"You're a poser."

Place: Highway 2 Rest Area, in between Troy and Libby

12:00 AM: Estimated time I fell asleep.

1:35 AM: The park sprinklers turned on as expected. My rain jacket that covered the sprinkler nearest to me was blown off by the sheer force of the water. I leapt out of my sleeping bag pacing back and forth as the torrent of liquid slowly made its turns toward me. After about two minutes standing in the cold, I became convinced the water wasn't going to bother me.

2:45 AM: The right side of my body has begun to ache from lying on the concrete in a deflated thermarest. I flip over to my left side.

3:50 AM: My left side has gone numb from lying on the concrete. I flip onto my stomach.

5:30 AM: I wake up in a pile of my own drool, now shockingly cold and incredibly... gross. A dog named Chuck has barked at us from underneath one of the picnic tables. Alexy and Valerie's dog responds with a grunt and the little dog goes flying back to its owners.

7:30 AM: Alarm.

It was a shitty night's sleep. Josh and I got up early around 8ish, and I immediately started to heat up ramen noodles on top of my make-shift burner, draping my sleeping bag around the little fire to keep myself warmer. Josh hooked up our phones into the wasp nest/electricity outlet in the middle of the parking lot... ever so carefully. A few hours later, it was time to leave and say goodbye to our French friends and their pooch, Boyd.

(Boyd's in the bottom right hand part of the picture)

The morning's cold had largely dissipated by 10:30ish and all the outer layers of the body were shed for the afternoon's warmth. The fog still hung over the mountains in the distance and only appeared to elongate their height.

After a short period of time on the road, Josh pulled over at one of the first restaurant's he saw; "The Halfway House".

"Yo... isn't that a place for alcoholics and stuff to recover?" I said, hesitating to make way for the door.

If they did, they also made food, played football all day, and gave cheap drinks... so, hopefully they weren't for recovering alcoholics. Although the bartender asked Debra to pick up two bottles of Everclear when she left. The best part about this place was watching the Pirates vs. the Cubs on the Wi-Fi. I witnessed a perfect triple play, the first by the Pirates in five years. I lost my shit inside the bar but no one else was there so Josh just stared at me.

The day was filled with the most spectacular and beautiful views that I have seen, in arguably the entire trip. "Bold statement," Josh said, raising his eyebrows. "Eh, top ten," I said, scanning the memory banks.

First, we criss-crossed our way through the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, which boasts some of the most rugged wilderness in Montana.

From the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, we ventured to Clark Fork. Somewhere along this route, we finally left the state of Montana and entered Idaho. YES! It's been who knows how long in Montana. And though entering a new state really doesn't change much... symbolically, it does.

Once upon a time, over 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, the from here east to the Rocky Mountains, glaciers up to 5,000 feet deep covered the territory. As temperatures warmed, the glacier at Clark Fork erupted, spilling so much water with gargantuan force, it sculpted what eastern Washington looks like today. Basically, I'm not sure yet but I'll be there tomorrow. The spillage has an analogy that helps a bit. The dumping of the waters was like dumping a bathtub full of water onto a sand pile in your backyard pushing everything aside and carving out chasms into the sand.

I just found this aerial photo of the Clark Fork River. It really helps illustrate what I'm talking about.

In Sandpoint, ID, we hurried to meet up with our CouchSurfing host, Marsha. And there we stayed.

Today... literally nothing happened. Somehow, Josh and I left Marsha's around 12 and by the time we were finishing "breakfast" it was 3;30. We gave up on trying and stayed in Sandpoint to enjoy the festivities, which was lying on the beach and reading. Tomorrow, we leave Idaho and enter Washington.