The road whispering in my ear is beginning to sting. Stop yelling...it's almost the 4th of July zoooooooooooooooooooom!

The road whispering in my ear is beginning to sting. Stop yelling...it's almost the 4th of July zoooooooooooooooooooom!

3.04.03 Day Nine

The 5 a.m. wake-up call comes all too soon, straight up, on the dot. We had wanted to sleep in, go late, something like 10. It was to be our one luxury before heading home.
Instead we are out and on the road by 5:30, hightailing it home. It is still dark and traffic is light. The waysides are full of parked semis, men sleeping in the cab-overs.
Coffee laced with cream touches my lips. It is strong. I probably should have bought an English muffin or toast to absorb the acid.
By the time the sun rises in our faces we are already in Illinois on Rte 40 cutting through the center of the state. I remember once coming back from Texas and being amazed that this big stretch of road had no rest areas. It still doesn't.
The familiar replaces the unfamiliar. We are closing in on Chicago and still not one flake. It's very early…1:30!
Turning down my street I can spy my little house through the stately oaks. All is well. I am home.
Dee carried my bags in. I love being home. For as sweet as traveling is, even more sweet is being home surrounded by my cool stuff, by the feeling of belonging, savoring this life that I have carved out for myself.
The news blurts out the truth: 8" of snow fell on I-80 east of Des Moines. Spin outs all over. The police stated that if you were in an accident and your car was still drivable that you should exchange insurance info and just go home. They will write it up later. All of the Midwest was a traffic nightmare.
We were wise and lucky.
I drowsed off to sleep to awaken to a beautiful fresh blanket of snow.
Welcome home.

Word for the Day: Sleepy-eyed
End Destination: Chicagoland
Total Miles: 363

3.03.03 Day Eight


Nebraska arch, grand island, hot tub, c-span biological weapons, ends with "driving around on this country's Interstates scares me more than going around working with biological warfare." Forecast 6 to 10 " snow

Word for the Day: Blue Skies
End Destination: Adair, IA
Total Miles: 578

3.02.03 Day Seven

Ring ring ring…the room phone is buzzing. In my hazy sleep I am thinking it is the wake-up call. Dee will get it. Five minutes later….ring ring ring. QUIET! I am trying to sleep. Wake-up calls are fed into an auto-dialer, you don't need to say hello, you can just pick it up and it will stop, if you don't it calls again five minutes later, forever. My cell goes off. OMG! STOP! Finally Dee picks up the third try…Wait! Wait! I can hear someone shouting. It is Thom. Oops forgot.
Here. He hands the phone to me.
Thom is jumping out of his rhinoceros skin. He is all electric. Stay with me. I have a big bed all ready for you. It can be pulled apart to make two twins. Fresh sheets. I just cleaned my place. C'mon say yes. There are places I want to take you. Say yes.
Yes.
Okay! I'll come there and you can follow me home.
K. We'll call when ready.
Pow! That's Thom. Haha!
Dee and I crawl out of bed, shower and get dressed Rocky-Mountain style. Just as I go to call Thom my phone rings. It is CeCe. She says everything is okay. Then she adds, you are in the paper today. She reads the entire article to me. I am hopping!

…just a minute. I am struggling to write this. With the possibility of war just hours away I feel like celebrating my trip is a bit myopic. Since I returned I have been glued to CNN. I want to hear the soldiers, the people of Iraq, and even the president. It is important that I stay informed. So I will come back to this another brighter time. A blistering ray of hope does exist. Elizabeth Smart is alive and well. It is a miracle we can all hang onto when senseless death may be happening at our hands.
Later…


Notes:
Silver grill…trout and eggs..heuvos rancheros
Town pump
Colors in Thom's mountain
Mr. Thom teaches
Silver Bar
Rio…recipe for queso del mar
Green chili soup
Bar with maps and concrete floor
Old town window crash






Word for the Day: Margaritaville
End Destination: Fort Collins, CO
Total Miles: 0

I'm doing it as fast as I can...sorry for the typos. Bear with me :) It was 67 here today!!!!!!!!!!!! Summer. I had to be outside:)

3.01.03 Day Six

It’s 3 a.m. Twilight Zone is on the teevee and when I peek out the window I see snow. Ugh! I went to sleep early, right after I heard the weather report. The national weather report. Rain for the entire west coast and only one trouble spot in the entire country…in Utah, in the Wasatch Mountains. How nice. That is exactly where we will be traveling tomorrow. Well when we wake up. The pool could still be open. I should go swimming. He is snoring. He is my hero. His sounds are comforting. I am terrified.

