StevenThis vacation did not start out as planned. My original plan was to leave Dallas at 10:05am, land in Spokane at 11:42am then enjoy a relaxing drive to Whitefish through the mountains for 4 hours. That was not the case.
Needless to say, American Airlines was terrible and ruined my plans. “Maintenance fixes,” crews that timed out and had to be changed and more. It seemed like it was never ending and almost comical toward the end. We really didn’t depart until 5:15pm because of another “maintenance issue.” So that put me in Spokane around 7pm. After a long day, I picked up my rental car, then headed 4 hours to Whitefish.
The views were fantastic and I wish I had more light to stop and take photos. Unfortunately it turned pitch black and I couldn’t see the mountains anymore or the rivers and lakes along the road my GPS was showing me. I sighed as I passed lots of “scenic overlooks” that I couldn’t take advantage of.
I’ve driven at night before in Texas plenty of times where I’m the only one on the road, but Idaho and Montana are completely different. Winding roads, threats of jumping deer (I had to avoid one) and other wildlife. Thankfully I had downloaded the area I’m traveling as offline maps because there were a few areas I had no service and GPS had to rely on those offline maps!
After an extremely long day and 4 hours of driving, I finally reached my destination at 12:30am. I got to my room and crashed. I’ll definitely have to take it easy and change my plans for tomorrow.