In the Northwest, people don’t spend a great deal of time coming up with the name of places. – Next time.
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