REAXblog

Today I drove from Portland to Seattle with Diane and Cairie. Diane’s a grad student at UCONN and Cairie an environmental studies major from UCSD. They were pretty cool, but the trip was mostly uneventful. Cairie played the Gray Album, which I heard for the first time, and Diane mostly slept.

I am hoping today was the most stressful day. I woke up early (6:30 or so) and continued to clean the house. Laneia was a major help, she cleaned the kitchen and it looked great, in addition to keeping my morale up. She also laughed at me as I did cleaning; looking at me like a bird-watcher looks at a rare bird. But eventually we got the place clean, and I packed the van. I had seats for three, but I failed to anticipate how much stuff the girls would bring. They didn’t have alot, but there wasn’t much extra space. Also, I was hoping to hear from Abby or Erica, to say goodbye, but neither of them called or texted. A better man than me might be happy to forget about them, but that’s not me. I sent Erica a snippy text. I texted a goodbye to Abby. It hasn’t really hit me yet that I’ll probably never see most of the people in Portland again.

The most nerve-wracking part was departing Portland, and hitting Vancouver… We were twenty miles in and already my gas tank read that we’d burned a quarter of a tank (7 gallons, I think). My van (”Van Go”) doesn’t get great mileage, and I’d never had nearly so much stuff in it before, but less than 5 MPG was not only attrocious, it was a deal breaker. Something had to be seriously wrong. We stopped in Centralia, and I checked the coolant (good) and oil level (good). Nothing wrong there. What was it? I had noticed that with the weight, Van Go liked to stay in 3rd gear and not stay in 4th. Maybe that was it.

I soldiered on past those concerns and the ’service engine’ light flashing on unendingly. All was well, however, as my fuel gauge started inexplicably climbing, and I ended up in Seattle with (perhaps) 70% of my tank, good for 18 or 19 MPG, which was what I expected. I haven’t refueled yet, but I think that’s what I’m getting. It could be better. I am satisfied.

I dropped the girls downtown and went home. My mom gave me some money, and I went and picked up Thai food, which was enjoyed by all of my mom’s guests. Later in the night, I met up with Scott, Chris and Mike at a sports bar on Greenwood called Bleachers. I impressed the guys with my $700 worth of Twenty dollar bills. I couldn’t even close my wallet. I’ve been avoiding the bank, but I may have to make a deposit. I simply can’t carry that much cash, which Chris chastised me for.

I had a woman arranged through Couchsurfing.com to drive east to Montana with me on Tuesday, but she bailed, or bugged, or simply forgot. Don’t know her story. My mom wanted me to bring a chair to her sister Jean’s cabin, so when I was reshuffling all the boxes in my van, I removed the middle seat, meaning I could only seat two. I posted an ad on Craigslist offering a ride to Montana, and got a call from a guy named Eric. At first I told him I couldn’t take him and his girlfriend, but then thought the better of it. I put the middle seat back in, rearranged everything. It’s a better fit, but I can’t see out the back window as well as before. I’ll need to start using my sideview mirrors a ton more. I’ll probably dump the middle seat again in Billings. I don’t think I’ll be carrying any riders past there anyhow, and once I pick up Micah in Chicago it’ll just be the two of us. I could really use the space.

So, the plan is, pick up Eric and his girlfriend, and hit I-90 and ball this jack straight east to Montana. I have a hand-drawn map. I hope Eric doesn’t need to get to Great Falls or somewhere weird that isn’t on my map. We’ll both be screwed. It’s an 800 mile trip straight to Billings, where I’ll meet a hardcore enthusiast named Brandon and crash/shower at his place.

Sorry I don’t have any pictures today. Way too stressed. I have the tripod set up with the camera, so they’ll be some pictures and videos tomorrow. Say some prayers for myself and Van Go as we tackle our first mountain pass tomorrow. I think if we can reach Snoqualmie without any issues, the entire trip will go without a hitch until South Dakota, the next major challenge.  A heat wave is coming to the west, I hope it doesn’t hit me too hard. Scott made the point that I hadn’t told Eric that my van doesn’t have A/C and gets bad gas mileage with the windows down. More on that tomorrow.