June 30, 2009
The end of another month arrives. Tomorrow we begin a new month by heading for a new destination. We’ve been going back and forth about where to go next. We thought maybe Pullman, but then we discovered that it’s a 6 hour drive and we really didn’t care to do that. I thought we’d looked up the mileage before and found it to be only 250 miles or so, but it turns out that it’s really about 100 miles farther than that. I am either hallucinating or just getting very confused! Anyway, we realized that there is really no need to go great distances in one day--at least at this point--and to tell you the truth, six hours in the truck on a hot day doesn’t seem appealing. So I looked on a map and found Yakima was closer. The search for a campground began. There didn’t seem to be anything much coming up as a result of the Google search, so I said we might as well go on up to Ellensburg, which is about 40 miles up the road. They have a campground there and we were able to get reservations. We’ll stay for a couple of days and then move on to Spokane. We managed to reserve the last tent site at the campground there. I felt that with the holiday weekend coming up, it was a good time for reservations. I really do not want to be driving around searching for a camping spot that has a tent site available. So this will work out. We will be in Spokane until July 7, so will attend meeting there on Sunday.
We will have to try and time things right so that we don’t end up in whatever rush hour traffic there is in these places. We’ve spent a couple of days now dealing with Portland traffic and it’s not at all fun! It was not this bad when we lived here. Then again, we never traveled around during rush hour. We’ve picked Heather up at the transit center for the last couple of days at 4 o’clock. Yesterday wasn’t too bad, although it was bad enough for Bill to get really stressed out at having to drive in it. Today was a different story. There was an accident on the Washington side of the northbound freeway bridge, so what should have been a 15-minute ride back to my friend’s house turned out to be a 45-minute ride in stop-and-go traffic. Bill kept repeating that he would never live in a place where he had to do this every day. I was just hoping it would be over soon. Bill had the radio on and some guy was rambling on about basketball and repeating the fact that Yao Ming was a science experiment. Whatever, dude. I can see how people can easily fall into anger and road rage. I wasn’t even driving and I was highly annoyed. I was quite relieved when he turned the radio off. After awhile we passed the accident scene and it didn’t look too bad, although there was an ambulance. It didn’t seem as though there was any urgency about things, though. Just in case, I sent some good thoughts into the universe for a good outcome.
It’s been really fun visiting with Ellen and Brigg. I have enjoyed our conversations and appreciated their hospitality. It’s also been an experience revisiting some old stomping grounds and realizing that I’ve moved on. You can’t step in the same river twice as the saying goes. And before this trip, I would have put Portland down as the best place I ever lived. I suppose compared to the other places, it would still be the best, but it doesn’t hold the appeal for me that it once did. Life goes on; people change; and nothing remains the same. This is a good lesson for me to learn right about now. In many ways, we are starting over in our life together. Our first big move was from New Hampshire to Portland. Now we’re going back the other way. As I do that, it is good for me to see with my own eyes that this part of my life really is over. It was fun while I was living it. But I’m not the same person I was when I lived here. I will never be that person again. So it’s time to turn around and move in a different direction. And so I go from Ellen’s to Ellensburg for the next step in the journey!