Morning comes and I am okay. In fact I feel some sense of accomplishment. I HAVE MY STATES! Yeah! Only two things left. Visit my pal in Fort Collins and head home.
I am not going to be afraid.

Even though there is snow it is nothing like yesterday’s terrifying adventure. Everything is relative, isn’t it? Before long we are climbing ever higher into the state of Wyoming. Ear popping and elevations of up to 9,000 feet. There is an interesting thing about the West. They have gates that they can raise and lower over the highways. At first I thought they were cattle crossings, but there are signs that say TURN AROUND AND GO BACK>>>ROAD CLOSED. The folks out here are not into snow removal like we are. They don’t have lots of plows and instead they tell you to go home.

Here are a few other curious observations:

*Packer fans are everywhere! I’m not sure if the people that wear the jackets are transplanted Midwesterners or if they just like the team. Brett Lafarve is magical. He makes things happen that seem damn near impossible, just the way Jordan did in his heyday.

*I especially like to get gas at those huge truck stops. They have everything. You can buy a T-shirt for $3.33, get food, pick up souvenirs, go online, and if you are a trucker you can get a bunk and a shower. Can anyone stay in those bunkers? There are woman truckers you know. Plus I have seen husband/wife teams. The man in front of me in the checkout line handed the store man a card like a lunch ticket. It was his last punch.

*I bought a fine fuzzy buffalo-shaped bank. It rocks! I emptied my Tootsie Roll bank just before I left. I had accumulated $255.84. It’s amazing how fast your change piles up. I am doing this entire trip on cash! I also picked up some fruit…bananas and WASHINGTON apples. These are tasty apples, and I am not sure what type they are, but for my money I like our apples…especially the Delicious, they are more tart and very crisp. I go with Emerson on the apple issue.
War… can we survive by debate and use pressure to avoid war? I wonder if dubya is just playing a game of RISK.

*We crossed the Contentintal Divide twice. I was driving. Yippee!

*Tonight I am sending out postcards.

We grabbed a room at the local Motel 6 and went next door to the Waffle House. I wanted to stay at the Hilton next door.

They had a great pool but smoking is only allowed up in the tower. I’ve had enough of being up in the clouds. And ooooo-wheeeee that pecan waffle was very good. I haven’t had one in years. The loud crass conversations of the waitresses were priceless.

Now we are on the search for Tom. His number has been disconnected. We finally find him listed in the new telephone book in the motel, right next to the bible. He’s not home.

Word for the Day: Sky Riding

End Destination: Fort Collins, CO

Total Miles: 644

2.28.03 Day Five

You look very pretty today he said and he was right. I had the best night's sleep in that sift soft bed after an hour of swimming and a bit of hot tubbing. This was going to be a great day.

I took a picture of the hotel owner's charming heart-shaped herb garden, then Dee and I were of to the Launderette.

A chubby black man brought in ten huge bundles of dirty clothing, a tall nervous woman who spent most of her time chatting on her cell phone had two, and we have a surprising three.

I spoke with Ruth and Rose the two attendants who did the drop-off laundry. Is it usually this green during this time of year? I asked

I had noticed the new green lawns and the tulips in bud. Even the flowering kale from last years garden was up and glowing a bright sassy purple and striking white.

No. This is early for us. The winter has been so mild. Yep, a month and a half early. It means we will have a burn summer. Not enough moisture. Very dry. There will be trouble with the crops too.

