I spent several hours today plotting my itinerary from the Oregon Coast to Lethbridge, Alberta. It feels like such a long one, across the breadth of Washington and Idaho and up through Montana. And, yet, I’m looking at just 1,500km, just a little over two tanks of gas. At US prices, that’s only about $400 in fuel to get me back to Canada, and I won’t need to budget for RV parks once the solar panel is installed.

Oregon Walmarts are RV unfriendly, so I’ve had a job and a half looking up other sources for overnight stops, including Our Odyssey (first time using this blog as a reference!), Casino Camper, Free Campsites, and All Stays which has good information about Walmarts.

I don’t know how my internet access is going to be in the next few weeks, so having this reference of good overnight spots along the way is reassuring. I tried to find some places no more than a couple hundred kilometres apart so that I can mix up short and long days.

The long term weather forecasts for Idaho, Montana, and southern Alberta point to days above freezing and nights below. I can definitely handle that! Since so many of the places I’ve found to stay at allow multiple day stay overs, camping rather than just overnight parking, I am going to try very hard to pace myself and stretch out the journey so that I don’t arrive at the border before the third or fourth of April.

I’m just about ready to pull out of Eugene tomorrow morning, but I might be back to spend the night, depending on how long the installation takes. If I get out of AM Solar at or before noon, I’ll shoot straight for the coast, otherwise I can go to the Valley River Center (a giant mall) here in Eugene.