Portland to DC, day 6: Columbus, OH – Washington D.C. (420 miles)

7/9/2007
Departure time: 10:00am EST
Arrival Time 9:30pm EST
Penske trucks: 4
Dead deer: 1
Wish I had brought: my brain
Pictures

We only had about 7 hours to drive today so we didn't bother even pretending to try to get up at the crack of dawn.

Kansas City signaled our departure from corn & field country and a re-entry into city territory. This made for more interesting scenery, but also meant that it was much harder to find empty radio stations for the Ipod adapter. We were forced to listen to the radio much of the time and it got old pretty quickly. There's only so much Justin Timberlake I can handle before my eyes get a little crazy and I start to twitch. And the 'Beautiful Girls' song became particularly torturous.

We passed through West Virginia and then out of it again into Pennsylvania for a hot minute and back to WV. They don't even bother putting up the welcome sign until the second time as if to say, “no you're really here this time, promise!” We stopped in a cute little place called Morgantown for lunch at the Mediterranean Deli and Market. Looking out the window, I spotted a woman on a Specialized road bike in full Lycra (and a helmet!). I can't wait to get home to my bike. We also had our first lesbian sightings of the entire trip. How do I know? Well, we can just tell these things...gaydar you know. Also, the “Spank Me” T-shirt was kind of a give away.

I started dancing to the cheesy 80's music inside Coldstone. When Traci ordered me to stop, I reminded her that she needed me to haul all her shit up to the 11th floor of her new apartment building and therefore I could do whatever I wanted. She had no answer for that. I got more shit for recognizing 'Waiting for a Star to Fall” in the first 3 notes.

“Ah but what's worse is that I know all the words,” I said, and proceeded to sing along. By that time she had gotten her ice cream and headed outside. She said the air conditioning wasn't conducive to ice cream eating, but I know better.

On our way back to the car, we spotted two more lesbians, making a total of four for the entire trip, all in a little West Virginia town of all places. Like Mastercard, we're everywhere you want to be.

Back in the car, we finally got out of the city so we started Traci's Ipod back up. The first song in the play list was The Chipmunk song which I think pretty much absolves me from my cheesy 80's moment.

The scenery in WV reminded me of home except that I had to snicker when Traci told me that people refer to the hills there as 'mountains.' Perhaps they are in the technically geological sense, but as far as I'm concerned, anything I could ride my bike up, doesn't qualify.

The names of the lakes and mountains were pretty amusing as well. Cheat Lake and Fairchance Rd could be reached via the same highway exit. Then there was Deep Creek Lake and finally our favorite (not), Negro Mountain, elevation 2740. We both did a double take on that one. I can't believe that with all the hub bub about sports teams names and such, no one has gotten around to protesting the moniker of Negro Mountain. I don't even want to know how it got such a name in the first place.

We got into the hills of West Virginia and Maryland and our little truck started to struggle with the climbing. The only efficient way to get up the hills was to try to get momentum on the downhill, not unlike in cycling. This plan doesn't work out so well however, when there's a state trooper sitting at the bottom of the hill.

I'm sorry officer, I was just trying to make it up the next hill. I'm sure if you average my speed over the crest, it would come out to sixty-five...

Luckily Traci was paying attention and nixed the momentum strategy.

We stopped in Cumberland on a tip, looking for a cool geology feature near the visitor's center. It was after 6:00 and the visitor center was closed so we had to content ourselves with another cheesy tourist picture.

I wonder if the people who fought and died on the very land we were standing on ever thought their history would end up on small plaques detailing battles over the railroad station? While we were reading these, I saw another U-Haul pull up in the parking lot. A man got out and pulled a nice looking road bike (and helmet!) out of the back and set off on a bike trail. I tried not to drool. Two more days...

With all the junk food I've been eating while sitting around on my ass, it's a really good thing I'm riding 200 miles next weekend. I can't wait to be moving under my own power. And when my butt starts to hurt from the saddle, I'll just remember what my knees felt like after 2994.8 miles in the car.

Our geological feature turned out not be in the town but on the road itself. The Sideling Hill road cut is just that...a big section of rock that was cut out to make room for the road. We stopped and took the bridge over the road to see both sides but unfortunately the information center was closed. Geology geeks can find more information here.

After that it was the home stretch to D.C. We couldn't go straight home though because Jess had been going on and on about a place called The Dairy Godmother that served frozen custard in the style of her childhood home in Wisconsin. The place is closed on Tuesdays so it was now or never. Fortunately they were open till 10:00pm because it took is almost that long to get there. My brain was fried from the road I guess and when I called to ask the best way to get there I repeated the instructions back three times yet still managed to omit the vitally important detail that we should get off GW parkway at hwy 395 until the last second. Of course that wasn't enough warning and little did I know that there aren't that many exits off the parkway. We took the next one and ended up wandering around Arlington with Traci in full tired/cranky/road rage mode before we finally found it.

When we walked in, the first thing I noticed, besides the fact that it was completely packed, was the huge roach crawling around on the wall above the counter. Welcome to D.C.! Traci worked in a restaurant in D.C. One summer and and she told me that roaches are more a matter of management than elimination. So I didn't let the disgusting sight put me off my goal. I ordered a vanilla custard and it was indeed very good. But I think I'll be just as happy with cake batter ice cream from Coldstone, which fortunately I can get at home.

