Filed under: Uncategorized
The weather in Seattle turned really bad about a week before I was planning to drive home for the holidays. One Saturday night it snowed right down to the water. I was told it only snows once a year and never sticks. We were out throwing snowballs and making snow angels at 2 am. It was fun but the next day when the sun came out it didn’t melt anything. It was sunny and blue skies all week but the temperature never got above freezing and nothing melted. Then it snowed in earnest a few days before I was supposed to leave. City buses with chains on were spinning their wheels on the hills and the passengers had to get out and walk. No one went to work for most of the week. I had to move all my belongings into a storage unit because the lease was going to be up while I was gone and I didn’t want to extend it. For all I know I won’t have a job there when I get back.
That’s another thing. My contract expires a week after New Years and I had been offered a permanent position, which is what I wanted to happen, but the salary offered was woefully low. Like half of what I’d been making as a contractor. You just don’t take offers like that, and frankly you don’t make offers like that. I made my feelings known and the HR lady let me hang for 2 weeks before emailing me that she was working on another offer. That was a week ago, and now she’s out til after New Years. So I just have to keep living in the present but trying to prepare for all possible futures. Thus it was a good idea to become homeless in Seattle and pay only the rent of a storage unit in my absence.
So come last Friday there was a break in the storms and I had done all the packing and storing that I could, so I loaded the car and high-tailed it out of the northwest. I had been mentally preparing all week for a nightmarish drive on black ice. I had even packed all my camping gear in case the car should become disabled and Petunia and I be left to the elements. I have it all in a big backpack – tent, sleeping bag, cooking gear, food, thermals. Enough to survive a few days in the snow.
Turned out I overprepared – I-5 was clear and relatively dry by afternoon after being snowed upon the night before. After Portland there was little threat of delays or ice, except for any mountain passes we had to get over. Those are few on I-5 – Grants Pass in southern Oregon, Mt Shasta in far northern California, a few other minor ones. Then nothing but the nearly thousand miles of central valley. Once we were past Portland, I started having the crazy thought that we could probably get past Mt Shasta and therefore be out of the northwest and any threat of snow or delay.
The rest of Oregon melted past the window effortlessly. I filled up the tank for the first time near Eugene and it was bitterly cold outside. I was all for pressing on as long as I could stay wakeful. There were other cars and trucks on the road so it made the conditions seem safe enough. Soon enough we were past Shasta and filling up a second time in Redding. It was now almost midnight, twelve hours on the road, and I was getting tired but knew I had another hour or so in me. I realized then that Chico about an hour away, where my grandparents live, is literally almost exactly the halfway point between Seattle and Phoenix. But they were already in Arizona, and it would be more than an hour detour to get there and back to the 5, and I just wanted to get home as fast as possible. So an hour later I pulled into a rest area and slept in the car next to some other travelers.
Five hours later people started waking up, still in the dark, and so we took off again. This was a little crazy, driving straight through like this. It’s a 25 hour drive in the best conditions. Trying to do it with just a 5 hour nap in the middle… well it was making sense at the time. I’ve driven 12 hours in a day before. It’s no fun, but I was on a mission to get home and out of that cold.
I have one thing to say about southern California. Based on the way people drive, the place needs to have the water cut off and be left to die. I have never seen such assholery in my life. I like to drive fast, but this wasn’t fast it was just dangerous and selfish. People will pass you on the right and then ram themselves into the 20 feet between you and the car ahead of you. I had to hit the brakes only there – nowhere else on this 1500 mile drive. And we were still 300 miles north of Los Angeles. I was so stressed out I changed the route. Instead of taking the 5 to the 210 to the 10 through Pasadena and the north edge of the metro area, I decided on the complete bypass through Tehachapi Pass and next to Edwards Air Force base, on the other side of the mountains from LA. It doesn’t save any miles or time necessarily but it saves the aggravation of dealing with LA drivers.
Tehachapi Pass had snow piled along the sides of the road. I’m sure it happens most winters, but I’d never seen snow this far south in California. We hadn’t seen snow for the past 600 miles. Once through the pass and down and past Edwards, we were treated to one of the most unusual natural sights I’ve ever seen: a desert covered in snow to the horizon.
While I was taking these pictures I thought how Petunia could use a little break and this would be really cool so we pulled onto a side road and played fetch in the snow.
Once we got back in the car I tried to forget that we’d been on the road for the past 24 hours and focus on the fact that we were just 6 hours from home. On previous trips through this area, in either direction, it seemed like the final destination was a long way from here. I don’t think anything will seem like a long drive after this. They key to getting somewhere fast isn’t speeding, I’ve learned, it’s limiting your stops. I drove 5-10 over the speed limit everywhere weather and traffic allowed, which was almost everywhere. But aside from playing in the snow and the nap at the rest area, we had stopped only to fill up the gas tank. Even bathroom and food breaks were timed to coincide with fill ups, every 5 hours.
By the time we got to the Arizona border I was truly exhausted. It was almost dark on day 2. This time yesterday we were passing a sign in northern Oregon that said ‘45th Parallel – midway point between the equator and north pole’. Now we were below the 34th Parallel. That’s a big chunk of the planet to cover on the ground in a day. I was tired but I kept telling myself I had slept nearly a full night and it was only 5pm now. It was just fatigue, not sleepiness. Push on and we’ll be home soon.
Those last 2 hours were the longest of the drive. The speed limit on I-10 in Arizona is 75, so you can go 85 without worrying. At night that’s about as fast as I’d want to go. We were passed by a pair of trucks who were not together, but using each other as escorts through traffic. They averaged 85-90 when they could. I decided to join the caravan, and before long there were 5 or 6 of us barreling along. The city lights start at the Palo Verde nuclear plant, although the road signs say you still have 30+ miles to Phoenix. We all know those mileages are to the geographical center of the city, anywhere you go. I had to go pick up my house keys at my mom’s house, 10 miles past my house. I considered breaking into my place instead of driving 20 more miles than I had to, but logic prevailed. By 7:30 I was home. Back in Portland I estimated I could be home by 6pm if I drove straight through with a little nap. 1550 miles and only an hour and a half late. Not too shabby.
I was tired, like I said. But now I was home and excited to see people. I pooped on my own toilet, showered in my own shower, and that was worth 6 hours of sleep. I went out to Sonora, whose beer and wings I had been craving for months and rather acutely for the past 2 days. I got drunk quicker than I’ve been used to. January got off work and we came back to my place to smoke some weed and go out drinking. We just stayed in and laughed instead. She finally left at 3am and I slept wrapped up in a down comforter – no sheets on the bed. It’s good to be home!