What do u grow up here?

Apples, peaches, pears…

Ruth, the older white-haired lady said. My son works at Diamond and he will lose his job this year. She looks at Rose, a 40 something black woman and repeats a refrain from some commercial running on their local teevee station. I do not understand it. She looks back at me. They buy all of the fruit from Chile now. People are losing their jobs. Won't be long before they don't grow anything up here.

They also took me about a guy who was walking around with three homemade bombs. He wanted to be ready in case in ran into al Quieda.

Rose is very interested in what Chicago is like. She said she has never been out of Oregon. I try to give her a description of a huge city on a sparkly Great Lake…. museums, art, music, food from every land, skyscrapers, and also the congestion, the homeless, the aggression. She is in her 40s and I can tell by her expression that she feels like she has missed something. I tell her that she lives in one of the prettiest places in the U.S. She is pleased. It is true.

Okay maybe I am not as rested as I thought. In fact, right after Morning Music Hour, I put on my sunglasses and went to sleep. Dee must have been off talking to himself in his head because he didn't even notice that I had stopped singing and was being very quiet. "I didn't even notice." He said. Aha! Now I can trick him. Just throw on my shades and as long as I don't curl up like a kitten, he will think I am present.

After pancakes at Mickey Ds, we are off. The Gorge ends and we are shooting inland, climbing into the Cascades…the Blue Mountain Range.

I picked up a copy of USA Today. Mr. Rogers died. Stomach cancer, age 74. Dan Rather had an interview with Saddam Heussain. I really would have liked to have seen that. And what's new on the dating scene? Love cruises where singles have 3-minute dates with 20 to 30 people. What a fast-paced screwball world we live in! I can't wait for the new marriage show where citizens pick a spouse for people. Let's do it.

When you pull up to a gas pump in Oregon, don't bother getting out. They have attendants that pump the gas for you. I think this is the only state that does that. I like it. Give me service any day! Dee thinks it's a welfare-to-work program. After seeing that guy in Washington splurt gas all over his SUV, himself, and the asphalt, I think it's for ecological reasons. I found
THIS
Online. Maybe it answers a few things.

Okay we are over 7,00 feet up. Semis are disappearing. There is snow. Chain UP signs are appearing. We are winding round and round and now we can't see. Fog, no. Make those clouds. When you look down into the valleys you see clouds. This is just like being on an airplane. Soon we can see on 10 feet or so in front of us. The roads are icy. We are on a mountain, one called Emily. My right leg is shaking like crazy. I am scared to death. One spin out and we will fly over the edge. Dee is amused by my anxiety. He is steady Eddy.

It took us many hours to cross that mountain. I am quiet for the rest of the day.

Crows pick at carrion flatten on the highway. Cattle roam the acres chewing on sagebrush. Occasionally one of the sage plants unearths and rolls across the highway…tumbleweeds. They get stuck in the fences. It is very windy here and if the wind were to change direction all of the tumbleweeds would drift back across the Interstate.

The landscape is rolling. This is ranch land. Spotted here and there are small windmills that pump water into troughs for the steers. I think cattle are allowed to roam and eat their entire lives. That is so different from dairy farming where the cows need to be brought in and milked twice a day. And cows are HUGE. Their butts are right by your face. I have heard that one kick and you are dead. So don't just wander into a barn.
The smallest type of cow is a breed called Dexter, which was bred a small size for household living. Cows were domesticated about 5,000 years ago. Cows can see color. Cows can detect odors up to 5 miles away. A 1,000-pound cow produces an average of 10 tons of manure a year. Per day, a cow spends 6 hours eating and 8 hours chewing cud. The average cow drinks about 30 gallons of water and eats about 95 pounds of feed per day. A cow stands up and lies down about 14 times a day. A cow's heart beats between 60 and 70 beats per minute. Cows can hear lower and higher frequencies better than humans.

It rained all day in the west of the Cascades from Seattle to San Diego. We made it through just in time.

