The Last Road

   Friday January twentieth: 
   I awoke this morning at 7am at the Sunset Motel in Hood River.  I had a headache and all together wasn’t feeling so good.  So I decided to prepare a pot of the in room coffee provided for guests.  There’s a little drip coffee pot and a tray of regular and decaf pouches, packets of dehydrated creamers and sweeteners.  In a few minutes we had two cups of thin hot water without much resemblance of coffee.  I consumed a cup and within a half hour was feeling quite sick.  I laid in bed trying to will my stomach to a state of calm but finally had to give in.  On and off through the morning this was more or less my condition.  Eli went to the store and returned with some bottled water and bananas.  I ate half the banana and drank about a cup of water.  Then it was time to get in the truck and go. 

   We spent some time scraping the mirrors with credit cards.  We had a few ice scrapers with us.  But they were in the back of the truck and wouldn’t you know it, the lock was frozen.  Carefully we navigated the truck out of the parking lot and onto the road headed for the freeway.  I 84 east of us had been completely shut down the night before, sometime after we had made our way across to Hood River.  As we crossed over I could see the trucks on the eastbound lanes pulling over to the side.  The overpass was totally iced over and even making the turn onto the on ramp was a slow process. 
   On the road Eli kept a moderate pace and we proceeded to make our way towards the final destination.  So much had happened in the last 48 hours that really impacted our energy levels for the final day of the drive.  Eli managed to navigate the inner city cross town freeways to the end of I 84 where it meets up with I 5 then north on I 5 to the Lombard East exit, up to the light, left, down 5 blocks and park right outside of Mary and Bob’s house.  Mary and Bob are our new land lords and they seem like good people.  Their house is massive and open, spacious oak interior filled with artwork and artifacts no doubt from their world travels they talked about enjoying.  Soon they’re off to France for an extended visit. 

   We spent an hour reviewing and signing paperwork in their upstairs office.  It’s a good thing my stomach had finally decided to cooperate because I wouldn’t have been able to function and do what needed to be done a few hours prior. 
   With the papers signed, dated, initialed, etc, we all got in our cars and we followed Mary and Bob over to the new house.  We pulled up and there it was, our new house.  We’d only seen a few photos before today. 
   The beat up storm door opened and then the main door on the side of the house.  We stepped in and were greeted by the tired, sad smell of mildew.  I immediately was concerned about the basement and leaking water.  On up the stairs into the kitchen, tastefully painted yellow with lots of cabinets and drawers, a kitchen nook with built in leaded glass display shelves and drawers.  Through the kitchen into the living room we marveled at huge picture window, fireplace with built in book shelves on either side, beveled mirror above the mantle.  The bedrooms are large, built ins in the hallway.  Really the house is beautiful and feels like more room than I expected.  The basement looks to be leak free.  It’s huge with built in raised work benches on two walls and washer and dryer.  We’ve gone from our dusty cramped studio by the beach to a real house a block away from the Interstate. 
   We moved some things into the house and then drove Eli’s pick up off the trailer.  Now with a satellite vehicle we went over to our local grocery and got some food to eat.  We were fried but could not stop yet.  The trailer would need to be dealt with before we would be able to pull down the loading ramp to unload the truck.  So we drove over to Columbia Blvd to the truck rental place where we were finally relieved of the trailer.  From there we drove the Big Yeller over to the near by Fred Meyer to get some domestic house stuff.  A set of sheets, bath mat.  We wandered the store like zombies, trying to find stuff to check off our list.  Even after inspecting every corner of the massive everything you need for modern life store, we could not find a plain old broom. 
   Back at the house we moved a few things in, clothes and a box or two.  I set up our air mattress with our new sheet set and blanket; things we bought knowing ours were buried deep in the cavernous yellow rolling box.

   Meanwhile my brother Andrew was in a van with his band mates on the same interstate somewhere in California on their way here.  They would arrive sometime after 11.  I don’t think they anticipated the road conditions around Mt. Shasta and then later the pass at Mt. Ashland.  Ultimately they found other accommodations and arrived sometime after 2 am. 
   We finally sacked out around 11 pm.  I don’t remember anything after pulling the sheets over me. 
   The next morning we got up and brushed ourselves off.  Eli made a plan with her friend Willoughby to meet for breakfast down the street at Beaterville.  This was our pre unpacking the truck breakfast and it was on us.  I don’t think Willoughby knew what he was in for.  With food and coffee consumed, it was time to get to it.  Soon after we had the truck opened and started unpacking, Doug pulled up with another recruit, his roomate Dave.  It turns out that not only did Doug recruit him just after he had awoken that morning but Dave had helped another friend move his recording studio two days prior.
   We made quick work of emptying the truck.  And then there it was, our entire material life packed in boxes piled all over this new unfamiliar house.  Now we'll unpack the boxes, trying to find spaces to hide away our every piece of our fragmented lives.  It is familiar and yet foreign to be here.  Friends have come to find us and bring us around to their home for dinner or to a favorite restaurant for a visit.  We haven't yet had enough time to be in the house, to make a meal there, to unpack a box, or to even really talk about what just happened.  Everything for the last two weeks has moved so fast we have hardly had a moment to really take in the immensity of what we were undertaking.  We are in effect, still in shock.

