road trip, day 3

road trip 2008 175, originally uploaded by Kaijsa.

So, we entered Washington. I made the stupid mistake of driving through Spokane instead of avoiding it like the plague. We were on Highway 2, also known as my favorite road in the land, but I didn't realize I should have taken I-90 to get past the Spoke. Anyway, that burned up about an hour we didn't need to waste. This was a theme for the whole day.

I know I'm totally biased, but Washington state is gorgeous. I think Rick liked it too, especially how the landscape kept changing as we traveled west. A friend camping in Chelan invited us to stay there and play in the lake, but we didn't feel like we had the time to spend. I would have liked to just stay the night there and continue on in the morning, and in retrospect, it would have been a great idea. Instead, after some unnecessary driving around in Wenatchee, we stopped at Lake Wenatchee for a very brief swim, which was a nice break from the car. I also drove through Leavenworth, so Rick could see the weirdness of a fake Bavarian village packed with tourists.

The drive through the North Cascades was stunning, as always. Stevens Pass is such a pretty one, and it was fun to show it off to somebody who had never been to the area. We jumped off 2 in Monroe and hit 405 to get to my parents' place. Again, a good plan in theory, but I should have gone all the way to the end of the highway in Everett and taken surface streets down to Lynwood. Rush hour in the PNW is much more annoying than the fifteen minutes of tiny congestion we get here in Laramie. We got in to my folks' place just before 8pm.

My parents had dinner ready for us, and we ate outside in their newly arranged outdoor dining room, which I love. I really miss eating all my meals outside all summer and fall. Rick and my parents got along well, and the dogs even mostly behaved themselves. It's always difficult to predict how they'll react to my friends. Abbie's really jealous, and she's been known to whine and moan if anybody sits next to me. She did stick pretty close to me. Nala immediately adopted Rick as her new best friend, sitting at his feet at dinner and then sleeping outside his bedroom every night. I wasn't a blip on her radar.

We were pretty tired after all that driving, so pretty much the only things we did after dinner were bring in our stuff from the car and figure out our plan for the next day.