Thelma, Louise, and Calamity Lynn head West

I have just returned from a 2700 mile drive from Cleveland to Vancouver, British Columbia, and believe it or not, I didn't want it to end. Ok, picture 2 old friends, Louise-Betsy and Thelma-Lissa, who have essentially raised their kids together and get called sisters alot, along with Betsy's wonderful mother in law, Calamity Lynn, deciding to radically welcome ADVENTURE.

Around the Thanksgiving table this year, the discussion turned to how to get Alex's car from Cleveland to where he is playing junior hockey in Langley, Brithish Columbia. Alex is Betsy's 19 year old son, my godson, and Lynn's grandson. I'm afraid it was I who might have said, "Let's drive!" Before we knew it, a plan was forming and Lynn was in too. Why not, I ask you? When was the last time you saw a prairie dog in his natural surroundings, cold as they were? Looked in wonder at the badlands as they rippled the vast, flat landscape into my mother's favorite ribbon candy? How about walked around the first national park, Devil's Tower? Ate lunch in Montana with a view that took your breath away? Cackled with two gas station attendants in Wallace, Wyoming at 6am as they took apart the mayor for his shabby decorating of the town tree? Chatted with Ranger Butch as he described the 1500 Minuteman missiles silo-ed all over the Western States during the Cold War? Drove blithely over the Snoqualmie Pass gazing at the scenery without realizing that we had made it over? When, I ask you?

Not only did we have perfect, clear, sunny weather essentially every minute of the 4 day drive, we found ourselves being warmly welcomed at every single place we chose to stop. Talk about radical welcome! I heard this phrase used at church on Sunday. My dear friend and minister, Pastor Beal, used this term in her sermon about the birth of Jesus as a radical welcome to us all. I liked the phrase a great deal. We travelers felt the world embrace us and welcome us everywhere we went. What a beautiful country this is, too, even in the cold. Maybe that's why there were no lines at any national site. We laughed and realized that everything is free at this time of year (ie: boarded up), and there are no crowds; in fact, there often was not another breathing human within miles! You should try Northern Idaho in December.....magnificent! We also found our way to a Louisiana BBQ joint in a snow squall in Wyoming....you just never know what you'll find until you dive in and welcome the adventure.

Thelma, Louise, and Calamity Lynn are already thinking about their next radical adventure. Maybe the lower route to Zion, etc...or maybe the Lewis and Clark trail.....hmmmm, so many options. If anyone is interested, I kept a very brief travel-blog during the trip. the Day 4 blog is right below this one; the first three days somehow got stuck to the right on the blog under the year 2000. I can only wonder how that happened!
How about some poetry. I feel as if this wonderful wanderlust i've been feeling and and the vast open, starry skies I've been seeing require a bit of the good Vermonter, Robert Frost. How about two from the bard:

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
As it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh,I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.


Choose Something Like a Star

Oh star (the fairest one in sight)
we grant your loftiness the right
to some obscurity of cloud--
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says, "I burn."
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell us something in the end.
As steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from it's sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks from us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

Day 4

Left at mile marker 2230 and bid a fond farewell to Wallace. Actually, we loved Wallace. On our way out (at 5am), we stopped at a gas station run by two women who were laughing hysterically when I walked in about how pathetically their grand evergreen was decorated with Christmas lights....and they were right. We pulled out in the dark and just as the day began to lighten, we pulled into Coeur D'Alene to see the huge, beautiful lake. As Betsy said, Coeur D'Alene means, roughly translated mind you, "those scuzzy Indian traders" --too bad because the words are quite lovely. Here's what the lake looks like:



This is a very upscale place, and as we pulled into the visitor's parking across from the lake, we saw something like 30 trees intricately decorated with tiny white lights. Ms. Calamity said, "Wallace, eat your heart out!". Yup.

So, we pulled out of town and found ourselves in the glorious state of WASHINGTON!!! We drove through Spokane and over the Columbia River:



and farther and then, we began to see signs for the Snoqualmie pass. But again, the weather was perfect and we were through the pass before we even realized we had started! Thank goodness the chains stayed in the car! How lucky were we. And then we stopped off at Snoqualmie Falls ( where The show Twin Peaks was shot) and looked at the fabulous falls ( hard to see with all the spray).





Then we were on the way to Seattle and then heading up 405 and then 5 and all the way to the border. Here, we had a little snafu as Betsy forgot to say that the car was staying in Canada. When he figured this out, I think he was a little unclear about us, and he made us go inside and talk to an agent there. The guy inside turned out to be vey nice, and in about 15 minutes fate getting on the road, we arrived:




Yahoo! 2700 miles later, here we are with Mount Rainier peaking his lovely head over the pines in the backyard.....NICE.

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Location:Coeur D'alene