Idaho to Seattle

The desert falls away and the green rolling hills take its place. Just as the desert was atypically lush, this stretch is positively verdant. Farmland tumble away from the road on both sides. As the sun rises to my right it casts long, golden light across them, catching in the spray from the irrigation, making the whole picture quite idyllic.

I woke around six am rested and ready to make some miles. They flew by and fell away behind me surprisingly quickly. I found myself in Oregon soon after getting started. Around lunch I pulled into a seemingly well reputed shop to get the van some love. After an oil change to full synthetic (thinking that'll buy me about 7,000 miles to work with before the next change) and a flush of the rear differential and power steering, I was back rolling.

It seemed Oregon was just a blip, although it held many miles and wandering thoughts. I was in Washington before I even realized it. Not to long after that, I pull into Seattle and I'm immediately immersed back into the world of a bustling city. Gone is the peace of a long stretch of open road. I exit and suddenly have to squeeze agility out of my church bus. Dodging and weaving the fluid traffic and strangely angled intersections, I arrive at the brewery I'm to meet my friends. If you're familiar with Seattle, and I'm not, its in Fremont. The parking is already a joke, much less trying to street park the creeper wagon. Luckily there are a few lots to chose from (and pay for) and I swing into one of these, reminded why I only ever got around by bike when I lived in Denver and most of the time even when I lived in Atlanta.

It was a dramatic shift of gears being very much in public, rubbing elbows with the city's youth instead of left with my own thoughts on the open road. But the ice cold beer and smiling faces waiting for me as I stepped in I wouldn't trade for the world.