road trip, part 1: the drive to Washington

There's so much to tell about our first road trip with Z that I'm doing it in installments. What happened to the days we took a single disposable camera on a trip like this? And actually looked forward to getting it developed? That would be utter nonsense now.

We left late in the afternoon three Sundays ago for Washington - seems like ages ago. We made Spokane the first night and went on to Bellevue the second day. It's usually a one day drive, but we didn't want to risk it with Zoralee, as her true vagabond colors haven't shown themselves yet. We're glad we broke it up that way. She did GREAT, but several hours is her limit. I sat in the back seat with her, which made her much more content, and we hung toys up for her to watch. It snowed most of the way and blizzarded over the passes, so was rather slow going.

first motel stay

some crazy guy with a portable meth lab at a rest stop

(okay, it's Jason with his stovetop espresso maker and camp stove)

Three highlights from the "weird" category are these:

1. Sitting in a truck stop restaurant the second morning (you know, the kind of place where you can see the giant, generic "RESTAURANT" sign from miles away, and where you look around inside and don't understand why people still hang up that terrible wolf art from the 80's that has a black background and a moon, and where they serve you the most basic style of any food offered, including but not limited to the plain bread they had Rosalene pick up on her way in to work, the kind that costs like 50 cents a loaf, and where neither spices nor presentation are valued), we witnessed a bizarre phenomenon.

Behind us was seated a couple in their late 70's. The gentleman wore a sweatshirt that said, "Over the hill? What hill? I don't remember any hill." Halfway through the meal, another older couple pulled in to fuel up, and that man had a sweatshirt one of his kids had special ordered to say, "Over the Hill Club - Sam Jenkins" or whatever his name was. It just happened that the first guy (at the table near us) got up to find a newspaper in the glass entryway/narthex, just as the other guy was coming inside to pay for fuel. So we watched them enter the narthex at exactly the same time from opposite directions, thinking for sure they'd collide. But they simply twirled about in the old-people-wearing-over-the-hill-sweatshirts vortex for about 10 seconds, and then went their separate ways.

2. Shelsea's family so graciously bestowed upon us a portable swing for Zoralee, and we brought it along on this trip. At one point on the drive, we heard it playing music back there in the trunk, but figured it got bumped and would turn off pretty soon. We turned on the radio and kept driving. 45 minutes later, we started channel surfing and came across this series of nursery rhyme dings that sounded vaguely familiar (and had way too simple of instrumentation, even for a country station). We stretched our ears toward the trunk, and sure enough, they were the swing songs. Evidently it puts out a radio frequency that our car was then picking up. Right out of a horror film, that scene was.

3. And finally, the morning of Jason's test, we managed to wake up in plenty of time for Jason to make his coffee, eat a piece of leftover pizza, get ready with all but a couple of hiccups due to test anxiety (like trying to put on his shoes before his pants), and get him to downtown Bellevue nearly an hour ahead of time in morning traffic. Yes, folks. For those who know us, this is even weirder than old men in sweatshirts and hearing a swing on the radio. We were early to a place. I know. I know. I don't know. All I know is that we won't be disappointed to hear a few congratulatory remarks.