Seattle to Portland – Day 1: MV is tortured

So, we are traveling across the country with a truck full of bikes, headed to the Seattle to Portland ride next weekend. Here is the story…

"July 10th, 8:08 a.m. Departure was scheduled for 2 hours and 8 minutes prior. Jennifer is still not dressed and is running around the house."

Above we find an entry from the travelogue of the driver. We note that he is not driving. In fact, he is nowhere near to driving. He has not yet realized that the trip will not start until 10 a.m.

He is dispatched downstairs to the printer to individually feed in the obnoxious cards that will only print one at a time. This occupies him well as he tries to re-engineer the printer to accept the cards. He gets a run of five in a row with no stopping. It is the little things that really make a day so fine.

He is a bit pissy at the start time, but I believe he will settle down once he is strapped in his man-perch up above all the little tiny cars.

10:34 a.m.
I poise my hand over an envelope. I quickly realize that there is no way I am going to be able to address these things in the moonwalk that it the front seat of a 24' truck.

12:18 p.m.
Crappy iPod speakers, can’t be heard at all in the truck. Considering they are from a Walkman I had in the 90s, I guess I shouldn’t have expected much. I’ll have to settle for headphones and just sing the songs really loud so MV can enjoy them too.

He is occupied with trying to get the best draft off the semis anyway.

3 p.m.
Flying J has the largest selection of Beef Jerky that I have ever seen.

On the road
As we leave the toll booth, there are two other big vehicles all heading out at the same time. Mark lets this one pulling a long trailer merge in front of us. He says, “They had more horsepower.” I glance up. Guess what kind of a trailer it was…?

8:36 p.m. – which is officially 7:36 p.m. where we are
Dinner at the lovely Oasis Family Restaurant attached to a Best Western and also attached to a gas station. Including a Yankee Candle store and a huge selection of giant hunks of cheese. Probably every cheese you can imagine. But very fine dinner. The family owned places are usually good because they will do an omelette and tomato slices – my basic gluten-free safe meal. Kind of a pain to not be able to just stop anywhere to eat, but really not too bad so far. Have stuffed myself all day on the awesome care package that Penny gave us! I have no idea if she even knows, but she managed to get all gluten free snacks.

Just passed a field of buffalo. Also tasty and gluten-free, but these were not yet in patty form.

We will probably drive another hour or two and call it a night.

To pass the time, I will read MV another story from my book Beds I Have Known.* I didn’t get a chance to stock up on books for the trip, but luckily I recently picked this up for 50 cents at the Friends of the Northville Library book sale. MV is quite enjoying the stories.

10:21 p.m. local time
Settling in to the Relax Inn in Stewartville, MN. Surprisingly nice for a cheap motel. With free Internet that just shows up and doesn’t involve some weird logging in process and many calls to the front desk.

Good night everyone!!!

*If you clicked the book link, you will know that the beds references are garden beds and they are storied from an obsessed gardener. I just told MV to replace words like “rose” and “dahlia” with “Mopar part” so he could relate.