Destination: Home - Travel Day: September 29

Destination: Home

Travel Day: September 29

I am up and westbound on I-90 by 7. Today’s plan is to make the drive to Seattle. I want to spend the afternoon playing tourist, and the night having a nice dinner, and then have a very short drive home early tomorrow. Because today is Saturday the mid-afternoon border lineups will be horrendous. Canadians who insist on buying in Bellingham because things are cheaper there, and then waste the rest of the weekend burning away gas, and a great deal of their lives in border waits. Sometimes the wait can be three hours long. And then some of them have the nerve to complain about the reduction in public services at home because of lower tax revenues. Sometimes it’s embarrassing to explain this.

I stop in Ritzville, Washington for a Starbucks Venti Awake Tea, and a fruit and cheese plate. I stopped here on my way out east so I know what waits ahead. I need suitable sustenance to get me across the nightmare boredom that is Eastern Washington.

I stop again at Wild Horses Monument, but on the other side of the highway at a scenic viewpoint overlooking the Columbia River. The air is smoky due to a massive forest fire north east of here. I stretch my legs and take a few pictures. This time there is are no combat jets to buzz me.

I stop to fuel up at place a few miles east of Steven’s Pass. A woman with her family in a Cadillac Escalade approaches me and asks if I know anything about cars? Her “service engine” light is on and she’s concerned about making it through the pass. I’m not mechanically inclined but I have enough of an idea of car maintenance to see if anything stands out as obviously wrong. I do a once around checking oil and transmission fluid, looking for obvious leaks, or anything glaringly out of place but I find nothing. I suggest she go ahead and to take it to her mechanic when she gets home. For all I know her catalytic converter needs replacing. 

Most of Stevens Pass and the lake are in sunshine but at the summit it’s foggy and raining. This follows me all the way down until I’m at the Seattle city limits. The clouds scatter into what we coastal types call “sunny breaks”, but in reality they are breaks between rain showers. As I fight my way through weekend commuter traffic I run a few scenarios through my head about staying in Seattle or pushing on home. Finally I decide and it’s 1145. If the universe is on my side, with modest border waits, I can be home by 1530. The sudden allure of sleeping in my own bed guides my thinking. I have been on the road, by myself, for twenty four days, and suddenly I just want to be home. The Saturday burger special at the pub around the corner helps to swing the vote. Their custom brewed Honey Pilsner calls to me!

There is only a forty minute wait at the border as I pull up at 1425. At 1510 I’m cleared to cross with only a minimal of questioning. Other than the usual ones for a single person driving alone to south Florida, the border agent asks me if I understand why she’s asking if anybody else had access to my car, and I say I do. The questions are expected. Of course she also asks “Why I did it?”. The answer? Because it was the right car, the right amount of money, and the right time to live out a dream. My dream!

I'm nearly home but I stop to pick up some beer and basic groceries to get me through breakfast. My fridge will be empty of everything but ketchup, mustard, A-1, and sweet green relish. 

I park the car in its customary space at 1600, all done.

All told it has been 24 days on the road, a roundtrip of 7768 miles, or 12502 kilometres. The car averaged a fuel consumption of 8.5 liters per 100 kilometres. Not a great fuel figure, but better than I had hoped.

I unload the car and open up my apartment. There are no obnoxious odors, just stale air. I plug everything back in, turn the water on, flick a few breakers, and throw in a load of laundry just to make sure everything is clean before I put the travel clothes away. I leave the windows open, lock the front door, and walk around the corner to the pub where a burger and finally, a truly local brew beer, await.