After that we finally made it to Columbia Plaza in downtown D.C., Traci's new home. She had gotten permission for us to park in the loading dock and we had an appointment to unload the next day from 10:00-4:00. They give you an elevator key so you can completely monopolize it for as long as you need and they pad the walls as well, which seemed appropriate for our mental state after so much driving.




Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Day 5: Kansas City, MO – Columbus, OH (657 miles)

7/8/2007
Departure time: 8:30am CST
Arrival Time 12:30am EST
Penske trucks: 7
Dead deer: 2
Wish I had could've brought: Mom
Pictures

Our alarms went off at 6:00. I had showered the night before so I went right back to bed, waiting until Traci showered before getting out of bed.

When she woke me again, it was 7:26 and she was still sitting in the chair by her bed with her laptop on her lap, talking on the phone. While she was on hold, she explained that today our reason for leaving late was so she could set up her appointment to get cable/Internet/phone in her new apartment.

She couldn't do that from the road? I thought and said. But this was her trip and I was just glad for the extra sleep. As much as I loved the idea of getting on the road at 7:00am so we'd have a decent amount of time to relax in our new city, it also required getting up before 7:00am. We've never been morning people. But she had specifically said she wanted to start early today so we could see the arch in St Louis and get to Columbus in time for her to visit some college friends.

I hadn't even thought about the arch, but once she mentioned it, I thought it would be totally cool to see. We could at least stop and see one really cool landmark on this trip...and besides, after leaving at noon the day before, I felt positively accomplished about getting out before 9:00.

Our free breakfast was right in line with the rest of the accommodations at the 'Quality Inn,' which is to say, severely lacking. No hot food, some boiled eggs I didn't trust and tiny dry looking muffins. We both went for the relatively safe Fruit Loops. At least the milk was on ice. I got a Styrofoam cup of orange juice, and longed for my environmentally friendly familiar surroundings. The OJ was sour and I nearly spit it out. We took 2 minutes to finish our cereal and I took a yogurt to eat in the car. Traci reminded me to grab a spoon.

“We have spoons in the car,” I reminded her. Lovely, New Seasons biodegradable spoons made from corn. I couldn't wait to go home.

What we didn't have was water, since our gallon from the previous day had gotten a leak in it. I knew we needed gas though and the station just before the freeway said $2.99 so I figured we'd stop there on our way out.

This was the start of the day's mis-communications. Traci passed right by the station and hit the highway. When I asked why, she said she'd wait and get gas down the road. “Well, I need water,” I told her. Sometimes I can't figure that girl out. It made absolutely no sense to me to pass up perfectly cheap gas at the outset of the day in favor of having to stop less than 15 minutes later. When the next station came along, she was all set to cruise merrily past it as well and I had to tell her to pull off. I was sick of dehydration headaches.

With three full water bottles, some Tang and a full gas tank, we got on the road for real and I passed the time until my drive shift reading Mixed by Angela Nissel, a book about being biracial in America and the funniest thing I've read in a while. We stopped at the rest stop just past the Missouri border. Not only did the toilets flush automatically (of course) but the sinks were fully automated. All you did was stick your hand under the appropriate spot and soap squirted into your waiting hands, followed by a stream of water and then a blow dryer that actually lasted till my hands were dry. “A no-move, no-touch experience!” boasted the sign above the sink. I would've been more impressed if I hadn't turned around to find a door handle waiting to be pulled. All that, and they couldn't reverse the entrance to push on the way out? At least then you can use your foot, if you're that paranoid about germs.

I took over after a couple of hours, with 129 miles to St Louis. We agreed to stop there, see the arch and have a real lunch since breakfast was so bad. Once we got into city territory, our Ipods became useless because we couldn't find a dead radio station for the radio receiver adapter. Traci thought a new adapter that worked with any station instead of our current four preprogrammed ones would work better so we looked at our Rand McNally Atlas from Wal-mart which helpfully lists the location of every Wal-mart in the country. There were stores available at three of the next seven exits.

We got back on the road and straight into the worst traffic jam I've ever seen. Three lanes of traffic and the only one moving was the one on the right and only because those people were headed towards the exit. We did see a group of six guys on motorcycles and they were all black, so of course we took pictures. Poor little deprived Oregon girls.

I thought I could finish the drive to St Louis before handing over the wheel, but the traffic jam did me in. The boredom of sitting in one place and inching forward was too much. I could barely keep my eyes open. I figured if I did hit someone at least we were only going 5 mph, but decided there was no point in risking it. I put it in park and we switched seats without getting out. I thought about making a movie of the traffic jam with some commentary, but I was too sleepy. I rested my head on my balled up shirt and promptly fell out.

Some time later, I woke up to Traci hitting me on the leg. Apparently, it had taken a few tries. I jerked upright, still woozy and half asleep, but I saw immediately why she was hitting me. We were approaching downtown St Louis and the arch stretched up magnificently in front of us. I snapped out of my fog enough to grab my camera and take a few pictures. Traci said there was an elevator that went to the top or close to it. Now that I'd laid eyes on it, I couldn't wait. For an hour or so we could feel like we were on a real road trip.

When the arch passed out of view and we crossed the Mississippi, still moving away, I spoke up.

“I'm confused.”

“What?”

“We seem to be going away from the arch.”

