On the road again

Greetings from Ellensburg!!

I have now officially driven longer than I've done in one fell swoop since the accident (approximately one hour and forty-five minutes). Thankfully, that puts me right at the Flying J in Ellensburg, so I can take a nice break, check my email, surf the web and have a late lunch!

The shoulders seem to be holding up so far, though I'm probably going to take some ibuprofen before long... they were just starting to get a little achy.

I can really tell that Eastern Washington has been getting a lot more rain this year... it's the end of June and everything is still so GREEN!! It's making for a lovely drive. I wish rackham was along for the sights, since I don't think he's ever seen Keechelus Lake at capacity level. I'm pretty sure the western end has always been empty, since we moved to the Seattle area... exposing the old, dead tree stumps left over from before the dam went in and looking a bit like a petrified ghost forest. It's a gorgeous full lake today!

Hopefully, this lunch break will be long enough to rest my shoulders for the next leg of the journey!

Just past Lake Bob

Well, I made it as far as Baker City, Oregon, which is not too bad... it's approximately halfway between Seattle and Provo, though I'd been hoping to make it as far as Ontario (another hour further up the road). I spent too much time visiting with my mom in La Grande... which is always worth doing!

One of these days, I'm going to stop and take a photo of Lake Bob... it's a small, possibly man-made lake about fifteen miles northwest of Baker City, just off the interstate. Once upon a time, there was a cheap plywood sign out in front of it, with stenciled letters spray painted onto it announcing it as "Lake Bob." Whoever owns it has since been able to afford a nicer sign... still fairly simple, but with the letters done in a sort of professional script font. It's a great landmark.

I love the fact that even Super 8 hotels have free broadband, nowadays... a nice, cheap room and free internet, what more could you want?

My shoulders are pretty stiff and sore, but I'm hoping a good night's sleep will sort of "reset" things before the drive tomorrow.

I'm thinking I need to hunt down a copy of The Reality Matrix by John Dalmas to just keep in the car, because for some reason I always get a yen to read it when I'm on roadtrips. The odds are really good that no one on my flist (aside from rackham, for obvious reasons) has ever read it, but it's worth tracking down. It's one of his lesser known titles, but it's got an intriguing premise and is paced really well... a good example of a clever action novel.