After my quick visit to Glacier National Park I had one of the more entertaining AirBnB stays of my journey. I arrived to what my host would later claim was the oldest house in Whitefish to a host who… wasn’t expecting me. I parked and was unloading the car when I was approached by a youngish man– about my age, anyway– with both of his feet in casts asking– politely, but clearly confusedly– who I was. “Oh… I’m Angela? Your AirBnb guest?”

He began apologizing profusely, referencing his two broken feet as the reason for this extremely uncharacteristic lapse in preparedness. “I’m a Super Host!” he kept saying, referencing the hundreds of five-star reviews he’s received, of which I was indeed aware. He’d just been laid up in beds and baths for the past two weeks nursing his feet, and apparently had missed the notification. He’d just done a bunch of laundry and could have a bed ready for me in no time, if I was still down to stay. I didn’t have a backup plan, and couldn’t help being amused by the way this was going, so I agreed.

Though I’d planned to go back into downtown Whitefish for dinner (I’d stopped through for a quick beer at the Great Northern Brewing Company on my way into town), my host said he was in the middle of making burritos and that I was welcome to join him. I agreed to this as well, and he sweetened the deal with some homemade hard apple cider. We played guitar, showed each other photos, and swapped stories for the next few hours (I learned he’d broken his feet when he fell, improperly harnessed, from a tree whose branches he was thinning to avoid interfering with power lines), and it was just a funny and enjoyable way to spend my evening in Whitefish.

My host had insisted that I return to Glacier National Park the next day to see East Glacier, but it was too far out of the way so he gave me some more local recommendations instead. I took Ollie on a mini hike on the Swift Creek Loop through a bit of the Stillwater State Forest (time lapse here!), then was on my way to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Stopped through Mission Mountain Winery (time lapse here!) as I headed back along the west shore of Flathead Lake, and before long found myself in Idaho for the first time. The town of Coeur d’Alene takes its name from the lake on whose north shore it’s situated, where I did another quick time lapse, grabbed some pizza, then had a chilly night in an AirBnb that was actually someone’s garage.