“Oh, did you think we were going to stop?” She looked stricken. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean I wanted to stop—I just wanted to go through downtown so we could see it. I want to get to Columbus.”

I got terribly upset when she said this and she could tell. “Do you want me to go back?” she asked.

“Well, yeah!” I said, knowing we probably wouldn't. She went on to explain that she didn't know where we could park the truck downtown and how we'd end up in Columbus really late, etc. I could've pressed the issue, but I knew she was right.

None of it made me feel any better. For some reason, I had been focusing on that arch as the only thing I had to look forward to all day. My feeling of disappointment magnified all out of proportion as the miles ticked on.

Before we left Portland, I called my grandmother to check in. I usually call her before a big trip, cause I know she likes to schedule her praying and worrying time. We talked about the trip and things in general. She asked how I was doing in a way that I knew really meant, how's the grieving? I told her what I tell everyone, that I'm generally fine until I'm not. I told her about going back to the beach where I took mom this time last year. She asked how that was and I said it was fine. The things you would expect to be hard (like mother's day) don't really seem to get to me.

“So what does trigger you?” she asked.

“I don't know until it happens,” I said.

Apparently, this was the new trigger. Steer clear of aborted trips to the arch of St Louis. But it was too late. The disappointment caused the wave of grief I'd been holding off for two days to swell up and cover me completely.

I tried to go back to sleep, but instead just sat there with tears streaming down thinking about mom—how she should have been doing this trip instead of me, or we should have all been on it together or at least Traci and I should have been able to call and tell her to watch some cheesy movie we'd made of our trip to see the arch and posted on the Internet.

After a while, I reached for my book again, hoping to distract myself from having a full scale meltdown in the car. It sort of worked. I still had to wipe my eyes and nose with a napkin every few minutes, but I wasn't a total wreck.

Then Traci asked if I need the rest area that was coming up.

We pulled into it, our little truck dwarfed in a row of five or six semi's. Traci stayed in the truck while I got out and made what seemed like a mile walk to the bathroom/visitors center. When I got inside, there were two open stalls and two women waiting in line. “No toilet paper in those,” I heard one of them say.

Great. I can't even wipe my eyes, I thought. I kept my shades on and tried to breath deeply. I could just imagine what I looked like to strangers, 'cause when a stall finally opened, the older woman who'd been waiting said, “You go ahead honey.” I must've looked as on edge as I felt.

So I went in and peed and cried in peace. Sobs wracked me but I kept them silent except when the noise of flushing or blow drying gave me cover to wail in peace. The last thing I wanted was to have to explain to some nice traveler that no, I was fine, just my mom was dead.

But I couldn't really take up the stall for too long so eventually I pulled it together long enough to wash my hands and go outside. I took a big wad of the coveted toilet paper and continued my breakdown at a nice shaded picnic table, undisturbed by other travelers.

When I was finally done, I walked back to the truck, where Traci was still waiting. When I opened the door, she said, “Thanks for not ditching me and hitching back to Oregon.”

I assured her that I wasn't mad about the arch incident and I wasn't going to ditch her. “Mom already ditched us both.”

Not only did we not stop to see the arch, but St Louis was now well behind us and no lunch had been had either. Traci had assumed that the row upon row of suburban exits containing endless food choices would be repeated on the other side of the city, but that was definitely not the case. Now we were both starving and I had a headache from crying.

We finally stopped at some tiny podunk—I can't even use the word town-- and ate at the Red Apple family restaurant. The floor was dirty, our table hadn't been wiped and I sat gingerly on the outside of the booth to avoid the crumbs and what looked like a smudge of Crisco on the inside. At least I didn't see any roaches. I had encountered my first one at a Taco Bell a few hundred miles back and I was just a little freaked out. “Welcome to the east coast,” was Traci's response.

What the Apple lacked in cleanliness, it made up for in the one waitress on duty. She was friendly without seeming fake—the total picture of a small town cliché. She asked if we were ready. I had been studying the menu trying to find something that might be safe to eat. I hadn't quite decided, but thought a salad might be OK so I said I was ready, even though I had no clue what I wanted. When Traci ordered a BLT, I decided to follow suit. On this trip I seem to always end up ordering something different and then wishing I'd gotten what she ordered. My instincts were correct. The BLT was surprisingly good and so were the fries. We made short work of them and got back on the road.

We saw this cross, the largest I've ever seen, in the town of Effingham, IL.



My next drive shift came up at the Indiana border. Depression makes me tired and after 30 minutes, I was struggling, but Traci had been driving for hours, so I felt bad giving up so soon. I pulled into a Flying J and bought a couple of iced bottled frapuccinos and jumped up and down for a minute. After that I was fine.

Once again, near the border of Ohio, where Traci planned to take over, we hit (almost literally) another ridiculous traffic snarl. I had to change lanes to avoid hitting the car in front of me the change in speed was so sudden. After that everyone started merging into the left lane, so we followed suit. After crawling along for 20 minutes with no idea why, we finally passed two cars pulled over on the side of the road. They didn't look like they'd been in an accident, but there were two black, shaved headed monks standing outside the cars wearing long flowing bright pink and purple robes. Sadly, I could not get my camera out in time for that one.

