Overland Camping Roadtrip Blog
Travel Day 3:
Total km driven to date: 1187km
Total km walked to date: 20.4km
Graham Creek – Blackfoot River
293km drive
4.8km on foot
Day 3 started off in my wonderful camp spot on Graham Creek. Used my snazzy new Solar Shower (thanks Mom for the birthday gift!) for a quick wash and some dishes, hot water on the road is great! Tested out my brand new kettle and made some coffee and oatmeal, breakfast of champions combined with some fruit. Axel decided to yell at my cute neighbours, thanks for the heads up when cute girls are walking by with dogs buddy, you’ve got my back! I broke camp and continued on my journey. The road got steeper and windy as we headed up and over Thompson Pass, elevation 4757ft. I also learned that Garminder was taking me towards LoLo National Forest, which was a completely different location than Google that was taking me to the same place. Which was really interesting since it turns out I was in LoLo all along! It is now on my list to buy an actual paper map, I dont trust Garminder and I dont get cell service everywhere, hence the blank spots on my last few blog posts.
The road headed down from the pass and out of the mountains and into Montana. I stopped for a quick fuel up at Thompson Falls and put a bit of water in my tank. Axel took a short dip in the lake that I would know the name of if I had a damn paper map and we continued South East on highway US 200. The craggy cliffs and hills warned of bighorn sheep but none of them wanted to get their picture taken today. We stopped for a quick PB&J at Kookoosint Lake and took a few pictures. Of course Axel went for another dip since it was 32* C today. The lake was a turquoise blue color, not sure if glacier fed or something else causing it. Back on the road and the mountains slowly turned into rolling hills and pasture land, ranches, cows and horses everywhere but snow capped peaks off in the far distance. I stopped in Misoula Montana to use the McD’s WiFi (and uploaded my first two days blog posts) and used the internet to find a place to camp. I found what sounded like a great spot at Plum Creek outside Bonner about 15km away, of course as I got outside of Bonner I lost my cell service and drove around blind until finding a little spot on the Blackfoot River. Not ideal, and no comparison to last night but it will do, on the list tomorrow is a map, as much fun as driving blind is it would be a little easier if I knew where I was going. Im now sitting here on this fast flowing river about to make some dinner at 7pm. Not sure where Im heading tomorrow, I have 6 days to get to Rangely CO, Yellowstone is still 8hrs drive from here so I might make another night on the way. The unknown is half the fun and half the stress…things could be much worse!