Word for the Day: Mountainous

End Destination: Twin Falls, ID

Total Miles: 478

2.27.03 Day Four

Today’s tour de jour is a choice of British Columbia, Canada…Surrey or Vancouver…or the Pacific Ocean on some little beach off Oregon, near Astoria.

We both chose the ocean. We heard that there have been problems of detainment at the order, mostly from the INS when people try to reenter the states. Dee was once thoroughly questioned at the Mexican border and is still shaken from the experience these 7 years later. Any way how could a traveler come 2000 miles across the U.S. and not see the ocean, the end of our world?

We leave the Traveler’s Inn just as the cleaning crew arrives. Swiss Miss hot chocolate for me, coffee, the real stuff for Dee. A lot of morning traffic on the 405.

Somehow Dee got all balled up on the 405 and ended up headed back to Seattle. We swung around three times. Finally we stopped at a gas station and Apu didn’t have a clue, so I asked a nervous Vin Diesel- guy if he could help me. Better than he said follow me and took us to the turnoff that we needed. See how nice the Seattleites are! But there was one weird thing…Vin took a loooong time starting up his truck at the gas station. Dee said he was checking his ropes. He thought you were alone. OMG! Don’t even say that!

Dee is my fake husband. He may be the crankiest man on this planet, but he is an over-the-chart Mensa dude and he is very funny without really trying to be. So I am keeping him. He tempers my off-the-planet sunniness. He has a deeply-etched Charles Bronson kind of face and men wonder why he is with a younger girl like me. That is my gift to him. I love his goofy face. And even though, on occasion, I might call him a turd, you can’t. And don’t go trying to hit him up. He’s mine. I don’t share.

It is Dee’s birthday! (Thank God that his son called. I have lost track of what day it is.)I stopped at a Wal-Mart and bought some garland and a little disco ball to decorate the truck.

Back on the 405 headed in a southerly direction I spotted a huge billboard near Challes (sp?). There is a picture of Uncle Sam and these words…THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IS A GREAT PLACE OR YOUR KIDS TO MEET… SEXUAL DIVIANTS

Wow! This might be Bible-Belt country; still I understand their point. If I had a child I would install heavy-duty parental controls on all of the computers in the house. Hell, there are things/images of things that I haven’t even ever though of on here and I’m very imaginative. I am going to be a really strict mother. My kids will hate me until they are like 30.

Dee and I won’t have children. He’s been spayed. He acts like a disgruntled virgin most of the time anyway.

This part of Washington is gorgeous, lush, green, and fertile. I always have an eye out for a cool tourist attraction. I want to go to every one and I beg and plead, but he says NO. So when I saw the signs for Mount St. Helens I played it up and begged like a dog. “Only five miles off the Interstate.” “When they say that it means about 35, at least.” But I guess he was hungry or tired of driving or something because whoooooooosh! We swung off and had a grab-and-go lunch right at the entrance to Mt St. Helen’s. How many opportunities does one have to see an actual blow-its-top-off volcano?????????????

We went to the exhibit and out to use the viewer to see the actual mountain. It lost nearly 200 feet when it erupted. Ash blackened the sky and it affected all of the U.S. That was in 1980. You can walk right up on the edge of the crater! You can view the crater, lava, the blast area and surrounding volcanic peaks. Although they do warn you that it is unstable, so be careful. Ha! I asked Ranger Jack about Mt. Rainier and he said I should have been able to see it from Seattle. I didn’t. Another Grand Canyon. Argh. How do you miss a mountain that rises over 14,000 feet? I thought it would be like when you are traveling north from Sacramento to Redding and you see Mt Shasta looming large in the distance. But no, it wasn’t like that.

I stopped at that little gift shop and bought some ash and other souvenirs for my nephew. I bought some Washington State Apple Lotion for me. It is amazing. Smells just like an apple right when you bite into it, and it is bright pink! I was talking to the shop lady; she has a brother in Traverse City, MI. (That’s upstate Michigan, much colder than Chicago). She was comparing the two and said that here they had snow, maybe an inch every five years or so, but it rains a lot and they have HUGE slugs that eat all of the ornamentals.