Traffic picked back up after that and I was relieved from driving shortly after we crossed into Ohio. Traci graduated from OSU and even though it was late, we stopped to see her friends J and D and sat visiting on their porch for a half hour. Under the circumstances, I thought I displayed great patience. Finally we went to the hotel, another Comfort Suites that was much cleaner than the Kansas City Quality Inn. There was no Internet signal though and I had been assured hotels with wifi on this trip. A quick reading of the information card revealed that access could only be had through the wired Ethernet system. If you don't have a cord, one can be purchased at the front desk, the card said.

What kind of primitive crap was that? We weren't even going to be there a full 12 hours. So annoying. Traci went to check it out and the front desk clerk offered to loan it to us if we brought it back by the 6:30am shift change. But in the end, we needed the sleep and Traci just bought the cord. I spent an hour or so catching up on mail and fell into bed.

One more day of driving to go.

Portland to DC day 4: Denver, CO - Kansas City, MO (603 miles)

7/7/2007
Departure time: 11:45am MST
Arrival Time 11:00pm CST
Penske trucks: 6
Dead deer: 1
Wish I had brought: The cast of Live Wire
Pictures

Our pattern of setting a ridiculously early waking time and then not waking up was well established by now. Besides, driving on no sleep isn't such a great idea. So I wasn't surprised when I woke up around 8:00 and Traci was just starting to pack up the box she forgot to pack up the day before. I took my time showering, getting dressed and doing a very thorough search for anything I had brought. With a whole house to roam, I had left things laying in every room. Not very smart, but I managed to get it all.

We wedged the last few items into the truck and then headed to Traci's friend's house to drop off her car. There was visiting and showing off of the dog, the cat, the kid and the jeep. It was getting close to 11:00 when I just stood up and declared that we were leaving. We still had to stop for breakfast, which we did at Denny's.

I had been warned by several people about the utter tedium of the drive ahead of us once we left Denver, and I wasn't disappointed. The land stretched on in unending flatness where the most exciting thing to be seen was miles of corn. My music wasn't helping me so I put on my podcast of True Stories, a performance hosted by Courtenay Hameister who also hosts the Live Wire Radio theatre show. The stories were as twisted as I've come to expect from Courtenay and her friends and kept us laughing all the way to the Denver border. (If you do nothing else this week, download the podcast and listen to Jim Brunberg's performance of "One Night Stand--hil.ar.i.ous.)

We stopped in Burlington to see the Kit Carson Carousel. As we pulled into the fairgrounds we saw a sign that said, “Rides 25 cents.” We figured maybe it was leftover from the historic beginnings of the carousel but the rides were actually 25 cents! Sweet. Rides happened every thirty minutes and we were right on time to catch the next one. Traci picked a row of giraffes. I wasn't expecting much excitement since the animals didn't go up and down but that little old merry-go-round had some speed! We got up to ten miles per hour, enough to feel a few g's and sway towards the outside.


After we rode the carousel, we paid a dollar (a dollar!) to go into the museum and check out the history of the carousel, the restoration and the story of the theft and subsequent return of three of the animals in 1981. There was a cut out of a carving in process and a demonstration of how a pipe organ works. Very cool.

That was pretty much the most excitement we had all day. We crossed into Kansas and made our usual stop at the rest area visitor's center. Our welcome to the Midwest was cemented when a girl in the bathroom asked one of the cleaning workers if she had anything to get the permanent marker off her back. Soon the woman was enthusiastically scrubbing the girl's back with orange degreaser which seemed to work pretty well. I didn't get to see what the writing actually said and I can only imagine how it got there, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was alcohol involved.

This was also the point in the trip when I noticed that every rest stop contained toilets that flushed automatically. I have no real complaint about that, it's certainly nice not to have to touch it, even with my feet—but every time I go into airports or other places where things are automatic, I get the feeling that in another hundred years, we'll have so automated everything in our lives that we'll completely lose all motor function. We'll be a lot like that Star Trek episode where Kirk and the gang beam down to a planet where the inhabitants are just big brains sitting in huge jars of formaldehyde, or the 21st century equivalent.

We moved on and for the rest of the day it pretty much just looked like this:



Late in the afternoon we went through Topeka, a place I've made many jokes about (I'm sure the next CSI is going to be set there), but never thought I'd see personally.

I ended up driving the last shift and for once I was feeling really awake. Traci was fast asleep which left me to listen to music and think, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. Whenever my brain has free time, there's a good chance thoughts of mom will wander through.

When I finally reappeared in my math class after the funeral, my classmate LC made the analogy that grief is like walking along the edge of the ocean—your feet are always wet and then every so often, a big wave comes up and takes you out. I really liked the analogy even though I hated the annoying therapy voice she used when she said it. When I went to Hawaii I rented a boogie board and spent the afternoon riding the waves and I made the mistake just once of turning my back on the ocean. One minute I was standing there happy-go-lucky with my board hand—the next second I was eating sand. Grief does indeed feel just like that.

I hadn't had a big wave in a few weeks and driving along highway 70 through flat Kansas country, I had too much time to think about how fun it would've been if mom had been with us and remember fun things we did do, taking road trips to California to see the family just about every summer of my entire childhood.
The music wasn't helping and I had to skip carefully through the Ipod shuffle for upbeat songs. It really would not do to start crying while driving at high speed on a strange highway at night.

I managed to hold it together and soon I was distracted with the city itself. Kansas City was much larger than I expected. We couldn't see much besides the lights of buildings and the massive stadium home of the Kansas City Chiefs which we could see the inside of pretty well from the road. But the sheer density of the city and the fact that it took forty-five minutes to get through it, made an impression.

