My very long day driving through Wyoming and Yellowstone Park got even longer after entering Montana. By the time I left the park, it was about 7:30pm. Not making reservations at a hotel or campsite for that night, I needed to figure things out. Once I entered Montana, I pulled off in a rest stop, pulled out my map- yes, an actual, physical paper map- and tried to figure out where I was and where I wanted to go to next. I knew that I needed to get back onto I-90 because that would bring me all the way to Seattle. Eventually, I found the backroad route I was on, found the connecting point to I-90, knowing I wanted to be in Spokane as a stopping point before Seattle, I followed my finger on the map and saw that Missoula, MT was right off I-90. Perfect! My dad had said not even the day before that I should stop in Missoula. It was kismet.
I haven't been driving at night at all really if I can help it. I'm not a nervous driver or anything. It's just that these roads I've been on are unfamiliar to me and they are usually very curvy and need complete focus when driving on them. But this night, I knew I had a destination set, I was pretty well rested, and the time it took to get to Missoula was the exact amount of time I had left on my audiobook.
Just as the end credits started rolling, I pulled of the exit in Missoula at exactly midnight. I found a strip with a bunch of hotels, picked one and went in to see if there was a room available. I walk in and the girl behind the desk just stares at me. When I ask about a room being available, she barely moves a muscle, and I know somethings wrong. At this point, all I want is a shower and a bed, so I start to get antsy. She finally gets up the courage to tell me that not only is this hotel booked, every other hotel/ motel/ inn/ whatever, they're all booked too. Defeated, I head back to my car and start to panic. I don't feel comfortable driving much more that night and at this point, it is silly to drive longer to find a hotel that I'd stay in for maybe 7 hours and pay $90 for.
This is when I make the decision to sleep in my car. I'd like it on the record that this was really a last resort. I'm fine, I was safe, I will try not to do it again. Rather than just pulling of on the side of the road like I saw other people doing, I drove until I found a rest stop where there were already several cars setting up for the night. It was still hot, so I cracked all my windows about an inch to let any breeze in, I reclined my seat as far as it could go, pulled my sleeping bag over my head, and placed my open Swiss Army knife within reaching distance- just in case. I didn't need it. By the time I woke up at 7:45, all but three cars had left the rest stop. I packed up my things and headed down the road again.
About an hour from where I slept was the border to Idaho. Literally, as soon as I passed the state line, all I could smell was pine. Heavily treed areas made for a very pleasant ride to Coeur D'Alene. It took me barely any time at all to get there. After one outfit change and one time change, I was starving and headed into the town center to find some breakfast. Driving in, I noticed that a bunch of roads had been closed off, so parking was a bit tricky. I found one spot that I tried to parallel park in. My car is small, but this space was really small. I'm a good parallel parker, but even with the help of some nice folks trying to help me navigate, I gave up and set out to look for another spot. Fortunately, I found one right across the street. Unfortunately, it was directly in the beating sun on another scorcher of a day. I later saw a thermometer read 109 degrees.
I'd like to take this opportunity to say that my car has been an absolute trooper. Betty the Jetta is an 11-year-old car that had plenty of mileage on her before we started the trip and has now added about 5,000 more miles on during the trip. The two things she does not do well are hills- I've always said she has an incline deficiency- and heat. She really did not like being cooked while I ate breakfast and explored for a couple hours. But I love her and I try to give her as much moral support as I can while driving her around. Yes, I realize she is an inanimate object, but sometimes I get bored in the car and she's a great conversationalist.
Anyway. The reason that the roads where shut down in the center of town was because of the Iron Man Triathlon that started that morning at 5:30am. By the time I got there, the competitors had already finished swimming and now where on the bike portion of the race. I haphazardly crossed a few streets and found a hole-in-the-wall family restaurant serving a buffet breakfast. I can't say much about the food other than it did the job and filled me up. The bacon was good. The service was terrible. The waitress spilled hot coffee on my leg. Luckily, her definition and my definition of "hot" differ by about 30 degrees.
More crossing of streets, this time empty ones, and I headed towards the lakefront. Coeur in French means heart and, by golly, this town certainly stole my coeur.
There's a hotel right on the water with balconies facing out over the marina. I would happily stay there if given the chance. With jet-skis, paragliding, kayaking, tubing, and more on the water and antique stores, great coffee places, and I assume better restaurants than the one I went to, Coeur D'Alene is a town everyone should visit given the chance.
After soaking up the sun, I decided it was time to head out and hit the road to Spokane. Spokane, I'm sorry to say, is kind of a dump. For my Connecticut readers, it reminds me of the Berlin Turnpike in the worst way possible. It's just a little- meh, maybe I just saw the wrong parts? I did see some of the Spokane River on my way to dinner. That was aesthetically pleasing, I guess.
I saw the Elk Public House on a Food Network show a couple months back, and while I can't remember what actually made me want to go, I'm glad I did. They had a lot of good local beers on tap, my spinach and strawberry salad was good, and my Korean beed tacos where delicious. However, the bartender sucked. Like the absolute worst. It was not very busy, and maybe it was the heat, but she was bitchy and lethargic. Firstly, it took five minutes for her to notice I'd sat down. She was standing behind the bar. The bar has maybe ten seats. When I asked her opinion of what to get, she offered me little to no help by saying she doesn't eat here but she hears everything is good. I asked for the dressing on the side of my salad because I wanted to take half of it back to my hotel- salad came dressed, a mistake I've definitely made before. However, when she snapped at the runner when he tried to drop the salad to a different person and instead gave it to me herself, she didn't acknowledge that it wasn't what I asked for. She didn't acknowledge it until after I was halfway done with my tacos like 30 minutes later. Again, food was good, but I had really shitty waitress experiences the whole day. I also don't use the word waitress because I think it's demeaning, but these people were waitresses in my eyes and they should really seek other employment opportunities.
My night ended with a lovely facetime call with my parents and a spooky encounter in my hotel room. More, next time from the Gateway to the Pacific: Seattle!
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