I’ve passed the halfway mark of my three-month journey and I’m surprised to say that I’ve only come close to melting down twice; and today was one of them.

Let’s go back to the first. Feeling refreshed after staying at a friend’s house near Mt. Hood, Ore., and doing some laundry, I traveled over to Hood River to check out the world-renowned kiteboarding and windsurfing on the Columbia River. Willy and I walked the river up and down for almost three miles transfixed by what people could do with some wind, a bigass kite and a small surfboard (well, I was transfixed, he was more interested in the ducks). I must have grabbed my phone out of my cargo pocket 20 times to get a picture or take a video—one of those times my debit card flew out with it. I didn’t realize it until we got back to the van, so I threw Willy in and ran back to retrace our steps. I covered the entire three miles in about 15 minutes, but I knew I had no chance. Did I mention the wind in the Columbia River Gorge? There is no way a small card stood up to that and stayed put (instead it probably sliced some poor kitesurfer).

So, tail between my legs, I decided to head over the river over into Washington to spend the night at a friend-of-a-friend’s place up the hill just 10 minutes away. As I crossed the bridge, cursing my stupidity and trying to figure out just how in the hell I could get a new card sent to me since I had no address except The Shroom, I decided to go for a hike. We ended up on a beautiful trail overlooking the Gorge and slowly I melted into the realization that there was nothing I could do about it at that moment. So we hiked until the sun was about to set and then spent a great evening in the driveway of a pot dealer (totally legal!) enjoying the pungent aroma and a fantastic view. (I did get a new debit card—delivered to the awful Motel 6 at Sea-Tac Airport I reported on a few posts ago.)

Which brings me to near meltdown #2. Today, I woke up in Idaho with big plans. First, Willy and I went in search of a moose on a lake, but came up empty. Learning that heading east into Montana was not advised due to wildfires, we hopped into the van and headed south—to Hell’s Gate in Lewiston, Idaho. As I do each morning, I studied the Rand McNally Road Atlas, which has been my bible, to get a fix on the next campground and an ETA. I figured three or four hours, which gave us plenty of time to explore. After pulling over every hour during the first three hours to try and figure out why we were not making more headway, I had a sickening revelation—either Rand or McNally had neglected to put in big, bold type, at the top of the Idaho page, that the key is different than the pages I had been following through California, Oregon and Washington. You see, they squashed this lovely state onto one page, where the other three states occupied a spread, and one inch equaled 40 miles in Idaho, not 20 like the others. So, we soldiered on, taking small breaks, and eventually reached Hell’s Gate State Park at 6 p.m. It was full. And, no, she did not know where else we could go.

Knowing nothing about where I was, I looked at the map and saw that the next campground was hours away, so I asked Siri to find a pet-friendly hotel in Lewiston. Yup, Motel 6. Crestfallen, Willy and I went to take a look (oddly, we crossed a bridge over the Snake River into Washington to get there. What is it with me and crossing bridges into Washington in utter defeat?!). To my surprise, it was MUCH nicer than the one a week before, but still a depressing place with a view of McDonald’s. With no other choice, and one of us exhausted and close to tears, we checked in. Before we even offloaded our necessaries, however, I threw Willy back into the van and drove the five miles back to the state park and went for a hike along the Snake River while the sun set. It was just what we needed. So, devil or not, Motel 6 is where we are spending the night and that’s OK. I’m sure there will be more Motel 6s in our path, but I also know that there are a great many other paths to go along with them.