The rest of the Washington state drive was just delightful, especially when we turned off the Interstate at Kelso. We gassed up and headed towards the ocean. Yippee!

This was a gorgeous drive right along the Columbia River. First it was Wisconsiny, pastures and very green, then it went to sharp mountain bends with lots of falling rock that could sheer off at any moment and suffocate your vehicle. And although it was a big bright day, you enter deep dark forests that are brim-full of ferns and evergreens and a lush forest floor. All of it makes me want to go fishing. I imagine you could catch some big ones here. Make a campfire and yum!

We crossed the loooong bridge into Astoria, OR. What a town! I would love to live here. It is a port and you have the huge vessels and the houses are knit tight upon the hills. It looks turn-of-the-century, but there isn’t any nonsense about the town, no fake junk. An artist could be inspired here.

We take 101 out to the ocean and when I first see it. YOOOOOOOWWW! It is roaring, violent, scary, and alluring all at the same time. We can drive right out onto the beach! The edge of the world spread out before me. I took LOTS of pictures for the “Hills, Mountains, and One Big Ocean” album I want to make when I get home. I am mesmerized by the tide and I am picking up the sand dollars it spits out. I know not to take the ones that are alive, the ones that have hairs growing at the hole on the bottom. I am collecting when a big wave comes in and I try to outrun it. I have my good shoes on. Whap! It nailed me all of the way up to my knees. Dee is sitting in the truck laughing. I am now wet and cold and silty. We left and found a spot right on the sideroad where I could change. Dee is blocking for me and a bunch of cars, including an officer goes by. I think I ruined my shoes. But it was so worth it!

Oh and guess what? This is the exact spot where Lewis & Clark first saw the Pacific Ocean. How cool is that?

All of the way out to the ocean there are small subdivisions of houses and right at the entrance to each lane there is a line of mailboxes and a kiosk. The weathered kiosks are triangular, about 6’ tall and have three shelves. On the side is printed the word FLOWERS. The shelves are filled with soup and veggie cans filled with bright yellow daffodils! Imagine that! Daffodils are already blooming here. I stopped and stuffed some money in the honor jar and took a canful for our room tonight. How charming is that? They smell so sweet.

Onward. We went back through Astoria and up into the forests. We can see clear-cutting behind the row of evergreens that they leave by the roadside. I am confused since it says this is national forest land. When did we allow logging in national forests? Semis full of scalped trees are running the Interstate. This is definitely logger country. We had lunch at a place called The Logger Café. Flannels and a big ole beard is the fashion. And the women are “sturdy.”

It is nighttime when we reach Portland. I can’t wait to go to the lesbian bars, hear some music, and have a city evening. Portland is a maze of bridges. I don’t think I have even seen so many in one town. But they are very well marked and before we know it we are out of Portland and in the burbs. When we got off it was in a tough area filled with questionable characters and there were iron bars all around the newly-construction Best Western that said, WE ARE NOW OPEN. No thanks. I wouldn’t stay here even if the rooms were free.

We missed the outer ring of hotels/motels at Troutdale. Dee never turns around. We are in the Columbia Gorge. Colossal cliffs rise up on both sides of the river. They are magnificent. The road licks the side of the river. It is dark. We need a room. The city lights have all disappeared. We pulled off and looked at a place called “Motel.” No other name, just “Motel.” That seemed peculiar, like they forgot to name it. It looked like a version of a Bates motel, so we moved on. Finally we reached Hood River, 80 miles east of Portland. There is a marvelous hotel there called the Columbia Gorge Hotel. It is magnificent. I tell Dee “Let it be my treat. It’s your birthday.” But he doesn’t want it. Instead we find a charming hotel up in town. The owner has a heart-shaped perennial garden at the entrance and there is a pool and hot tub. I say yes.

