[day 184 ... july 3]

Spent the night at a reasonably quiet RV park - with grass and trees! - behind a gas station and convenience store combo off a highway in Hayden, ID. We got in a bit late in the evening, but had grabbed a McD's dinner before getting to the campground so just had to set up, get beds squared away, and get everyone tucked in. The gnats were fierce; not used to bugs since we usually (always!) camp near the ocean and have the breeze off the water to help ward away bugs. But we got out the bug spray and survived. Truth be told, I hopped in the car with Cory while Tynor got the tent trailer up so avoided most of the issue altogether! :-)

The next day we again got a late start, still getting back into the rhythm of taking everything down, plus had pancake breakfast to celebrate our first morning on the road. Then had to stop and get ice and a map (also picked up some water wings for Cory, figuring we will have pools at some of our campgrounds), and then of course it was almost lunchtime! I was determined to get at least an hour or two down the road before we stopped, though, so fed the kids a substantial snack and then drove until I spotted a great place to stop in Wallace, ID. It looked like a big park from the freeway, but turned out to also be a tribute to miners and mining so had all kinds of cool stuff about blasting mine passages and examples of charges and mining cars.

We could have stayed and explored for a few hours but instead we ate lunch, ran around for a bit, and then got back on the road. That's the problem with being "on your way" to a destination: hard to keep passing up the chance to really enjoy all the spots along the way.