Our hotel made an impression as well, unfortunately not a good one. When we walked down the hall to our room, there were seven or eight kids playing in the small hotel pool with no parents in sight. Our room was grungy and dirty, especially after the bright clean Comfort Suites in Ogden. But the final straw was when the kids got out of the pool and went on to amuse themselves by running up and down the hallway yelling. It was after midnight at that point.

I called the front desk and asked if they would say something to the kids and/or parents.

Desk clerk: Where is the noise coming from?
Me: We're in room 112.
DC: And where is the noise coming from?
Me: They're running up and down the hall.
DC: Do you know where the noise is originating?
Me: That would be in the hallway. Outside our room. Room 112.

I wasn't hopeful but I wasn't getting dressed again to go out and yell at them. I went to bed and eventually fell asleep.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Portland to DC, day 3: Denver - packing day

7/6/2007
Departure time: N/A
Arrival time: N/A
Dead deer: I should hope not!
Penske Trucks: Just us
Wish I had brought: Men folk (not)

When we were at the storage place in Portland packing up the truck, it was like we'd stepped into a 1950's time warp. First the woman in th storage space a few doors down from us (who was working by herself), asked us, “How come you're moving it all yourself?” in a tone that clearly said, Can't you find some nice boys to do that for you?

I replied, “Um, because it's our stuff.” in a friendly tone that I hope still managed to say, here's a ticket to the next bus headed for 2007.

Later, a new group showed up, two men and a woman, all over 40. The guys asked us how many more loads we had in a tone that said, How soon before we can monopolize the elevator on our floor? And we said we had a lot more loads to go in a tone that said, Did you not see the sign that says ALWAYS CLOSE THE ELEVATOR?

We exited with our load and they went in with theirs. As we loaded the truck, which always involved moving the ugliest chair on the planet that Traci has insisted on carting back and forth across the country twice now, the woman who was with the two guys said, “You girls don't have any menfolk to help you?” Yes, she actually said, 'menfolk.'

Never leave home without your flux capacitor, I thought. We told her no, we didn't and continued loading.

The next time we came down with the mattress and box spring. They were too big to fit on our small carts, so we'd just hauled them to the elevator without one. When we got downstairs, I ran to open the truck and when I came back, Traci was moving the bed spring by herself by turning it end over end. The guys were heading into the elevator so I told her to leave the box and come get the mattress so they could head up. We each took an end and hefted it without fuss up and out of the elevator.

“Strong girls!” we heard one of the guys say as we left, which set us both laughing. I've been told that some straight girls make a point of hiding their strength from guys so they won't have to actually do things for themselves. Maybe that's why these guys were so astonished that we could move our own stuff.

I doubted we would have the same commentary in Denver and we definitely wouldn't have any help. At least I got to sleep in.

We went to IHOP for breakfast and I couldn't play my usual game of count the black people because there were too many! I lost count almost immediately. We definitely weren't in Portland anymore.

When we got home, we split up. Traci worked on packing up the rest of her stuff in boxes, while I opened up the truck and repacked it to make room for the new items. Not only was it not as bad as I thought it would be, but I kind of enjoyed it. I spent two holiday seasons working as a UPS loader in days gone by and my training came flying back to me in no time. After an hour, I had a nice space opened up. I went and helped pack up the rest of the boxes, and take apart shelves and by 3:30, we had it all laid on the lawn. Then I went to work, telling Traci which items to hand in and fitting all together like a jigsaw puzzle with just enough room left to throw our travel bags in the next morning.


When we were done, we ate the leftovers from dinner the night before, showered and then headed out to play. My reward for packing was a trip to the REI flagship store in downtown Denver. We were confused about the flagship label, since the first REI is located in Seattle and is also considered a flagship store. An employee enlightened us that the label is based on the size of the store, not the order in which they were built.

The climbing wall was impressive. After I signed up, I got a pager so I could roam the store while I waited for my turn. It didn't take long to get called. In checking out the walls, I wasn't sure what route to take so I asked, John, my belay partner, for help deciding. Climbs are generally rated 5.6-5.9 but I had no idea of the rating of my other sporting goods store climbs. Medium hard was the best description I could come up with.

John described a few of the climbs and the choices seemed to be a medium climb that looked so easy as to be boring—and a 5.9 route that looked well beyond my ability.

I decided to take the challenge.

(Note: Traci made a video of most of the climb which doesn't seem to have made it onto my hard drive. If she survives her first week of law school and sends it to me, I will update and include it ~K)

After the climb, I just had riding the mountain bike trail to cross off my list. Time was running short, but it wasn't very busy and I found someone to help me right away. My hands and legs were still barely working from the climb, but I figured biking is something I could do in my sleep.

I had to fill out a waiver first though and my hands were shaking so much that my handwriting looked more like a that of a four year old on crack. But I managed five fun laps around the single track trail.

Feeling satisfied with my adventures, we left and headed to Little Shanghai restaurant to have dinner with my friends G & B. I haven't seen them since the 90's and we had a nice time catching up over delicious sizzling rice soup.