I ask the motel owner for a restaurant recommendation, something with steaks and romantic. She suggests, Stonehenge, down the street a mile, on the left. We showered, dressed and left. We climbed a BIG hill full of potholes and when we got to the top their was a two-story house. A Mexican man was washing dishes, but the porch light wasn’t on and there were only two cars in the parking lot, which meant no customers. Instead we picked up dinner at one of those Wild West theme restaurants. Lucky we got there at 7:45. They closed at 8. The whole town closes at 8!

I went swimming. Great pool! Dee was watching HBO. And when I returned we switched to CNN. The world was still whole, but this was BIG surprise news from back home:

The three lakes, Huron, Superior, and Erie are part of the five Great Lakes, including Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario, which constitute the largest fresh water system in the world and represent 18 percent of global fresh water supply and 95 percent of the U.S. supply, according to the Great Lakes Information Web site INFO Lake Superior, the largest of the five, is more than 32,000 square miles — or almost the size of Austria.

Canadian Ice Service said satellite images showed that Superior and Huron froze over for the first time this year on Feb. 27, after record low temperatures, without a hint of the warming trend that is normal for this time of year.

Now that’s cold! I have never heard of any of the Great Lakes freezing over. I wonder what happens to the supplies that come in by ship?

That’s our day. Happy Birthday Dee! Our BEST day so far. Kiss.

Word for the Day: Bridges

End Destination: Hood River, OR

Total Miles: 397

(You can read a more fully developed version of this road trip HERE)

2.26.03 Day Three

It's a big sky day, all blue with big puffy white clouds. Just like yesterday.

With the noise from the muffler and Dee's rancid radio that gets basically no non-static cannels, I have designated the Morning Music Hour for myself. I was wise enough to buy a personal CD player before we left. This morning I am choosing Norah Jones. I brought some other stuff too…Wilco, American Hi-Fi, Bjork, Woodstock, Bob Dylan, and Natalie Imbrugia. I have asked Dee if he wants me to sing to him. He says, "Maybe later."

Every night we watch CNN to see if the world has blown up yet. So far, so good.

Today we are still running the Bitterroot Mountains. I think we passed over the Continental Divide this morning. Or maybe it was last night. Things kind of smear together and I am not sure what day it is. I admire Lewis, or was it Clark, who did that detailed journal of their journey. At the end of the day, and ours is an auto drive, we are tired. I have tried to journal on this crazy old laptop, but it is too slow for my thoughts. Perhaps pencil on paper would have been better.

Like I said it is a wonderfully beautiful day and I have discovered something interesting. If you look out the windshield that is like a still photo. If you look out a side window, it is like a movie. And if you flip down your visor, you have a view of what you just drove through. So if like in this case you were driving east, well that is what you would see. Three views from one seat.

Right about now we came down into a big valley. There was a turnout, so we stopped and, well Dee looked but I couldn't walk over there. Didn't want to fly off the mountain. This is a deep gorge that is part of the Columbia River Project. I would guess it is for power plants and irrigation. It certainly is dramatic.

I am keeping my eye out for Mt. Rainier. Still don't see it. I did pick up some rocks for my Lucy-Desi Long Long Trailer Collection. Got one in Montana too.

Spokane (pronounced Spo can like in tin can) is really a BIG surprise. It looks so eastern…lots of brick and just an eastern feeling of integrity and deep roots. I am impressed.

We stopped here at a pharmacy so I could pick up hair bands and emery boards. As I was checking out I noticed a package on the counter. It was a blister pack of a tube of cream that said MY LINES ARE CONSEALED on the top in red. There is a sketch of a woman with major lines on one side of her face and a clear complexion on the other. I want some. Do me up! I asked the checkout woman about it. She said she was holding it for a woman. "Does it work?" I asked. "The woman said she has been using it for twenty years." So I am thinking this must be terrific stuff and it is dry here and I could use it. "Do you have more? And what is the cost?" The woman scans it and it is $3.69. "I'll take one if you have another." Right as I am paying a bent-over woman arrives. She is about 85 and has possibly the wrinkliest face I have EVR seen. Haha on me. Now I am thinking this product is Elmer's Glue and I am a big goof.

