WTF is up with Idaho?

At the start of this trip, we were pretty excited about Idaho. Folks kept telling us about how beautiful the panhandle is. We were ready for some good times. Wow did Idaho surprise us!

It started with the lack of available campgrounds. Idaho seems not to do first-come-first-serve camping. Also, everyone, and their mothers, kids, dogs, and cows, books up all the campsites. Ok. So we get to McCall, which from the map you'd assume is this little town kind of in the middle of the woods. Not so fast! It's a crazy Poconos-style resort town complete with Dirty Dancing families cutting you off and then ironically waving at you. It didn't take long for us to feel the urge to run screaming into the hills, so we did. We took an innocuous-sounding road that wound up being a 16 mile trek through gravel to the top of a mountain. Awesome! We got a (free!) site at Seven Devils recreation area, visited the (oddly stocked) alpine lake, and got to see some pristine night sky. In the morning we hiked along amongst the cows (feels just like California!), awesome wildflowers, and freakishly prolific butterflies in Hells Canyon area, and after packing up drove to Heaven's Gate lookout for a glimpse of a canyon deeper than that boring one in Arizona. Hilary eventually regained the use of her hands after squeezing the door handle a little tightly on the way up to the lookout. (height phobia is not fun in the mountains)

We had to leave our site since there was no water, and frankly we're fond of showering. Lots of state parks in Idaho that are not in McCall, so on we drove. There is a lot of hay in Idaho! One wonders why they feed cows corn when there is that much hay in the world. We made a short driving day of it and stopped at Winchester state park, where a random cancellation got us a 1-night site near the lake. Again with the three-generation camping complete with dogs. Idaho started to get weird. (don't worry, there's more) We jogged around the lake in the morning and set off for some of the very-panhandle parks in northern Idaho. There must be wilderness up there, right?

Haha, no! Every single state park is totally booked. We stopped at two, drove past two more with "full" signs, called one that only exists on a very long gravel road that was also full, and even stopped at a full private campground (poorly marked down yet another gravel road). Everyone in Idaho must have this week off? Who is baling all that hay? After driving just about to Canada looking for a shady spot to pitch a tent, we gave up in Bonners Ferry and looked for a motel. Haha, no! Only two rooms left in the whole town, even though downtown looks abandoned somehow everyone is staying in motels. The first room had no windows, a teenager downstairs equipped with a "quiet" X-box, and an unusual odor. Pass. The very last room was at a B&B where there was a 1971 high school reunion going on. Sold! Turns out the place is an old school, shut down in the late 90s, and the owner and the reunion folk all went there as kids. Cool! Excellent remodel job. Got dinner in the empty downtown with beer (o man, we needed beer) and huckleberry cheesecake. Mmmm. Tomorrow we head to Canada and hopefully leave the insanity behind.

Idaho recap: looks pretty on a map, full of vacationing WASPs. Very nice scenic drives, enough hay to light a bonfire seen from space, great spot for sunburnt dudes in their aluminum boats fishing or driving around on ATVs (so many ATVs here!).

Good news: no new future habitation locations found in Idaho. Oregon still on top. Hells Canyon is cool, next time we need a boat.

Map Link.