Going fast and going slow

The start of my year-long sabbatical was not auspicious. It was terrifying. We lined ourselves up for success (as best we know how) and boarded an early ferry at Duke Point to get in the Peace Arch lineup early. Well, Saturday at Peace Arch is a flaming nightmare so it ended up being a moot point. We waited for two torturous, bathroomless hours where I had to pee so badly I was sweating. I almost stabbed Ian when the border guard who clearly enjoyed his job a little too much asked if we had any fruits or vegetables and Ian paused and said we might instead of a hard NO. The guy was clearly looking for the no, so he jumped all over Ian and was like was that a yes or a no? I have to ask you again (or search your car…) and I was freaking out with a bladder that was physically causing me pain. God. WHY. 

I later read a news story on CBC about a poor unfortunate soul that got snagged at Peace Arch (aka the hellmouth) for having an old bottle of CBD oil forgotten in his car. They claimed to ‘test it’ for traces of THC and then said they were fining him $500 and banning him for life from the USA. Right, US. This guy with a dusty bottle of CBD is your real problem never mind you just had a record breaking year AND month of mass shootings- 611 in 2022, only second to 2021 apparently. Christ.

We finally got through that and Blaine WA was a lovely town I’m sure but I only had eyes for the info centre washrooms. Sweet relief. 

Our drive to Seattle was only marred by a traffic slowdown due to a car accident on the highway, which is just bad luck but as our bog down was cleared, I saw another more serious pile up on the bridge next to us. Phew. Could be worse right?

Yes about 100% worse…Like the rainstorm in Issaquah that ended up being quite the omen. It was pouring so hard that it was bouncing off the ground back up at us. We stopped to let Gidget out but that was a no-go for her and she and Ian got instantly drenched. Ian went back to grab our big water jug out of the trunk and all I could think was he could just hold a water bottle out in the rain and it’d get filled asap.

It was then I wondered out loud: Do you think it’ll be snowing on the Pass? Snohomish Pass isn’t really that high and on a normal sunny day, like we left in Blaine, no problem. 

Well, this is now and it was a BIG problem. We cruised out of Issaquah and headed to the Pass. We saw signs of weather coming but it was just a rain storm, so no biggie right? The weather alerts were flashing with ‘have traction tires’ and we did so we were fine.

Until we got to the pass and it was a blizzard. Close to whiteout conditions. Tons of cars ground to an uneasy stop, sliding sideways at the slightest brake or gas. We couldn’t see anything. I saw a minivan and a delivery van moving sideways instead of forward and broke out in a cold sweat. We started getting low on gas, which surprised the hell out of me because we were at a half tank going up. Things looked very desperate for about 45 nail-biting minutes. I foresaw a lot of what happened last time we did a winter road trip to California – having to double back, slither our way back to the coast and make a second attempt the next day on friendlier roads, abandoning our entire plan and days of travel and money on reservations.

Or, we’d get stuck on the freaking mountain overnight with no gas and no hope. 

I was grim. It was grim. A Sprinter van ahead of us was sliding sideways with zero traction, and we saw a minivan making the same moves. 

Maybe we’d just get hit by something instead?

But- at the last gasp, there was a glimmer of possibility. We inched forward, all of us in our hot cars with no visibility or awareness… And saw what happened. Three semis had jacknifed across the interstate and after that it was game over for normality. We joined the inchworm convoy and crawled, slalom-style, through the path the three semis left us in the carnage of weather and traffic. We made it little by little. We oozed down the mountain and to a gas station, where I watched with amusement and some shell shock that the state police were closing the Pass behind us. 

We got lucky. So lucky. 

Then we zipped off to Yakima, where we stayed in maybe the saddest, most crime-ridden looking Super8 I have ever seen. If I was Wyndham, I’d maybe distance myself from these chains that have clearly come off the hook a decade ago. You know it’s a great hotel (pardon, ‘motel’ though Ian informed me that it had internal hallways so that makes it a hotel, despite how sketchy) when there are theft awareness signs everywhere, the bathroom has a list of how much each bedsheet, towel, blanket and pillow costs if you steal or damage them. (For the curious a hand towel was $20, a pillow was $20 and the blankets were $50). Classy joint, this Super8. It also had a pool, which was generous of them…In an unheated and unlit indoor barn. I have never seen such a sad, dark pool. If I heard later that someone drowned in it, I wouldn’t be surprised. Did I mention this was the first week of November?

We did take all of our valuables with us to the room, which was fine except for an overwhelming mildew stink. I took note of their breakfast and we went there in the morning, which was pretty well stocked and maintained. The breakfast room had signs in it like ‘don’t remove breakfast items to your room’ and ‘customers must wear proper dining attire including shoes’ that did raise my eyebrows a bit…

Until I saw the fellow travellers sharing our stay. Yikes. One family in particular looked, to me, very much like a cross between ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ and ‘Deliverance’ but with a pretty serious obesity problem. They were flat out hideous. They drank the entire bottle of syrup for waffles. One man was wearing sweatpants (fine, they all were) and socks, no shoes. Their children had mullets. 

Well, onwards and upwards!