4TH OF JULY...ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE FOR SANDPOINT, IDAHO!

Sandpoint is ROCKIN' again this summer. It seems like the 4th is the real kick-off each year.

I am sitting up at SCHWEITZER MOUNTAIN in the COLDWELL BANKER RESORT REALTY office enjoying the beautiful weather while dozens of SANDPOINT locals wander by mingling with the hundreds of tourists who have shown up to enjoy this incredible weather (sunny, 80 degrees with low humidity). It doesn't hurt that, yet, another wedding is on tap for this afternoon at the top of the Great Escape chairlift. That makes for quite an eclectic scene. Hikers, mountain bikers, bridesmaids...I love it!

(Look close...you can still see some snow up on the Ridge)

(Chair lift rides all summer up to the top of the Great Escape Lift.)

This morning was the annual 4th of July Parade in Downtown Sandpoint, combined with the Saturday Farmer's Market. The town was cordoned off as the parade marched through our streets...American flags waving proudly at every corner.

The Farmers' Market is ever popular with organic, fresh produce combined with crafts of all kinds and the ever-present live music. Today, Brother Music, was entertaining the crowd with slide guitar and wonderful Robert Johnson inspired blues. Last night, legendary, Jesse Colin Young performed in downtown Sandpoint at the Panida Theater and Monday Kracker shows up at the same venue. I would call this pretty "big-time" entertainment. Music and entertainment abound year-around in SANDPOINT, but summers are always special.

The 4th of July, traditionally kicks off the Summer Sandpoint Real Estate Blitz (as I call it). It is hard for visitors to resist the beauty of this area if they are lucky enough to find themselves here in North Idaho, and we always see a burst of real estate activity...both in the Sandpoint Valley and up here on the mountain. One would think winter is the time for SCHWEITZER ski-condo sales but that is not really the case. Moving in can be problematic in the Winter here at Schweitzer, as one can imagine at this altitude, making Summer the reasonable time to buy.

Enjoy your 4th of July! In honor of Independance Day, I leave you with these thoughts from JFK in 1946 at age 29:

"The American character has been not only religious, idealistic, and patriotic, but because of these it has been essentially individual.

The right of the individual against the State has ever been one of our most cherished political principles.

The American Constitution has set down for all men to see the essentially Christian and American principle that there are certain rights held by every man which no government and no majority, however powerful, can deny.

Conceived in Grecian thought, strengthened by Christian morality, and stamped indelibly into American political philosophy, the right of the individual against the State is the keystone of our Constitution. Each man is free.

He is free in thought.

He is free in expression.

He is free in worship.

To us, who have been reared in the American tradition, these rights have become part of our very being. They have become so much a part of our being that most of us are prone to feel that they are rights universally recognized and universally exercised. But the sad fact is that this is not true. They were dearly won for us only a few short centuries ago and they were dearly preserved for us in the days just past. And there are large sections of the world today where these rights are denied as a matter of philosophy and as a matter of government.

We cannot assume that the struggle is ended. It is never-ending.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It was the price yesterday. It is the price today, and it will ever be the price.

The characteristics of the American people have ever been a deep sense of religion, a deep sense of idealism, a deep sense of patriotism, and a deep sense of individualism.

Let us not blink the fact that the days which lie ahead of us are bitter ones.

May God grant that, at some distant date, on this day, and on this platform, the orator may be able to say that these are still the great qualities of the American character and that they have prevailed."