Day 1 -- Friday, January 3rd

We made it to Denver, Colorado in ten hours, five less than we had originally anticipated. It was dawn about an hour before we got there, and lighting up very effectively The Nowhere. There was a lot of Nowhere, and this was definitely the place to see it.

The first time through Wyoming was pretty boring. It was basically the first bad weather we saw on the trip, light rain as we traveled just to the north of the rocky mountains. We were intending to go all the way up to I-90 and cut across Montana, but as we got further north we were warned off this route by some random gas station guy. Instead we decided to cross at the Tetons.

This was also the first night that we stopped off, in this ski town. It was kind of an amusing trip in, what with the ten foot standing arcs of snow and all.

Day 2 -- Saturday, January 4th

Idaho was pretty boring, although Dana did get to see the big red rocks, which I suppose was something. Mostly it was the space between Wyoming and Oregon.

It was night time when we finally got into Oregon, and it was even further into the next morning when we finally made it to the actual coast, where we spent the night eagerly awaiting the daylight. I took this opportunity to point out to Dana that the dark shapes around were actually green.

I don't think she got the point until later.

"Look Dana, Green". She gave me a funny look. "No, no, you don't understand. GREEN. Tree. Green Tree. Capitol G. Green". She didn't get it. I pointed at a dark shape. "See them? All around. Green". I gestured to more dark shapes, a little more insistently. She still didn't get it.

Meanwhile Ben was being scrutinized by this odd hotel clerk, who was very insistent that we make absolutely no noise, at all. I don't think she liked the looks of three odd teenagers showing up at 2:30am (PST!!)

We stayed over, and do to the axial rotation of the earth, it was morning.

Day 3 -- Sunday, January 5th

We pretty much took the first opportunity to hit the coast, which unfortunately for some in the car wasn't private little accessways of the cool people who actually lived here on the coast in their little glass houses. Settling for the closest public beach access, we pulled down and walked out onto the sand.

"ohmygodlookitsthecoastisthatitwowitsbig"

Then she just stared at it for a while.

Then she noticed the sand. It was flat, and I don't think she was expecting that. The ocean was also foamy, and this also wasn't expected, I don't think. (Turns out the foam is salty, didn't know if this was expected or not).

After the coast wore off a bit, she started to appreciate the greeness, and was soon pointing out the window and telling us, "look, Green".

After debating over eating at a KFC at this early juncture in the trip, and then realising that it was closed (after we had decided that it would be bad to prematurely end the trip), we ate at this nice little restuarant with an incredibly polite waiter, again. This time he had the nice laid back west coast kind of attitude, that easy kind of politeness that I think a lot of Canadians are accused of.

As we were leaving, I walked out past the comment book. Realising my mistake, I walked back and whipped out the pen.

Then we started driving north along 101, heading up (sort of) the Oregon coast. Unfortunately, in places, the road would curve inland and you'd only be able to see small tantalizing glimmers of the ocean through some of the trees. This also wasn't good enough for Dana, still going on a bit of a buzz from the big blue thing, so pretty soon we found ourselves on some scenic route heading due west towards the ocean. How scenic, little tiny traces of clear cutting and strip cutting. Oregon did manage to provide us with a sand dune. It was split down the middle by a north south road, the eastern half that we were on was untouched but the western half had been turned into a free-form motorcross thingy. We wandered out, took a few photos. Then I realised that you could jump off the sand cliffs and kind of ski down. Ben followed suite. Luckily someone threw the camera at me fore he hopped off.

Pretty soon we were winding our way up the coast again, back on 101. We stopped for an hour or two at a somewhat nicer beach then the first little one we stopped at. This was later realised to have been Cannon Beach, which enough people further along the trip told us about to make me think it's some kind of beach mecca. Other than climbing a big rock, one of the cooler things discovered was another fair sized rock in the middle of this little tidepool, absolutely covered with life. Barnacles, clams, mussels, anemones, star fish. You name it, it was stuck to that rock. It was all there, exposed, as the tide was low and just coming in. And it was making quite a loud noise.

We continued up along 101 until we came into Washington.

Notables missed this state: Khall

Ahh, Washington. It was in fact the our destination, although it seemed to be a little underwhelming when we got here. Mostly because it was getting late into the day, in fact I think it was right before sunset or so, and we were all pretty tired. The bridge into Washington along the route we were taking was pretty cool, this little town nestled underneath it. Most of southern Washington that night was a dark blur, and a lot of it I probably don't really care to remember.

Seattle did light up the night, though, and it was quite impressive as we started hitting into the populated areas. I-5 north, it had been quite awhile since I'd been on that particular little bit of interstate. The night-time view was great as we headed, the space needle melting into the background of the skyscrapers. We drove through the city, just a few minutes north of the core, then pulled into this little Thai place. As usual, more food than could ever possibly be consumed by six people in two sittings was ordered. It was a fun meal, though, what with it being Seattle and the dynamics of interpersonal table configurations being discussed. Then we went over to the nearest Inn (literally).

Day 4 -- Monday, January 6th

The next morning pretty much sucked, all in all. I mean it was seriously toned down due to the fact that this was, after all, Seattle. So the suckage was pretty minimal. But it did suck. Since we had made few (ok, no) arrangements to get online, we had an annoying time getting wired. I also gave f|ve a call. I got his father, who politely told me that he was off in school, and wouldn't be back until around 1700. Oh well.

