It was fun riding the Amtrak back from Canada. My ticket would take me to Eugene, where I had left my car with Lauren and Matt (thank you!). From there I would wend my way the five hours back to Arcata.
It’s been a long time since I’ve done the Amtrak. The leg room was fantastic, as were the views.
We made Humboldt at 3 a.m., greeted by the ubiquitous fog. I dropped him at the edge of the community forest with well wishes and joined my sweetie in a very much changed apartment! With the advent of Pat joining me on the road came the need to get rid of everything. I had done this with most of my personal possessions when I had moved out at the end of April. But when you share a space for four years, 80% of things are “ours.” Pat had gotten rid of our bed and was now sleeping on the twin that used to go in the guest bedroom. For the next seven days we would get terrible sleep – one average and one large person sharing a very tiny mattress!
While Pat worked, I did myriad moving chores, chatted with Pat’s new roommate and her boyfriend, and prepped for our garage sale on Saturday. Our heaven-sent friend, Phil, got up at 6 a.m., bless his soul, to help us move stuff out onto a friend’s well-located lawn. Unbelievably, we had shoppers by 6:30! A.M.! On a Saturday! For an 8:00 sale! The garage sale was exhausting, but we got rid of almost everything – at least 70%. However, we didn’t have any place to put the remaining 30%, so we decided to give it another go on Sunday. I spent the evening at a cupcake decorating party at Tai’s chatting with some lovely ladies, and brought the leftover delicacies to the sale in the morning. Sunday was slower than Saturday and ended with me dancing on the corner waving a “FREE” sign for 45 minutes. It worked! We ended up with just one box of stuff to deliver to St. Vinny’s, and it is such an amazing thing to get rid of so many possessions. “The things you own end up owning you,” the saying goes.
We scrubbed ferociously Sunday afternoon, then took the wonderful Phil out to dinner at Ritas where we plied him incessantly with margaritas. (Now you want to be our friend?) I kept up the cleaning, babysitting kids at the gym (I’m still trading for a membership), and visiting my CASA kid for the rest of the week. Pat and I did our final scrub when he came home from work on Tuesday, and then we started packing the car – a tricky proposition. How do you fit everything you own into a 1986 Honda Accord? For starters, you don’t organize it into categories and pack it in boxes. That would leave far too much space under-utilized. So, the car is the box. You start with the biggest items and slowly fill in the holes. It worked! I even got to pack my guitar which I insisted on keeping, even though I hardly play.
July 1st dawned after we were already on the road. I knew it was going to be a hilarious journey when I lost Pat before we even got on the freeway. I was driving the Volvo (to be dropped off at Matt and Lauren’s), and he the Honda. Turns out the Accord was so heavily loaded, that Pat couldn’t make it up the steep hill outside our driveway! Ha!
We stopped several times to check the water pump in the Volv, including a pull off where we happened upon a small herd of elk!
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You know your man-friend is an elk hunter when he says, “Oh yeah. Look at that shot. Broadside! *insert gun firing noise here* That’d be some good meat! Strap it to the roof!” OMG. The funniest part was, my camera was unknowingly set on video, so I’ve got it on tape!
Due to our snail-like pace babying the cars, we made it to Matt and Lauren’s right at lunch. They invited us for burgers, and Pat was in heaven! Matt has his own still, which Pat is in love with. Pat had brought them some of his home brew, so of course a tasting session ensued. Before I knew it, every kind of alcohol Matt has ever made was out for a taste test and we began to question who would be driving! We made it back to the interstate, with 18 hours to go, at 3 p.m. with me behind the wheel. We forgot to figure Portland traffic into the equation, and took the jams as an opportunity to get the oil changed. I had deja vu driving back through the Gorge, as I had been there so recently with the boys on our sailing adventure. Pat and I switched in The Dalles, and so began our sleep/drive tag team bout all the way back to Wyoming. Pat covered the rest of I-84, I got us to Spokane, he drove us through Idaho in the dark, and I took sunrise in Missoula all the way to Cody. We made it!
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