When we got home, there was a lengthy and stressful search for Traci's phone. I looked all the places she had already looked with no luck. Finally, even though she swore she hadn't packed it into a box, I went and opened the truck anyway and called her from my phone to see if I could hear anything. I didn't, but I heard a shout of glee from inside the house that meant she had. It had fallen off her desk and into a garbage bag. We didn't think too hard about what a disaster that could've been.

While I was trying to get into the truck, it came to my attention that I wasn't exactly sure where my keys were. I borrowed Traci's and wondered if this was just our day to lose everything important. But I found them in her purse of all places, while she swore she didn't put them there but she has been a little scatterbrained on this trip at times.

Finally with all our essentials located, we could get some sleep.

Portland to DC, day 2: Ogden, UT – Denver, CO (782 miles)

(Note: I'm finally getting around to posting the rest of the blogs from our cross country drive last month. ~K)

7-5-2007
Departure time: 8:30am MST
Arrival time: 9:30pm MST
Dead deer: 2-3
Penske Trucks: 6
Number of black people spotted between Portland and Denver: 2
Wish I had brought: No Doze
Pictures

For those of you with short attention spans or busy schedules, you can cut to the chase:



Movie disclaimer: This represents about 5 hours of self-taught Imovie skills, so expect weird transitions, bumpy camera work and uneven audio. Basically, you'll feel like you were there!

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The deer count is in question because I saw what may have been two halves of one deer about a quarter mile apart. These are the few times when I'm glad I'm not on a bike...

Everyone was a tad bit crankier this morning as we got started, but thankfully, nothing came to fisticuffs. Traci mentioned going to Antelope Island in the morning, but then I thought she said it was too far out of the way. So when she asked me if I still wanted to go, I was confused. "It's not too far, it's just 10 miles," she said. "Do you want to go?"

"I'm ambivalent," I said. Wrong answer. She had a little tantrum about decision making. Turned out she was ambivalent as well and hoping I'd make up her mind for her. "Fine, let's go then!" So we went.

Just outside Ogden, we took the exit and went down a street until it ended and turned into a long causeway leading to the island. I found it a little creepy, the way the road stretched out so deserted over the water. The smell of sulfur hit us so hard, my best mouth breathing couldn't conquer it. There were about a million little gray and white birds off to one shore, no doubt feasting on brine shrimp, one of the many delicacies the island offered to it's huge bird population.

We were the only car on the road. As was my habit, I was checking the shoulder of the road for bikability. I checked my odometer so I could figure out how long the ride from the mainland to the island would be. When I looked up again, I saw a speck of red in the distance, not big enough to be another car. Holy crap, could it be...?

"Traci, get the camera, there's a biker up there!" She obliged. Somehow I always feel better when I see bikers in the towns we stop in. The fact that he was acting out my exact current fantasy (minus the sulfur smell and the 90 degree heat at nine in the morning), put me in a good mood.

We did a quick tour of the visitors center, skimming plaques with information about birds, bison and antelope they had to be reintroduced into the island. The island is huge and there's a ranch at the far end. I would've loved to go rent some horses and go out in search of seeing some bison up close if we'd had the time. I wondered if the biker would see any.

It was 10:00am when we got back on the road. In my zeal to figure out my new video capabilities for blogging, I had stayed up pretty late the night before and forgotten that we'd crossed a time zone during the day. My computer clock said 1:00am when I finally shut it off, which I realized belatedly meant 2:00am local time. As a result, I didn't last long behind the wheel. By noon my eyes were droopy and I yielded the cockpit to Traci. I spent most of my non-driving time sleeping throughout the day and the rest of it reading the entire manual for my new camera so I could learn about cool features like color filters:



I was very glad that the next day would be a 'rest' (i.e. non-driving) day.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

We made it

I'm sitting on the floor of my sister's new apartment in Washington D.C. (Yay pirated wifi!) We made it here around 10:30 EST. I'm so glad that's finished! In six hours we get up to have breakfast and then unload starting at 8:00am. Hopefully we'll get done in time for me to walk around and take even more touristy pictures and visit a few museums.

Many lengthy posts, pictures, and video will hopefully be uploaded by Wednesday night.

Stay tuned...

Portland to D.C. - Day 1

(Independence) Day 1 – Portland, OR – Ogden, UT (730 miles)
Departure time: 8:19am PST
Arrival time: 11:00pm MST
Dead deer: 9
Penske Trucks traveling in the opposite direction: 8
Wish I had brought: hand sanitizer. my girlfriend.
Pictures


Traci starts law school at George Washington University in Washington D.C. In just over six weeks. She's been working madly to organize the transport of the furniture and stuff from mom's house and her things in her Denver apartment, to her new place in D.C. The final solution was to rent a U-Haul and drive across the country, stopping in Denver to pick up the rest of her stuff.

That's where I come in. Normally mom would be the logical candidate to help her drive and get settled in but since that's not an option anymore, I took on the role of sloppy seconds and agreed to do the job. My summer is turning out to be incredibly packed, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that I have no job. I had a week-long window of availability between our beach trip last weekend and our Seattle to Portland ride on the 14th of July. We spent yesterday moving things from the storage space to the truck and now here we are, setting off across country on Independence Invasion day. By the end, we'll have either enjoyed a sisterly bonding adventure, or be really glad to be living three thousand miles apart.

I got up at 5:30 this morning and spent some time having breakfast with Jess and getting those last few Internet related to-do's done before I finished packing and we headed out.

