Bye Bye Yellowstone! Until next time…

Well, folks, I’m on the road! After a little over a week at Old Faithful, I threw in the towel and hopped in a car with a friend to do a roadtrip of the Pacific Northwest. And I couldn’t be happier. You see, working at Yellowstone was awesome. Working at Lake was awesome, really. Lake was an amazing location, with a small community that felt like a family. The job wasn’t the best, but spending evenings with friends on the basketball courts, or down by the lake, or at the pub playing pool, was worth it.

After moving to Old Faithful, that aspect of the experience was gone. I had one really good friend left at Lake, whose contract ended on the 2nd of October, after I had already moved to Old Faithful. So when I went back to Lake to visit him and the remaining Lakers, I realized how much I missed it. And how much Old Faithful lacked what I loved so much about working here. So it was clear to me that working doubles every day at the Old Faithful Inn was not something I needed to do. My friend was heading on a roadtrip around the Pacific Northwest, and invited me along. I quit my job on Friday night, and was checked out and finished with my exit interview by 10 am yesterday. I left my car with my friends that I met last week, who promised to drive it up to Bozeman on the 18th and give it to one of my friends who is going to take care of it over the winter until I return for it, if I return for it, in the spring.

So as I type, I am looking up every now and then to see the Columbia Gorge, in Oregon.

We left yesterday around noon, and headed out of Yellowstone via the West Entrance. He is a beast of burden when it comes to driving. He drove until 10, straight across Idaho on 84 West. We stopped at 10, when the car started struggling up a pass just across the border into Oregon. We stopped at a reststop, about 10 miles south of Baker City. It was dark, and we could see the sillouettes of mountains around us. We decided to give the car a break, and to wait to drive through in the daylight, so we wouldn’t miss the views.

Our car is pretty full of stuff, so the seats don’t go down all the way, really. I have never really been able to sleep overnight in a car, and I knew it would be futile for me to try in a half-upright position. So I went outside, and walked up to the kiosk which had a rules and regulations sign. Number 27 on the list indicated that it was illegal to put up a tent, but it said nothing about sleeping outside. So I walked back to the car, pulled out my sleeping bag and pad, and had Ray pull the car up closer to the curb. I set up my bed between the front of the car and the curb, so it was nearly impossible to see that I was there. I was set up to sleep mostly under the front of the car. It was much warmer than it had been in Yellowstone. When we left, it was 16 degrees…during the day. It was supposed to snow before we left, but it seems we just missed the snow. Yesterday evening, while we were getting ready to sleep at the reststop, it snowed in Yellowstone. It was cold in Oregon, but not below freezing.

Before going to bed, we were looking at the map in the car, when a dog ran up to Ray’s side of the car. I hopped out to pet her, and realized it has been so long since I pet a dog. There are none in the park, so it had been quite some time. The dog’s owner came over and asked if she was bothering us. Not at all. The dog’s name was Gladdis, and her owner’s name was Hewey. He was a very friendly fellow, who told us stories of “Spanging” across the country for years. He said he is 50 years old. He asked if we had any weed. He told us of his first love who broke up with him when he was 27, and who he thinks about all the time. He was a nice fellow. He smelled terrible, though. We sat on the curb together, looking at the atlas, while he pointed out places we should go. I liked talking to him, while his dog kept going over to my bed and making herself comfortable. It was getting late, though, so we said goodnight, and never saw him again.

I fell asleep under the stars, listening to trucks idling in the parking lot. It reminded me of my 12th birthday, driving back from Assateague Island with my family, we stopped at a truck stop somewhere and spent the night in the airstream. I remember it being really hot and uncomfortable, and thinking how miserable it was to be spending my birthday in such a way. What a bratty thing to think.

I woke up from a really amazingly great night’s sleep at 8 in the morning. Ray was up and ready to go, and couldn’t believe that I actually spent the whole night out there. I had fallen asleep with my Kindle in my sleeping bag, reading Altas Shrugged. We gained an hour, by crossing into Pacific Time, and we have been driving since 8. I cooked us some Ramen in the car.

We are now 20 miles outside of Portland, where we will stay for the night with our friend Sole, from Lake. I have $100 for the next 10 days, and a plane ticket booked out of San Francisco on the 17th, to Bozeman, so I can pick up my flight home on the 18th. I can’t wait to see all that we’re going to see in the next couple of days. I’m having a ton of fun.

At the Columbia Gorge, on the border of WA and OR

Do me a favor and YouTube search “Honey Badger.” It’s the theme of this road trip. My stomach is hurting from laughing so much.

Finally, what I will not miss about living in the Park:

Bison jams.