A few years ago, the only thing I knew about Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, was that it was the hometown of my favorite author, Marilynne Robinson. I couldn’t have told you what it looked like or why it would be an appealing place to visit. Idaho, for me, conjured up images of potato fields and heaps of snow. This summer, I visited northern Idaho’s Lake District, and I couldn’t have been more wrong about what the region is actually like. Full of lush pines, big hills, and deep blue lakes, the panhandle of Idaho is marked by both rugged beauty and quiet serenity. I landed in Spokane in the middle of July alongside my entire extended family—15 of us in total. Perhaps the first thing we loved about the northwest is its lack of humidity, which was a welcome relief from our homes in the muggy northeast of the country. We …