Disappointed

For the first time during my 16th day on the road I felt unsafe. I had reserved a Hipcamp site which is a campsite on private property. It was in Idaho. The picture of the site showed stunning views. The view was anything but stunning. When I arrived at the address the house was in deplorable shape with junk scattered across the lawn, broken windows on the house, animal poop on the steps….you get the picture. The instructions were to contact the land owner upon arrival and he would take you to the campsite. He did not answer his phone and did not have voicemail set up. That was not a problem as I did not feel safe camping there and would have declined the two night reservation if he had been home.

The problem was I could not find another campsite in the area and it was already way past time to drag out the camp stove and start cooking.

At 4:45 I brought Tina to the Missoula airport. I had spent the morning doing laundry in Missoula followed by getting an oil change (I did not anticipate how many miles I would be driving in the parks). I had been on the road for about 4 hours when I discovered I had no place to camp so I decided to drive another hour and find a hotel in Spokane which also turned out to be a challenge. The hotels in the nicer part of town were filled or out of my budget range. I drove out from the downtown area and found a place that will allow me to get a good night’s rest.

On the large scheme of things it was a small blip. It did confirm that it is important to trust my gut.

Tomorrow’s task will be to find a last minute campsite between Spokane and Chalen WA.