The First Finish Line

After an uneventful workday in Yakima, I decided that two days of interstate nights was enough to last an entire roadtrip — so I took a forest highway out of town toward White Pass, clipping the edges of the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, and Mount Rainier National Parks on the long way into Seattle.

No podcast reviews today, no hikes or Native landmarks, just driving fast along rivers and lakes through a forest and another new-to-me National Park with loud music and windows down. To celebrate how, somehow, this didn’t all blow up in my face.

Mystery Machine didn’t even need more oil today! One of the electric windows did come off its track and almost broke…. what half-wit engineer decided crank windows were so bad, anyway? Hell, even Xterra the Elder had a broken electric window for the last four years I owned it. The Truck has it right.

Somehow I have to manage two more workdays before the next great adventure begins. It’ll be fun though, Seattle is an easy city to work from, and I have plans with a local friend Thursday night before the boys arrive.

Friday, I’m shooting for East Coast business hours instead of Central so that I can close a full day mid-afternoon. We’ll head out from the AirBnB in Tacoma to go pick up the two cars who didn’t have to drag their own drivers to the start line, and then this weekend we head off into Canada. I am so excited.

Had dinner with an Austin climber friend this evening at the Nacho Borracho. Always good to catch up. I picked him up at his place in the Mystery Machine — he had… many questions and a few reservations.

After dinner, I headed down to Tacoma where we’re staying this weekend. I’ve unloaded the car and parked it down the block. George and Evan should arrive into town in a couple hours. It’s still a school night for me, so we’ll see if I manage to stay awake until they get here. I wouldn’t count on it…