I hate North Idaho. 

Well, no. I don’t. Actually, I love North Idaho. This is home.

But there is something I hate about living in North Idaho. There is nothing I can do about it. No way to change it. My adversary is relentless, unstoppable and must be accepted as part of life here. Even after three decades in North Idaho, I still struggle to come to terms with what drives me to the edge.

And what is this malady? What is it that eats at me every year about mid-July? 

The weather. 

Yep, the weather.

I’ll go ahead and say it, at risk of being ostracized by a community: What I hate about living in North Idaho is how fast summer comes and goes.  

You see, I live for summer. I was, am and always will be a summer kind of guy. I wait anxiously through late fall, winter and spring for my favorite season. It is then I take a deep breath, look around and truly feel like I'm the luckiest man in the world.

It is what gives me hope during the seemingly endless 40-degree, soggy days of January and February. It is what drives me when I look out the window and am greeted with rain in March and April. 

It is what keeps me in North Idaho, because there is no better place to call home in the summer than North Idaho. 

Fall is fine. November is the start of the holidays. December is Christmas, bright lights, decorations and good cheer. 

But all that goes away with the New Year. 

Then, so I don't despair, I have to remind myself over and over and over: Summer is coming. It will get here. It will take eternity. The cold nights will be endless, but summer will come. 

It is a gamechanger.

The lake will be warm. 

Everyone will be walking dogs and riding bikes. 

We’ll sit up late nights talking on the back deck.

In the summer, I can listen to the Beach Boys and crank up "I Get Around" and "Good Vibrations."

I can shoot free throws out back under the moonlight.

I even pretend I’m in Hawaii again and run shirtless (one of the greatest parts of Hawaii life is that it’s perfectly acceptable to wander around without a shirt). 

Summer means biking, swimming, camping and road trips to my favorite place in the world, Glacier National Park, for my favorite thing to do in the world, trail running, and hopefully, but not too close, grizzly bears.

There is a movie, "500 Days of Summer." I didn't much care for it, but I loved the title. What I would give for 500 days of summer.

Ah, summer is God's gift.

But already, it’s slipping away. I can see it escaping over the mountaintops. I can feel it fading with the light.

June came and went with Father’s Day, Car d’Lane, Ironman and Hoopfest. The Independence Day parades are a memory. Already, the end of July is closing in. August will fly by with a flurry of a few, final 90-degree days.

Soon, sadly, it will be September and I’ll be desperately hanging on to the last of the sun's rays, trying to save them and pull them out later when they are most needed. 

Of course, I can’t. 

I suppose it's good.

Imagine if we had blue skies and 70-degrees year-round. Everyone would want to live here, and we’ve already got enough folks coming our way, willing to endure North Idaho’s long, dark, gray winters and the windy, rainy springs. 

Who can blame them? 

We live in one of the last great places in America. 

Even if summer is maddeningly fleeting.

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Bill Buley is assistant managing editor of The Press. He can be reached at [email protected].