We are coming down into a fertile valley, an irrigated valley. So much of the land out here is arid. It makes one wonder why all of the rich, fertile farmland that doesn't need irrigation back in the Midwest is being built out by massive housing developments. All of those $400,000 mini-mansions don't sustain a planet. No one seems to talk about that. We are losing our breadbasket.

Whoever owns this land has done a nice thing for curious travelers. A sign says, FOR THE NEXT 14 MILES CROPS WILL BE NOTED IN THE FENCELINE. Dee and I are competing to read the signs. I am driving so it isn't fair. Alfalfa, wheat, alfalfa, beans, alfalfa, potatoes, beans, beans, carrots, potatoes, alfalfa, (haha! I had Dee write these down for me. He added sorghum (made that one up) He's a goof too!)

We stopped in Seattle East and bought expensive gas and I went for a new hat…one of those knitted numbers with a tassel and strips that tie under your chin that you actually don't tie. I overheard a woman telling another women that she lost her state job. No money and she won't be called back. 9.11 did a lot of damage all over this country.

I-94 spits you out right into Seattle, at the Seattle Seahawks Stadium. It is 3:30 so we went to Pike's Market. I showed Dee the fishmongers. We have that in Chicago too, but it is less public. Basically the restaurant people go there.

Seattle is nice with all of the water (it's Puget Sound though, NOT the ocean) And one thing you will notice right away, well two things actually: Seattle is very stylish…simple grates and banisters are art-designed, and it is GREEN…even the overpasses have plantings, and there are massive amounts of apartments, and even though the city is stylish, the people dress grunge, and the most polite drivers in the entire world reside here. They leave space for you to get out and they let you in to long lines of traffic. This does get a bit ridiculous though…you go, no you go.

These people would not make it in Chicagoland. It took me nearly a year to learn how to drive aggressively. My brother helped. He said just put your left tire right on the line and people will move over. It worked. Still he doesn't understand while I live where I do.

Dee and I took a room at a Traveler's Inn, watched dubya make a plea for democracy in Iraq. This world is getting more bizarre by the minute. The caught part of Barbara Walter's interview with that Baretta guy. Oh man! He is out of it. But the really funny thing is that if you live on the west coast life is different. These shows run at 7 for us, it is only 5 here. Most people are still knee-deep in their commute.

Back in the growling pick-up we tried to turn down on Mercer Street (Avenue?) to get to the Space Needle and the guilluley-designed Music Experience. That took at least 45 minutes because at the end is one of those porcelain-tile tunnels, a very curvy one. There were scary long scratches in the tiles like some car/s had MAJOR accidents in there.

We walked around and I did get a great pic!

From there we found our way up to Capitol Hill where my cousin lives. I stopped at one of those cool stores and bought new shades! She and he husband Alex took us down to Elliot's on one of the piers for dinner. WowOwow! What a nice place…casual and upscale. All windows too so you can watch the big glittery vessels come in port. Elliot's specializes in oysters. From the menu I came to understand that there are three major types of oysters, then there are many subgenera below that which are denoted by a certain bay. I had no idea how to order. The special menu offered 13 different kinds! Alex took over and ordered eight half-orders so we could sample. Dee tried the halibut and we added salmon too. We washed all of the food down with beers from Alaska.

Seattle is Seattle. When Dee asked where the restroom was, the matre' d took his hand and ushered him to a back area. I was laughing so much. Even the waiter was flirting with him.

The dinner lasted so long I didn't have time to call Jake. He is my best friend's brother. He offered to take us out to the gay bars. I think it would have been too much for Dee. He is still limping. Sometimes I need to protect him. Damn, I would have loved it though.

On the road you get a lot of time to think of weird things, most of them revolve around truckers, at least in my head. Tonight's BIG question? How many semi loads of lumber does it take to build a modest house? My guess…3.

Yesterday my burning question was about truckers and prostitutes. Ha!

Word for the Day: Irrigation

End Destination: Seattle, WA

Total Miles: 521