Roller Coaster Road

   Let's see, where should I start?  Eli and I awoke at the Silver Spur in Burns just before 8 as we have most days on this trip.  I had already been awake at 4:32 AND 5:17 with wicked heartburn; thanks El Toreo. 
   I made a press of coffee with the hot water from the in room drip pot.  We were drinking on that, Eli was in the bathroom when I decided to see what the world wanted from me on Facebook.  So I found out about Dara.  That's Dara Greenwald, one of my first friends at boarding school.  Funny smiley big breasted Dara who made people laugh and joked about how unfunctional huge breasts were.  I had heard from a friend that she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago.  There were online fund raisers, art auctions, and a list to join to get updates about how she was doing.  Somehow I didn't get on the list.  I tried, a few times.  I hadn't heard anything in almost a year.  And then this morning, on Facebook, I find out she passed away on Saturday.  I don't know what to do with this.  I mean, here we are, 8 days into a cross country life blender, about to land on the moon to build our colony there.  During this process, everything else is supposed to remain in suspended animation, to carry on in a holding pattern until we can safely land the space ship and boldly step where no man has walked before.  When I moved to Maine in 2007 I had only been on the East Coast for a few days before finding out that my friend Brett had been crushed beneath a garbage truck in Portland.  Why?  How?  Why then?  Why now?
   Now I'm just confused.  This day was to be our final, our arrival day, the grand finale.  How can I carry that knowing that Dara has left this world and I didn't even know until I checked my Facebook messages?  Hours later I caught myself texting a mutual friend about Dara's passing to ask if he was considering flying out for the memorial.  Then I realized how crass that was, a text message.  What if he didn't know yet?  Since when has Facebook become an acceptable platform for communicating such news?  Why didn't I know that Hospice had been involved for the last month?

   We were departing Burns by 11am.  Eli drove.  I was, as I say, confused.  The landscape in that part of Oregon is stunning, high desert scrubby sage and golden grasses spotted by occasional cattle and a tree here and there.  Or maybe just there.  We were amazed by the number of robins we saw.  Whole packs of robbins, sometimes dozens all congregated beside or in the road. What was drawing them to the road?  They would sit there until we were upon them in the Yellow Menace and they would scatter, just barely avoiding collision.
   Eli pulled the train over on top of a climb and we switched seats.  She needed to be able to see the world out there.  I'd seen it before, already knew how breath taking it was.
   In Bend I took a few wrong turns and we got a little lost which is stressful in the Golden Locomotive.  After about an hour we righted ourselves and eventually found our way.  Up I 97 bound for The Dalles.
   We were climbing up epic mountain sides and snaking our way down the other side.  The landscape continued to unfold in more magnificent views to the point of making me question if any place in the solid foundation of human reality could possibly be so beautiful.

   For a little time we were on top of a small world and then we descended into a dense cloud and everything further than 50 feet disappeared into white.  Down into the river gorge to cross over the Deschutes River and up the other side.  Past Dufur and on.  About 50 miles from The Dalles, we ascended a snowy mountain side and the snow would line the gray road the rest of the way to the mighty Columbia.  The road became slick.  Icicles were hanging like fringe off of the road signs.
   We crept along, up and down, around the side of mountains.  Plow trucks were navigating ahead of us at 20 mph.  10 miles out of The Dalles, we came upon two patrol cars on the side of the highway.  It appeared that a car had vanished off the edge of the road and down the embankment who knows how far down.
   Through The Dalles and onto the freeway where the road wasn't much more reliable than it had been up above the gorge.  We continued along at our 40 mph pace, slowly making our way.  Rain turned to frozen rain.  We pushed on.  Again we came upon two patrol cars, a tow truck, and a paramedic truck.  A man was lowering himself down the embankment from the guard rail towards the edge of the Columbia River below, presumably in an attempt to rescue somebody whose car flipped the rail.

