Serena and I left Madison for Tacoma on June 19th. The children were with their grandparents, fated to be flown out to join us in Washington a few days later. Most of our possessions had already been sent on their way via our (one and only) PODS. It was just the two of us, Chibs, and our Jeep loaded with some things we didn’t ship.
We left around 6am. It had stormed during the night, and the morning sky was still dreary with hints of unfinished business. The dark clouds sagged from the sky like the loose fabric under a worn bed box spring. I sat in the car, contemplating similes and life changing transitions.
It rained on and off as we drove to La Crosse and then Minneapolis, to briefly say goodbye to our families, something that was necessary but not eagerly anticipated. We drove the rest of the day toward our destination in Jamestown, ND. It would have been nice to drive a bit further on this day, but finding suitable hotels was problematic. Our hotel in Jamestown included an incredible window view of several stacks of authentic, gigantic tires.
We arrived with a bit of daytime left, and I wanted to see the sights. We also wanted to pick up a North Dakota geocache. It was not long before I discovered that Jamestown is home to the world’s largest buffalo. I’m unofficially the world’s largest fan of things that are the world’s largest, so our destination was set for us. The buffalo was preceded by a strange, semi-anachronistic pioneer village. It was difficult to tell just exactly what kind of setting they were going for there. The contents of the old buildings ranged from legitimate antiques to old computers. A wall adorned with old newspaper clippings in frames had one sample from the 1980s. Perhaps Jamestown was still considered a pioneer village when Reagan was president.
The next morning we woke up early and started our drive to Missoula, MT. Although we missed the major North Dakota flooding by a day or two, conditions were pretty poor in a few locations we drove through, with more than one instance of standing water on the interstate.
I know there must be some people who consider driving through North Dakota to be tiresome. There might even be those who think unclean thoughts like “North Dakota is worse than Nebraska.” First, shame on you. Second, with North Dakota’s relatively interesting landscape, especially in the west, and its collection of world’s largest items, I find the state to be comparatively charming.
For it wasn’t long that we approached the town of Steele, home to the world’s largest sandhill crane. We had many hundred miles to drive that day, but how can you pass up an opportunity to spend some time seeing such a marvel? A more appropriate name would be the world’s largest completely abandoned sandhill crane. Overrun and overgrown with weeds, it was clear that this attraction had been woefully uncared for. Such a sight was saddening.
After driving for a bit in Montana, the trip started becoming tedious. And it wasn’t too terribly long before Serena got cranky. Most of the time, I like it when Serena is cranky. She’s really cute and I can’t help but laugh at the things she says which just makes her more cranky. At one point, I asked her where she thought the name ‘Missoula’ came from. She didn’t know or didn’t care, or both. I told her that my guess was that it was of Native American origin, specifically the great native composer of rousing marches, John Philip Missoula. But Serena was cranky and she thought I was stupid.
Once we finally got to our hotel, we swam a bit in their outside pool and hot tub. In the morning, we set out for our final day of traveling. My heart warmed a bit as we entered the mountains. Gosh, I love mountains. The drive through western Montana and Idaho was wonderful. We picked up geocaches in each state before crossing over into Washington.
I’m sure the people of eastern Washington are perfectly reasonable, well adjusted folk who have entirely rational motives for living in such a horrible place (I’m not actually sure of these things), but I could not possibly understand them. Eastern Washington is like a desert in which the residents stubbornly refuse to realize is a desert. They keep trying to farm the unforgiving land, seemingly oblivious to the emerging civilization of enormous whirlwinds, all thriving upon the conspicuous dearth of water. One gets the feeling that these people and everything they own are just a single good gust of wind away from being swept up into the Rockies.
And honestly, until you reach the foothills of the Cascades, Washington really is not my kind of place at all. But when you do reach that place, the landscape is transformed into something magnificent. The Cascades are like some amazing machine that no matter what you put in, it comes out better. When we descended the western slopes, I found myself wearing a bow tie and a monocle. I turned my head back to the mountains now behind me and grinned a knowing smile, “Oh, you Cascades have done it again!”
We had to stay in a hotel for a few days because our things had not yet arrived. We checked in and made arrangements to see the house we rented. We were both very nervous and anxious as we arrived, making copious mental lists of ‘good things’ and ‘bad things’ and hoping the final tally would be in our favor. We decided that the house, despite its terrifying pit of evil I call the basement, will suit us just fine. We have a very small yard for the kids to play in, but that very small yard seems monstrous compared to never having had one prior.
There is an abundance of flowers and fruit trees, something I was not used to. All of it was overgrown with weeds from months of neglect, so there was much work to be done. The property includes two pear trees, a small peach tree, a large cherry tree, two plum trees, and two apple trees. Also on the property is a lavender plant, two strawberry plants, two kiwifruit plants, a grape vine, a currant bush, tomatoes, eight rose plants, and dozens of lilies. I may have forgotten to mention a couple. Don’t ask me how all that stuff fits on this tiny property. I still don’t know.
Below, there are a bunch of pictures from the trip. I used Serena’s point and shoot camera while the car was moving, so almost none of them are even remotely nice pictures. I merely wanted to document the trip and examine the changing landscape. I’m not the kind of guy who tells another person how they ought to browse image galleries, but if I were I’d mention how once I click and enlarge a photo I find it very convenient to use my keyboard arrow keys to navigate from picture to picture. But I’m not that kind of guy. In fact, I hate those guys.