We hadn’t set out to sleep in the car on our first night on the road trip, but that’s what happened. Lesson learned.
The plan was simple, drive 1000 Km to meet up with Ward from Belgium who was volunteering at a Scout Camp on an island in Flathead Lake Montana. Being in Canada has led to some interesting adventure situations, and last years Oregon solo road trip by bike was to be followed by a car journey, this time with Lesley.
A tentative route was agreed. 
Day one, south of the border and across Highway 2 to Leavenworth, Washington. Unfortunately we left home late and had decided not to book a room anywhere, just to be flexible. We reached Leavenworth and were frankly struck by the bizarre nature of coming across a Bavarian town in the middle of Washington State, USA.
We walked the streets with jaws dragging along the paving trying to figure out what the point was . The town website has the answer. The place was in decline and it was actually in the 1960’s that a decision was made to make Leavenworth in the Bavarian image hoping to make the place a tourist destination. They’ve succeeded, that’s for sure. Leavenworth was booked out solid. So were all the other local places including the far larger Wenatchee. The plan had to change and as night fell, 9pm became midnight and we still hadn’t found a motel with space.
We hadn’t set out to sleep in the car on our first night on the road trip, but that’s what happened. So it was that somewhere along I90 we pulled over in to a rest area and along with a few other cars, trucks and big rigs, parked up for what was left of the night. Not the most auspicious of starts to this year’s road trip.