   We pulled off 15 miles down the road in Hood River.  I was vaguely familiar with Hood RIver from visiting our friend Damon when he lived there.  For instance, I knew just where to go and park to be within two blocks of the Full Sail brewery.  I pulled the Yellow Menace over and we stepped out into the street, trying to access the condition of the roads.  All of the trees and power lines were coated in ice.  In fact a layer of ice coated every surface.  The streets were filled with dense slush at least 6" deep.  The pub at the brewery had closed early because of the weather.  So it was decided we would wait the night in Hood River before making the final 60 mile drive to our new home.  Eli asked some people where to go for dinner and a beer.  Another local brewery around the corner was recommended; Double Mountain.  The place was packed.  Apparently most of the downtown restaurants were without power.   We ordered pints and sat on the couch to await a table.  It wasn't long before we were sharing a salad that Eli could have designed herself.  That with pizza and we were taken care of.
   Damon had suggested a motel to us named the Lone Pine.  The selling pitch was that it had always been a dive but he knew that someone had gone in and done a bunch of work on it.  So that's where we headed.
   We rang the buzzer and were greeted by a nice enough fellow.  The lobby had a mold issue.  What was hidden from sight could not evade the nose.   The story was that this guy was watching the place for his friend who had to go to Minnesota.  I made sure to pay in cash.  I was given a receipt that had no information about the place on it.  So I wrote the name and address on the receipt.  Then we went to see the room.  Super creepy.  Crusty linoleum floors decorated with cigarette burns.  The room was freezing.  I consider my standards pretty low, especially after reading a lot of motel room reviews.  But this place was too much.  I suppose if it had cost $25/night it might have made sense.  But we had been getting pretty nice rooms for the price of this dive up to now.  I suggested we walk across the street to other motel.  For an additional $20 we got a real sweet room with coffee service, fridge, etc.  So we went back to the dive to get our money back. Now here we sit, dazed, confused, snowed in in a strange place. So close to the end, and yet, not there yet. 
  BIRD of the DAY:  Robin
  State:  Oregon
  IN MEMORY OF:  Dara Greenwald
  DETAIL:  Sage, rainbows, quail

Welcome To Oregon:::

   We did awake before 8 am this morning.  But somehow between having the front desk clerk at the Thunderbird Motel heat up water for our french press coffee, walking down the street for bagels, and packing up to leave, we didn't make it on the road until 11:30.  Perhaps that is a key reason that all this driving has felt like a vacation.  It occurs to us that we should leave early from our previous day's destination, to drive in daylight and avoid inclimate weather.  But really what's the hurry?
   A short ways West of Pocatello we drove beside a field of elegantly turning wind turbines.  I recalled a friend of ours in Boston had mentioned traveling to Idaho to discuss his wind turbine software with the project managers.  Sure enough, these were Andrew's turbines we were seeing.  How cool is that?  
   There was a dusting of snow this morning at 8 and the sky was gray.  But the foul weather we'd heard about hadn't really started yet.  But within the first half hour on I 86, the snow started.  Visibility became an issue and the sky and fields were becoming the same color.  Further down the road we saw the first jackknifed semi in the center median.  The going was slow.  For the most part we stayed in single file behind the line of semis and cars.  I didn't think the snow would freeze up on the road because it was 34 degrees out.  But it did.  The road was becoming caked with uneven sections of ice.

Join us in the truck through some of the worst snow roads of the trip.  Play the video above. Skip to the 2 minute marker to get a hint of the action we avoided!!

Eli at the wheel she handled the trying driving conditions superbly.  There was really nothing to do but be patient and take it easy, try to avoid some of the less experienced drivers.  In all we counted 3 jackknifed semis, and 5 cars off the road.  We were not one of them.  The snow was intermittent and sometimes we were only dealing with some rain and the roads were clear.  Then a little ways down the road we'd be back in the white holding steady in the right lane. 
   Eli pulled the yellow circus off the road in Boise to refuel and get some sandwiches.  By the time we were getting back on the road I think it was about 4pm. It was about 5:30 when we saw the sign welcoming us into Oregon.  Mixed feelings as the realization that our journey was nearly complete. 
   It was too bad we were driving Rte. 20 in the dark.  At first the two lane highway was fine, no snow, light rain.  The landscape was beautiful but disappearing into the darkness.  The snow picked up after a while making some higher elevation passes tricky.  We crawled along and kept upright, patiently making our way.
   By the time we got into Burns and spotted the Silver Spur Motel on Broadway I couldn't wait to get out of the truck.  Our 7 1/2 hour driving day turned into a 9 1/2 hour day as the weather dictated it be so. 
   In the lobby we were greeted by the front desk clerks and their dog Dexter.  Dexter was a little black poodle looking thing.  Very sweet dog they found in the parking lot 6 months prior. 
   Into room 107 we moved our regular nightly inventory of necessities;  each of our back packs of clothes and hygiene necessities, french press and coffee grounds, crate of house plants, brief case with the computer and various chargers.  Then we headed off on foot in search of food and libation.
   Burns was soaked and over flowing with brown slush that settled in deep puddles at every corner  curb.  The Wagon Wheel Thai restaurant was recommended but we found it closed early.  So it was down to El Toreo for dinner.  That's the day's recap.  Can't believe we're in Oregon today, Colorado yesterday, Maine just over a week ago. 
   BIRD of the DAY:  Magpie
   RIVER:  Snake
   STATES:  Idaho, Oregon

Start Here:

   Hi friends, 

 This is the place to follow Eli and I on our adventure as we prepare to-and finally embark on-our Westbound trajectory.  Right now it is Thursday night and we are home after a five day trip to see family and friends in New York and Vermont. 

At 1pm today we got to Dover  to pick up Eli's truck from the shop.  I drove across the street to the car wash and got the van the Deluxe wash.  We emptied the van of all its contents and vaccuumed it.   Then I drove the van to Raymond, NH to drop off the van and sign over the title to Roland.  Roland and I drove around a bit to try and recreate a problem that started up on the drive from Dover to Raymond.  It was just after 5 when Eli and I drove away in her truck.  We went to Portsmouth Brewery to meet our friend Emily for dinner.  Inside the door we ran into Eli's 91 year old friend Masy and we invited her to eat with us.  I got fish and chips. Eli ordered the veggie sandwich.  Masy had the Korean BBQ Taco special.  Emily just had a few fries and a beer. 

   On December 31 we drove to Lowell to celebrate the coming of the New Year with our friends at the 119 gallery.  I performed with the group I've played in this year called Grau Garten.  WE also backed up Crank Sturgeon who counted us in to the new year.  There was late night sonic celebration and we were finally under our sleeping bags at quarter after three.  The next day we loaded up and said farewells. It was January 1st  and warm enough to stand in the sun in just a shirt.  

Back on the road and headed for New Paltz to see Eli's brother Eric, friend Stephanie, and nephews Tristan and Liam.  24 hours wasn't nearly enough time to have with those guys.  We made the most of it the next morning, running around the yard playing tag, hot potato pine cone, football toss, hide and seek and my favorite, garden laps. 

 

By 2 we were on northbound I87 to Schenectady.  We had dinner and spent the night with Virginia and Fred Thompson, Eli's parents.  Breakfast the next morning and a terribly cold walk through the winding roads of Niskayuna, New York.  

We received word that our friend in Portland had met with the landlord of a house we were interested in moving into.  The house sounded nice if a bit small and close to the interstate, so our friend faxed us rental applications.  Now we were faced with the task of tracking down the information we needed to fill out the forms.  We were only partially successful.  The rest of the forms would have to be finished later.  In the mid afternoon we headed to Perecca's for the awesome mozzarella sandwiches on our way to Anita and David's house in Scotia.  

David cooked us dinner and we spent some time. Part of the evening we would spend completing our rental application for a 2 bedroom house on North Montana in Portland.  Late night.  Next morning we had breakfast with Eli's folks at my folk's house in Scotia.  Then came the goodbyes.  

Three hours later we were driving on 107 in Vermont, still reduced to one lane.  It had just been reopened three days prior.  Hurricane Irene tore up that part of the state.  We saw large banks of earth removed from the river basin, foundations that had lost their houses, houses that had appeared to have been lifted and then dropped in place.  An hour later we were at our friend's house way atop a hill overlooking Barre.  I've known Greg since I lived in Arcata in 1992.  We went to Colorado together that summer and then were roommates and band mates in the years to follow.  I conducted the marriage between him and Sue in their back yard back when they lived at their first house in Randolph.  Now they have two kids we really like, Cooper and Scarlet. We got up this morning at 6:45 while everyone was getting ready to head out to school and jobs.  We watched the outside go from black to dark shades of blue giving way to other colors as daylight returned.The temperature outside had risen from zero to 20 degrees and there was a soft snow that descended slowly as if each flake had its own parachute.  

We left the Davis' house headed for Waterbury to see Helen one more time.  We had a cup of coffee together and talked for about 45 minutes.  An Amtrak came and left.  Then we had to say goodbye again and get back in the van.  The roads were a bit of a mess with fallen snow and the sand/salt mixture spread to fight off the ice.  The van was turning a solid hue of gray with all the road schmutz being tossed into the air from car tires.  We drove South on Highway 89.  

Our rental applications were accepted and we were offered the house.  But should we wait and see what else we find?