May 18, 2022 ~ Wednesday night (nearly midnight mountain time/468.1 miles under my belt)
Greetings from the road tripping Lobster!
It’s been a while since my last post … I’ve been a little busy.
Yesterday the moving van came to collect what was left of the furniture/things that I had not packed into six U-Haul pods the week before. I hope I have some muscles to show for all my packing/hauling/loading after this is all done! Annie and I spent the night sharing a dog bed … not horrible … but the motel bed we are sharing tonight is much nicer!
I loaded up the car, popped Bea into the crate in the front seat and stuffed Annie into the back seat atop a mountain of pillows … and barely had room for my body and water bottle after everything else was smashed in. The car is SMALL! Rearranging needs to be done before tomorrow’s trek!
But, here we are … in Ontario, Oregon … a mere 468 miles from Langley and the house that was my home for the last (almost) 8 full years. I moved in on July 3, 2014 … and today, May 18, 2022, I moved out.
We (the dogs and I) are on our way back to Colorado … where friends/family/my mom and a cute, little, 1911 house await me. I’m hoping to be back by Friday night. We’ll see. Snow is in the forecast for Colorado and possibly Wyoming – along my route. Of course. Happy Spring in CO!
Today I left the house/drove down – one last time – the road that I walked so many, many times and said goodbye to the deer and the views. I stopped at the gas station by the highway to get some chicken. Yes … chicken, but not just any chicken – the best chicken on the planet. I planned this trip to coincide with my leaving the island. I was looking forward to this chicken. They were closed. Bummer. I then went to the bagel shop. Gluten and yeast be damned … a salt bagel with cream cheese sounded equally appealing and decadent. There were 7 people in line and the shop is notoriously slow. Nope, not waiting and missing a ferry. The winds were whipping the trees around and the Sound waters were choppy and the ferry sailing was rougher than any I’d been on before. The morning rain showed up again as we left the terminal. Seemed like a fitting send off!
I looked back over the island as we closed in on the mainland and the dark clouds over the sea and land could have been out of some movie. Lightning and Poseidon coming out of the waters were the only things missing. The mainland was sunny and dry. And people wonder why I couldn’t wait to get off that rock?!
90 minutes after I left home for the last time I drove off the ferry … I will NOT miss that trip. But there are plenty of things I will miss … like the quiet, serenity, greenness, wildlife, beauty, my guest dogs and their families, and certainly my friends. And yes, also that gas station chicken!
If the winds were blowing from the west/eastward we would have arrived in this far eastern section of Oregon far sooner than 10:30 pm. But, as Mom Nature would have it – the winds seemed to be coming from every direction but from the west and we were buffeted for 8 relentless hours. It wasn’t until we were in the Pendleton area that the winds abated … perhaps it was because of the topography. Very hilly there.
We passed the 45th parallel … had I not zoomed past the sign at 75 mph or had a rather large semi behind me, I would have taken a picture. The 45th parallel is half-way between the equator and the North Pole. Fun trivia.
Around Pendleton, the landscape reminded me of a miniature train-scape. All the hills looked to be made of olive velvet, draped just so … or astro turf mounds with little bottle-brush trees set here and there … a cardboard looking house in the distance … a horse running through a meadow/mane flying behind … it was idyllic. And it would have been just one smidgeon better if the train in the distance had blown its whistle. There are no trains on the island … I’ve missed that.
Driving so far/getting dogs in and out of the car/sleeping on a dog bed have made this little lobster very tired. I’m turning off the lights … but more to come on this journey back “home”.