East to Sandpoint, ID... first Walmart overnight

Today dawned bright and sunny. Since there's a big hill from Crescent Bar to the highway and we suspect more hills before we get to Quincy, we drove the bus and toad separately for awhile. Hooked up again just before the I-90 and got to Spokane just after noon. Decided that we couldn't pass up the exchange rate (US and Canadian dollars are around par today), so we stopped at the Spokane Valley Mall. After lunch, Elaine shopped while I checked out campsites in Sandpoint, Idaho. I settled on two possibilities, one just before Sandpoint and one on the north side.

Our first hint of trouble came when we couldn't find the first campsite. Northern Idaho has the worst signage (or lack thereof) that we have encountered in our entire trip across 3 provinces and 4 states. Having missed the first campground, we drove across 'the bridge' over Lake Pend' Oreille (see picture). Our next choice was through town to the north side, over narrow and very rough potholed roads. No signage to point the way and Woodall's campground directory, Sarah (our GPS voice) and MS Streets and Trips all disagreed with each other on which way to turn. After a few errors, we finally found the Hi-De-Hoh Campground. Woodall's ratings for this CG are way out of whack with their usual standards. It looks like the home of the Trailer Park Boys, and is attached to an RV dealership. We were tired and stopped anyhow, only to find out that they didn't have any spots available! So on down the road, but first a stop to fill with gas. At least the gas prices are good here (the equivalent of $0.81 per litre). By this time, the sun is getting low on the horizon, and we're tired from driving and shopping, and hey, Walmart is just across the way and we've always wanted to do the Walmart camping adventure (NOT).

So we decided to stay overnight at Walmart. We needed groceries anyhow, and how bad could it be? We were not happy with Sandpoint at this juncture, so planned to be away early tomorrow morning. We discovered several things overnight:

• We didn't have enough fresh water on board,

• There's something wrong with our batteries (only lasted a couple of hours after dark).

• Generators are noisy (ours, but especially the one that ran until 11pm so the guy could watch TV).

• The heater doesn't work if there's no battery (knew this already, but it does get cold overnight).

• People come to Walmart late at night to party (loud music, NOT from campers).

All in all, we were cold and tired when dawn broke the next morning. We were so anxious to get underway we were on the road before 8am, a first for this or any other trip we've taken!

Sep 24, 2007

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