Category: Travel

Or Woodinville, WA in our case. For now, anyhow, since the corporate apartment is there.

Yes, I know it’s now two weeks late, but I’ll give you the update now.

We have arrived in Woodinville, WA after a shorter trip than most days we’ve been spending on the road. We left Pendleton, OR in the morning and drove a little over an hour to Walla Walla, WA. Somewhere along the way, we crossed the border into Washington State.

Stopping in Walla Walla, we had breakfast at a local place called the “Maple Counter” which was supposed to have much gluten free stuff. However, there seemed to be a miscommunication about whether or not they had GF waffles or not in the restaurant and the service we received was somewhat lackluster. My food was excellent, however, and after the meal, we spoke with the management and they will be making some changes in the future to make the GF experience better. We will certainly be coming back to check. 🙂

Once again, we were on the road – this time, to the Greater Seattle Area. First, of course, we must clean the bugs off.

The road ahead changed from arid to heavily forested almost immediately over the next major rise. Tumbleweeds to pine trees – well, almost. We never actually saw any tumbleweeds, although in many places it seemed we should have.

Our goal at this point was to head straight into town, pick up they keys to the corporate apartment, head there, unload the trailer and turn it in. There were a couple of missteps with this plan. First, I got the wrong key pickup location, which cost us an extra hour in drive time to go pick up the keys at the new location. This, combined with the stairs at the corporate apartment and unloading time, pushed our trailer return time past the closing time of the local U-Haul place. This added a level of stress. Secondly, as mentioned, there were stairs. I suppose I was spoiled by the last corporate apartment which had an elevator. This one was a low-rise and therefore only had stairs. Third, it was HOT. And I mean in the 90s. That made for a very sweaty, uncomfortable unloading.

But, I had asked for AC in the apartment, so it should be okay, right?

Wrong.

There was AC in the apartment… which hadn’t been turned on. And, it was one of those portable units and incapable of cooling the entire place. I was very upset when confronted with this as I had specifically requested AC since we were to be there during one of the hottest months of the year. So I was grumpy, exhausted, tired of driving, hot and sweaty that night – which is why I did not want to write this blog entry. Plus it was not properly installed. They had put it in the living room – blocking the sliding patio door. We had them move it to the bedroom, and even then it was bad.

As you can see here, there is a piece of the machine that is supposed to go in a window to exhaust the hot air. Only they used tape and didn’t fit it properly into the window. I had to fix it. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The next morning, which was Sunday, we decided to sleep in a bit but we still had to get up and return the trailer. Now, we were finally and officially “done” with the road trip.

We were able to negotiate a little with the relocation people to find a better place with AC. More on that next.

But – we have arrived and the road trip is complete. All 3,560 miles of it.

Today was a long day. Long because we wanted to have a short last leg tomorrow.

It started very well… until a great chasm was opened in the pancake-like plains of Idaho. We only had a handful of miles left in Utah, so they passed quickly.

Now apparently, the state tree of Idaho is an orange barrel.

They seem to plant these along the side of every road. In fact, I don’t think we saw a road without one. This began at the state line and didn’t end until… well, the other state line.

After taking this picture, we were unceremoniously chased away by an irate construction worker. We fled the scene in dismay.

Now that we had become accustomed to the flashes of orange streaming by our car in regular intervals, we were lulled into a sleepy trance by the gentle, rolling flatness of the surrounding area. We had heard that there were some waterfalls in the area, hence the name “Twin Falls” and were attempting to find them. When, much to our surprise, we see the chasm mentioned above. It was also known as the Snake River Canyon

We dallied here a few moments before attempting to find more of said waterfalls.

Here, Laura located a rare (apparently) road-trip rainbow.

After moving on from here, we made a few stops at other places, we crossed the state line into Oregon. Soon, we refilled the car with gas and cleaned the windshield, as is our normal routine: pump the gas, use the restroom, clean the bugs off.

Only, this time, not five minutes from the gas station – not even yet to the freeway, our windshield was plastered with numerous bug carcasses and their fluids in grotesque splatter patterns across our field of view. This made taking pictures as well as driving somewhat difficult, as you might glean from the picture below.

While taking a cross-country road trip sounds romantic and fun, and certainly it has it up-sides, there are some drawbacks, some “realities” that make it not picture perfect.

We have enjoyed the trip so far, but now… we’d like to be done.

Signing off in Pendleton, OR.

Today, since we got to a late start, we made some plans while dining at the local McAlister’s deli where my niece works.

Say hello to Brittany:

The long journey across Wyoming was indeed long and full of strange sights for people used to the Virginia hills. There was a definite theme, however, to the landscape: flat mixed with strange outcroppings or sudden drop offs. The wind was atrocious in many places. At first, it was fine since it was pushing us along, but later it shifted to the side and made us and all the trucks lean to the right. Maybe that’s why there are so many windmills along the way. This is certainly a good place for it.

Towards the end of Wyoming, the sun began to go down and we then crossed over into Utah. We had been seeing mountains towards the south with lots of snow on them for a while, and Laura pointed out that they were part of a national park in Utah.

The scenery changed drastically with the border and the freeway began to roll down into a valley lined with cliffs of multi-colored stone. Much grass and other green plant items covered the hills – very unlike Wyoming. The road began to curve more and we eventually arrived in a small town called Riverdale for dinner. Soon after, we were back on the road unable to see the Great Salt Lake right next to us.

We must now sleep. We are in Tremonton, UT in our hotel. Tired.

See you tomorrow.