I somehow forgot to buy turkey for our cooler yesterday so we couldn't leave town without just one more stop at New Seasons. I know they have grocery stores in other parts of the country, but I couldn't help feeling like we were about to leave civilization and there would be nothing to look forward to except a sea of Shell stations and rest areas.

I splurged for the expensive fresh cut turkey. We got into the truck and I opened the cooler and realized something important.

“We forgot ice,” I told Traci and we smacked our collective foreheads. It was a lot like trying to get out of the house, where I inevitably end up going upstairs eight separate times for things I forgot. But we finally got it together and headed for the open road.

It's amazing to me how much stuff I think I “need” to survive away from home for a week. And by stuff, I'm not talking about things like snacks, water & underwear. No, the packing list that concerned me the most contained the following items:

• computer & cord (w/ lighter attachment!)


• podium pad (to keep lap cool)


• camera (new!)


• books & journal


• Ipod & car radio adapter


• headphones


• cell phone & charger


• Battlestar Galactica DVD


• keys


• wallet

That's right, it's all about communication and entertainment. It's telling that I left the three bottles of water I bought for the trip in the front hallway by the door and it took until Boise for me to notice.

The first order of business was to break out my laptop and test out the lighter adapter cord. Every time I go on a road trip and get all excited about all the writing I can do while I'm not driving, the lighter doesn't work and I have to fall back on plan B. It's happened enough that I was starting to doubt the cord instead of the lighters in the various cars. With eight days of driving ahead of us, it was with some trepidation that I stuck the plug in to see if my little icon would switch from the battery symbol with it's shrinkage percentage of power left, to a comforting little picture of an electric cord. Before I even got it plugged in though, I saw the little blue light of success.

Yay! That means I'll have lots of time in the car to document this trip with the navel gazing detail you've all come to know and love/hate. And on a more practical note, I'll have plenty of time to do my homework for my on line Photoshop class.

That brought me to item number two, music organization. I have been missing the cord that connects my Ipod to my computer for a number of months now and I finally found it late last night which meant I could finally update my Ipod play lists. I decided to spend my first batch of free time rating all my songs and making new play lists. Suddenly 1500+ songs didn't seem like nearly enough to get across the whole country, but since I only have control while I'm driving, maybe I'll get by.I got behind the wheel for the first time in Pendleton, OR. I hadn't driven it at all yet, so I spent a few miles getting used to the feel and the fact that looking in the rear view mirror was utterly useless. Luckily that stretch of road is pretty deserted, so there was hardly ever anyone behind me anyway. But I never did stop looking at it or turning my head before changing lanes, as if I could actually see anything that way. Car habits die hard.

My first shift went pretty well. My biggest concern about this trip has been the fact that I pretty much hate driving and it's been a long time since I did a long distance trip. I wasn't sure about my stamina level, even for three hour shifts. Like reading a book for some people, sometimes just the act of getting behind the wheel with a long boring road ahead is enough to make my eyes droop. Fortunately, after an initial tiny slump, my play list kicked in and I actually started to have a good time. Listening to Salt n Pepper pared with Disney's Greatest Hits can do that for you.

Another concern I had about the trip was being trapped in a confined space for long hours with my sister. I love her dearly, but she does chatter on sometimes (most of the time) in a most unstoppable fashion. So far, my fears have not been realized. In the car, she's generally quiet except for pointing out good scenery, occasional memories of trips gone by with mom etc. Last time they drove this route, they stayed in Ogden as well and mom saw someone she knew in the motel parking lot. So typical. When we stop at towns or rest stops, word flow returns to normal, but that's fine with me. And (unlike me) she doesn't even sing along with her music.

A few early observations:

1. Rest areas in the middle of nowhere are not big on stocking soap. :(
2. Small towns really are different. We have not stopped once that someone hasn't said a friendly hello and/or tried to start a conversation.
3. Stretching outside the car in 103 degree heat—it's just like hot yoga!
4. You can take the girl off the bike but you can't take the cyclist out of the girl. I just read (book title) about a middle aged, out of shape writer who decided to bike across the country so, even more so than usual, I look at the road as a cyclist, checking out things like the width and smoothness of the shoulder, the presence or lack of rumble strips and the grades and lengths of the climbs. We've been on the road less than half a day and I miss my bike already. I saw a car with two high end mountain bikes at a rest stop and couldn't help striking up conversation with the occupants on the way back from the bathroom. They were on their way to trails in Wallawa, from Portland. I will definitely bike across the country someday.
5. There are way too many dead Bambi's by the side of the road between The Dalles and Ontario.
6. T.B.S. (Tiny Bladder Syndrome). It's not just for biking anymore! Right now we're hoping I can make the 72 mile gap between rest areas, as there is not much cover by the side of the road... Traci is very disgusted by this inconvenience.

We stopped in La Grande for our first refueling. I'm really glad not to be paying for the gas on this trip. If prices keep going up, those Oxen might start to look pretty good. I was thinking as I drove that when gas does run out, people are going to have to get to whichever part of the country they want to spend their days in and stay there.

I got out of the car, just to be getting out and then decided to go into the store for a snack. When I went back to the passenger side door to get my wallet, there was a bee hovering next to the big yellow truck as if it had hit the mother load. I waited for it to figure out that the truck wasn't a flower, but it didn't seem to be getting the clue, so I went to the driver's side.