We drove back into the core, and did the whole Seattle Center / Space Needle thing, which anyone going to Seattle feels a deep, pressing obligation to do. We walked around the 'Center, and realized that it's bad to be in the big hollowed out fountain, because the sign saying that the fountain comes on without warning fails to mention the fact that the fountains off position involves water running in a very fountainlike manner. It should also be noted that the Orange Julius there does not have the pina colada supreme, so if you go there expecting to get one as I did, you will be sorely mistaken.

The ride up the needle was brought to us by the little-elevator-man, who gave us a charming introduction to the needle itself on the ascend. Uptop, we purchased a three hundred and sixty degree panoramic picture of Seattle, reasoning that we needed a constant reminder up on our wall at home. As it turns out, the second thing we've collected that actually stands a chance of making it up onto a wall. On the observation deck itself, we started to notice something distressing: No KFC's. Not knowing the location of any, and not wanting to use anything nearly as primitive as a phone book, we decided that our best chances would be to ascend the needle and use an even more primitive form of scouting: looking around with a dazed expression. Unfortunately for us this plan fell apart when we didn't see any, and a quick check by Dana with the clerk confirmed the fear that there were none in the downtown area.

Curses.

Slightly worried, we headed down and back out to the car. Do to Ben's cheerful directions of "go south" right before the I-5 ramps, this would turn out to be the last of Seattle. Several tasks were left unaccomplished, including going to one of the open markets and witnessing fish being chucked about, as well as purchasing an earing for myself to replace the one I lost shortly after moving to Kansas City. Oh, and we didn't even have a cup of coffee.

The next stop occured out past Tacoma, where luckily for us Ben spotted a KFC. After a quick turnaround at some military installation, we were in fact at KFC. In Washington. Better yet, it was open. We entered the establishment and were soon ordering chicken. The fact that we had very recently eaten in seattle, food was the last thing on our minds, but a mission is a mission. Our order was put in, and the clerk tried to pawn off some little pathetic KFC box on us, until Dana shouted out, "No, No, We Need A Bucket!!". The clerk suitably reprimanded, we were soon taking a picture with the manager, also at Dana's request. Somehow she didn't think it was good enough to drive 1600 miles to a KFC, get the chicken, and quietly slip away. We had to interact and take photos as well. Oh well. Too bad they didn't believe that we were from Kansas. Err, uhm, Missouri.

Our mission being accomplished, the next stop was the paranoid gas station about a half an our or so south of Portland. The routine worked something like this: We told them we wanted gas, they gave us a little ticket. After it was paid for inside, the clerk stamped the ticket, gave us a receipt and told us to go give the ticket to the gas station attendant. I wonder how many people had to rip them off before they started doing that.

After a while we started wondering what we would do with the bucket to preserve it, what kind of display we would have, if any. My contribution was the somewhat (I think, anyways) interesting approach of casting the whole thing in about ten gallons of acrylic to form this big huge block, which would probably weigh about a hundred pounds by the time it was all said and done. Unfortunately, though, some people wanted to remove the chicken first. I think Dana's going to grab the lid, probably because she has a clue and realises that, a. that's the only really easy part of the bucket to frame and put on a wall, and b. the rest of the bucket was messed up anyways. The bucket doesn't have any spiffy decorations, and could have come from anywhere unfortunately, no identifying marks to indicate that it came from Washington, or anywhere in particular. Other display ideas that came up included a normal glass case, and opening it up along the seams and framing it.

Notables missed in this state: f|ve, probably half a dozen others.

Day 5 -- Tuesday, January 7th

Ranger Bob. Right before we hit the last beach we'd stop at on the west coast, we had our little incident with Ranger Bob.

It was Ben and Dana's fault. While I had sided with my usual Snapple at the last stop, they had decided to get root beer, instead. Old fashioned root beer.

In beer bottles.

So here we are driving down the west coast, the two of them happily chugging at their root beer. We stopped at a vista point, as you can see from the picture, and started walking away from the car. While I kept my snapple, they decided to leave their root beer bottles on the roof of the car.

We were about a hundred and fiftey feet or so from the car looking out over the ocean when Ranger Bob showed up. He parked directly in front of our car, probably in case we got any ideas later on. Then he got out of his RangerBobMobile, real smooth like. Took in a big breath of air, looked around like nothing was nothing. Carefully walked around the RangerBobMobile until he was on the side with our car, then he smoothly and unpurposfully wandered over into viewing distance of the two bottles.

"root".

Just as smoothly he got back into the truck and drove of. We snapped the picture of him just as he was pulling out.

The Dark Beach. This was the only beach we stopped at in California, and it had the virtue of having sand that was almost black. It also had some interesting tide effects, as some of us learned the hard way.

It was also a beach that screamed out for an URL.

Day 6 -- Wednesday, January 8th

Dana gets to Salt Lake City, Utah in the morning and Alex takes over the wheel.

Alex follows God sent driver with radar etc until Dana has to go to the bathroom

Alex drives 20 miles outside of Cheyenne and gets pulled over by the Cops... thrown on hood of car... etc etc

Ben takes over driving all the way home.

120 degrees in the car due to Dana...

Ice / Wind / Snow, bad conditions

Ben makes exit off highway simple because his car decides to do so

Dana fears God on interstate just outside of KC

We arrive home

Day 7 -- Thursday, January 9th

Returning to the office, we find that our company (Sprint) has unplugged all our servers and equipment in fear that we left AT&T or another competitor. We were given a formal and visible slap on the wrist, but secretly higher management was very amused.