[note: words underlined in blue are imgur links of the pictures/videos I took]
Boondock Saints 2 begins with a narration monologue about how, one day, the air changed. He could sense that the boys had switched from content to discontent, that it was time for them to go back to who they were, who they'd defined themselves to be.
It was a similar shift that I felt in late January, early February of 2024. I'd had a brief online interaction with someone that showed some potential for being a long-term partner, but it fell through. Something in me just kinda...flipped after that. My self-definition as a childfree nomad means that finding a long-term partner is particularly difficult, and I was reminded not only of that, but of how I'm so far from living that identity.
I needed to get out. I hadn't left a fairly narrow portion of my state since returning from teaching English in China almost five years prior, and for someone who identifies as a nomad, that's a little suffocating.
So I evaluated my finances, asked for the week off, and began planning.
Planning
I knew only two things when I began planning in earnest: I wanted to get to Oregon and Washington State, and I didn't have much time. I started by looking at the general distances and routes, google mapping the route from my home to a friend's place in Oregon, mapping the route from there to Seattle where I had another friend, and then back home. Already, I could see a potential problem: I'm not as young as I once was, and I didn't expect that the 20 hour road trip one-shots I could once do would be possible. And it was almost 20 hours to Oregon and back. So the trip would be at least four days - two days' drive out, two days' drive back. I had been granted the full week off, but I had my TTRPG session on Sundays; this meant I'd have Monday - Saturday to make the trip. Monday/Tuesday driving, Friday/Saturday driving, meant Wednesday/Thursday on location.
My friend in Seattle said to me, "That's a lot of time spent driving. Round-trip flights to Seattle aren't that expensive, you know."
"Sure," I replied. "But the drive is also the point." There's a freedom and a comfort, to me, on the open road. I'm not sitting in one place (well, relativistically I am), and I'm not tied to the scheduled stops or limitations of being somewhere without a vehicle. A road trip isn't just the drive, it's the ability to pull over at an interesting historical site or viewpoint, it's the choice of when and how to eat, it's watching the scenery on ground level.
A 9-10 hour driving day doesn't leave a ton of flexibility for those stops, so I did far less than I liked on the trip. I discovered Twin Falls, ID and the really cool canyon there. I briefly stopped at Multnomah Falls in Oregon, climbing only about halfway to the top (and skipping the hike up nearby Horseshoe Falls entirely). I missed Craters of the Moon National Monument entirely, despite a large atypical rock field being totally my jam. There were several things I'd liked to have seen and done, several side roads and smaller highways I sighed as I passed, driven to reach my AirBnB at a reasonable time and not burn myself out too much with packed days.
But the drive was still the point. If I'd had only three days off, I'd have simply changed my destination to something attainable. It became a road trip to PNW because I had the time. But it was always going to be a road trip.
Sometime late in my planning, it was announced that due to the Superb Owl, that really important episode of sportsball, the Sunday TTRPG session would be cancelled. Suddenly I had another day for my trip. So I moved some things around, rerouted my return to see more of the country, changed my overall expectations for the final days. It reminded me of dispatching work I'd done for an airport shuttle many years before - I had these changes to make, and these resources available. How can I puzzle them around to make them all fit?
Departure
I spent the night at a friend's place in Fort Collins on Sunday 4th, and left around 7:30am Monday morning. My route took me North on US 287 between Fort Collins and Laramie, WY, where I'd hop onto I-80 westbound. This theoretically cut around 30 minutes off the alternative route taking I-25 north to Cheyenne, WY and meeting I-80 there.
However, US 287 is poorly maintained and stretches through one of the less hospitable parts of the state line area, and just past the Wyoming state line, the road coated over with ice about half an inch thick, despite the past several days being sunny and clear. It only took one mild squiggle on an icy curve for me to drop my speed drastically, grateful for the studded snow tires I'd invested in near the beginning of winter. My car, whom I name Derek for no particular reason, is absolutely terrible on snow and ice on his own, which is a really bad trait for living in the mountains of Northern Colorado.
I made it through to I-80 and began driving west, trekking into space I hadn't been since my time as a trucker in 2008. My job with the airport shuttle frequently brought me to Laramie as a driver, but never any further (which, given the lack of civilization for quite some distance beyond, makes total sense). So the road here was mostly unfamiliar territory. It continued to be unfamiliar through the pass and into Utah, where I switched to I-84 just outside Ogden, and began the last leg of my trip towards Boise, ID. It was a rather pleasant drive overall, including a cloud I found particularly interesting.
The Idaho state line begins a long stretch of beautiful but desolate land. Between Snowville, UT near the Idaho border, and Burley, ID where I can find a hospital on Google Maps is a full hour (75 miles), along which there is one rest stop and seven exits total. It's an interesting, and slightly anxious drive, as you realize that if you did get in some kind of accident, it'd be upwards of an hour and a half, two hours at best before you'd get to a hospital or repair shop.
Somewhere along I-84 through Idaho, I decided I would stop for something resembling actual food - my consumables up to that point were mostly carrots, chips, soda, grapes, and a small salami and muenster sandwich. I saw a billboard for Chick Fil A, which remains my most preferred fast food place despite the problematic politics surrounding them. It was this stop that lead me to Twin Falls, which I wouldn't have otherwise seen or known existed beyond being a name on a billboard. I'm glad for it - the views of the canyon are stunning, especially near sunset when I was there.
Finally, I stopped in Boise at my AirBnB, a cute little house with a spare room and the friendliest floofiest cat I've met in quite a while. The owners were friendly and welcoming, but as I got in fairly late and left early, I didn't get much chance to chat with them.
Thus concluded day one of my journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment