The Long Drive Goodnight

We woke to rain. This was met with many cries of anguish and much gnashing of teeth. The TV weather guy cheerily predicted that this would be the order of the day, and the next day and the next day after that. In fact, don't go outside this week at all folks, the whole of the North West is going to be wet and miserable for a while. Damn and blast them all to Hell, a weatherman capable of smilingly delivering such suffering should be hung up by his thumbs.

We headed north along route 191 towards the Teton mountains, hoping that the weather would improve along the way. It didn't. In fact, around Farson it changed to driving snows. Ridiculous! I stopped to snap a picture of a hut and all the snow. This place was looking like deep winter on the Mongolian steppes. We did spot some pronghorn antelope and a couple of osprey though.

We reached Jackson just as a break in the weather finally let the sun in. But it was clear that this respite would be brief. We explored the town on foot, asking locals where we could find a climbing shop. I stopped in an indian art parlor to buy some earrings for Leila. When we found the climbing shop we checked with one of the drones if the Teton pass was open, happily it was.

Crossing the Teton pass (8429 feet) the weather closed in again with a mix of rain and snow. Entering Idaho just afterwards we decided that we should might as well try and get to Seattle tonight as the weather didn't look climber-friendly.

Idaho passed rapidly, we stopped only for food and gas and one cop. The cop nailed me doing 85 miles an hour in a 75 zone. He didn't give me a ticket but seemed mildly interested in our travels. The whole encounter was surprisingly non-threatening. Other Idaho oddities included a handfull of concentrated rain squalls and the constant high winds.

We get into Oregon just before 7 pm (Pacific time, it's the third time we have crossed a time zone on this trip) and follow the original Oregon trail northwest. Crossing one of the passes we encountered severly icy roads. The truck got out of control on two separate occasions, Leon successfully battling to bring things back into line both times. The going was very slow.

Crossing into Washington we stop at a small town and drive around it for a while looking for someplace that'll sell food at midnight. We find this weird little tavern and walk inside. A handful of old geezers had been chatting and laughing, drunk as parrots, at the bar just as we stepped in. But silence descended and half a dozen pairs of bespectacled eyes regarded us owlishly as they turned to see who was disturbing their fun. I could almost hear banjos playing in the background.

A somewhat pneumatic waitress bounced out from behind the bar and asked if we wanted anything.

"Food." We croaked.

We got food and coffee and coke. The regulars eventually got used to us and went back to their discussions.

Later that evening, with Leon driving the last stretch, we managed to get into Seattle at three in the morning … after driving over a thousand miles in one day. Leon's girlfriend, the lovely Tamara, was awake and welcomed us both with hugs. Not long after that I passed out on their spare bed. Zzzzz.

Seattle (Washington) Tuesday April 3 (4663 miles)

Walked around Fremont with Leon, saw the Fremont Troll and then drove into town. We chocked out a very old boat that was under reconstruction and then walked to the Pike Markets. These were really cool. We had lunch and good beer at the Pike Pub and Brewery before deciding to find the car and go back. Tamara was home and we all went and got some videos before returning to eat a cool turkish dish (which she had made) called Ufahas, pronounced "you-fa-haash", then we watched the vids.