Day 3/4 - Coeur d'Alene, ID to Glacier National Park

It turns out WiFi is not always easy to find, so a day or two might go by between posts.

Yesterday I woke up in a Walmart parking lot north of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. To thank Walmart for the free camping spot, I headed into the supercenter to pick up supplies for Glacier National Park. This was the 3rd trip to a Walmart in my life: the first an exploratory run with my mom when the first Seattle area Walmart opened in Renton (high school??), the second a late night trip to a San Diego store for Trivial Pursuit and a bottle of Walmart's finest red ($11.99).

All was well until someone stole my cart. I was 90% done with shopping when I left my cart behind to grab a roll of foil. When I came back, the cart was MIA. I wandered the aisles in a daze, wondering if I'd just gotten lost in the supercenter maze. Nope: it was gone.

(Wait - that rhymes. You could rework the last two sentences into a haiku:

Aisles in a daze

Lost in Walmart maze

Cart was gone)

I headed back to the entrance to start over. And when the aisle was blocked later by a woman in a wheelchair cart trying to corral her young daughter, I pushed rudely past them rather than let the cart go even for a moment.

From Coeur d'Alene, it was off to Farragut State Park for hiking, sunbathing by Lake Pend Oreille, and a cadged shower near their campground.

By 2pm, I was back on the road with the goal of getting most of the way to Glacier National Park. Elizabeth is on her way in from Boston by train, plane and automobile and will get off the Amtrak in West Glacier later today.

Taking highway 200 east from Sandpoint, I traveled along this Idaho Scenic Byway into Montana. Here's a quick snapshot from the driver's seat to give you a feel for the road - dead bugs included:

Spent the night in Lolo National Forest, in a rustic campground with about a dozen camping sites. (Forgive the garbage photo quality.)

Backing into a tight camping spot alone: officially hard.

Cocoa the cat regards nature.

And now, sitting in a Starbucks in Kalispell after driving for an hour along Flathead Lake, the largest lake west of the Mississippi.

Off to Glacier!

Day 1: Ellensburg, WA

At 5:30am yesterday, I woke up at my grandpa's house in Issaquah. Grandpa is 88 years old but I was merciless in putting him to work. He helped me install a bike rack and figure out my water system, all while smoking a salmon in his BBQ pit and catching up on Fox News. He is one heck of an old dude.

By 12pm, I was on the road. After 8 days of manual labor to pack up my apartment and get the RV ready to go, it was a bit unreal to be starting off at last. It is still a bit unreal.

Within three hours, the adrenaline rush of the past week of packing/planning started to fade into exhaustion.

I planned to at least get to Moses Lake today, but by Cle Elum I was fading fast so I stopped in Ellensburg. The campsite is located by a river.. and I-5. I choose to focus on the river.

The highlight of the day was biking into downtown for groceries. I have literally not ridden my bike once since I left California last year. It was awesome to ride into Ellensburg's historic downtown on a breezy low-80s afternoon. It kind of felt like.. I was on vacation!

(Yes, that's my finger at left. Soon enough I will be a blogging pro, coming at you live from gorgeous places like the Canadian Rockies. But for now, an amateur just off I-5 in Ellensburg, WA.)

Hello.

Stay tuned: The rig rolls out by August 31st, 2012.