“Convenience” stores are proof that Satan exists. What is about them that makes me feel like I have buy something, even when there's clearly no need? I will make it my goal to escape one with my wallet unscathed. So far I resisted powdered donuts (too messy) in favor of snack pack pudding, which I haven't touched yet. Also, Traci has gotten me hooked on Lipton PureLeaf ice tea, which doesn't help the T.B.S.

My driving shift ended in Ontario, our last stop in Oregon. I have any number of projects to work on while I'm not driving. One of the top three is learning all the features of my new Pentax Optio M20 camera. I've been reading the manual from the beginning so I can at least get an idea of all the cool features and then look them up later. If this post ends up with embedded video, then I will have checked of one of those low priority oh-I-need-to-learn-that goals.

Boise came up not long after and we left the highway for a little while so Traci could show me her turf. Boise is one of her frequent stops while she's working so she's got a fondness for it. She even mentioned she wouldn't mind ending up living there. What I saw of it did seem nice. I saw people riding bikes for the first time since leaving Portland (no helmets) and got all nostalgic again. “Yup,” Traci commented, “there's plenty of your people here.”

We drove into downtown and she showed me the Red Lion where she stays on work trips, the mall she goes to, the movie theatre etc. Suddenly she lit up like a kid on Christmas. “Let's go to the ice cream place!” There was some worry whether it would be open on a holiday but when we pulled up, there were plenty of people sitting outside the fanci Freeze, including an older couple on matching Specialized hybrids. I had the urge to ask if I could take a spin around the block but, like kissing the babies of strangers, I felt it would probably be frowned on and resisted.

fanci Freeze was worth getting excited about and here's why:



Originally, we planned to stop for an early dinner, but after filling up on Boston sundaes (my girlfriend isn't reading this is she?) we decided to wait. If we can't find an open restaurant in Ogden, we still have plenty of sandwich makings and fruit in the cooler. As we headed back to the freeway, we passed the Emerald Bar where Traci and I could both go dancing if she does move to Boise—the subtitle under the bar name read, “Straight Friendly.”

Traci chose the ultimate pop play list for her driving shift and as each new song comes up, there are a lot of chorus of “Seriously!?” or just outright hysterical laughter while simultaneously turning up the volume. Fortunately, our musical tastes have a wide overlapping streak in the area of anything smacking of vintage pop/disco/cheesy stuff. A few examples: 'Hello' by Lionel Ritchie, Candy Girl by New Edition and (wait for it), the remake* of the Christopher Cross song 'Sailing' by (wait for it again) N'Sync.

Things were uneventful for a while after Boise. The Snake River lived up to it's name as we passed over it several times while going in a basically straight line. The landscape was brown and featureless for the most part, giving me no reason to look up from my typing until a few miles before Wendell. Traci said, “Animals,” and pointed out the window. My nose told me it was either cows or horses so I didn't look up. Then she suddenly shouted again, “ANIMALS!!” I looked up to see a herd of seven or eight puppies (yes, you read that right) running west along the shoulder of the eastbound highway. They looked insanely happy, like they were so excited to have escaped.

We were horrified. They could get run over any moment, but there was no way we had time to stop and dodge traffic in the hope of catching them, even if we'd been willing to. I like puppies, but my girlfriend would be slightly put out if I got run over trying to save a bunch of them. So we did the next best thing and called the Wendell police and told them the mile marker where we'd seen them and which direction they were going. The female officer assured me someone would check it out. We felt slightly better after that. I hope they use the sirens to get there.

Mile 590, I was typing away and Traci said something. I didn't catch it and it seemed like something that might require a response.

“What?”

“You missed your cue.”

I thought she said 'q'. I knew she had been playing the alphabet game by herself so I started looking around for a road sign. There was nothing.

She saw me looking around and said, “You're Paul. You missed your cue!”

That's when I finally realized that “The Girl is Mine” had just come up on the Ipod shuffle and she had been singing along and now it was Paul McCartney's verse.

I burst out laughing. It was too late to pick up my verse, but I was ready when the next one came. By the end we were both laughing too hard to really get the talking parts right:

P: Michael, we're not going to fight about this, OK?
M: I told you, I'm a lover, not a fighter.
P: I've heard it all before, Michael
. She told me that I'm her forever lover you know, don't you remember?
M:Well, after loving me, she said she could never love another
P: Is that what she said?
M: Yes, She said it, you keep dreaming.
P: I don't belieeeeeeeeeeeeeeve it...

This song just gets better with age, given the irony of Michael's proclivities. We both agreed that Paul 'wins' in the song. And since I was playing Paul and the girl is actually mine, it works out both ways.

After that I joined in the alphabet fun because, what's a road trip without the alphabet game? I took the early lead, but by 'j', we were even again and then spent the next few letters leap-frogging each other. Then we passed by the town we were in and letters got scarce. Traci got 'q' off “Quality" on the only semi for miles around and that proved to be my undoing. I was hoping the glare from the setting sun would blind her to the hazmat check point, but no such luck. Round 1 to Traci.

About 40 miles from Ogden, we were treated to not one, but three different fireworks displays that were almost directly ahead of us, so even Traci (who was driving) could enjoy them. We pulled into a rest stop for a few minutes to catch the last of the first show.

We pulled into the parking lot of the Comfort Suites at 11:00pm. Showers, food, wifi and bed. What more could you want?


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.