Seasons at Sandpoint
I’m pretty sure that whoever invented books, books on tape, compact discs, in car dvd movie players and tailgate parties were all held hostage in a long line of cars while someone was working on the road. When I was a kid we had four distinct seasons in Sandpoint, Idaho. The last few years have me thinking that we have just 2 seasons. Winter and “Fixing Up The Roads”. As soon as the weather in Sandpoint gets nice enough to think about going somewhere we have to deal with pilot cars, lengthy waits, detours, and people on bikes sailing by us. Being stuck in a line that does not move when you are trapped in a vehicle that has been specifically crafted to move you can be frustrating.
When I was doing my morning drive time radio show, “Breakfast in Bed with Bashful Dan” on KPND-FM I felt like I gave the same weather report every day. It always seemed like it was just alittle bit above freezing. In a perfect world we should get tons of snow at Schweitzer Mountain Resort so we can snowboard and ski and enough sunshine in the valley to use the cool skateboard park in Sandpoint.
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It seemed like the snow never stopped falling this winter. 
I took advantage of rentals in Sandpoint by renting everything from snowblowers to people. 
Seriously, it took eight days for a 5 man crew to come and shovel off my roof. Since other peoples roofs were caving in daily I finally lept into action by myself. I put on some sturdy snow boots with cleats, insulated pants, heavy socks, warm jacket, pulled my winter hat on and lifted that heavy extension ladder up to the roof. Then I walked past the ladder, through the door and sat down at my desk and called my insurance agent and added another $100,000 to my policy. Felt good to get out of those warm clothes, pour a hot cup of coffee, and get back to work. 
Yep, before it was over I hired people to shovel, rented a snowblower, rented a humungous front end loader and dump trucks to tackle the big white sugary mountain in the parking lot, another guy to scrap the actual lot with his plow, and was just about to get on the phone to Al Gore and ask him where the heck that Global Warming was and when would it arrive in Sandpoint?
At the end of another day that was way too long and way too short on sunshine it was pretty cool to walk outside and see the lights twinkling on the trees.
Obviously it’s not a perfect world. But it’s pretty darn close in Sandpoint. The roads improve from year to year, those dvd movies in the car are pretty cool, and if you get stuck on the two mile bridge and have a fishing pole with you there’s a chance you’ll bring home dinner. Recently, the weather is warming up in Sandpoint and some days have been practically balmy. It’s enough to make a boy want to get the family together and go for a drive.
