Moving time

Two weeks before Thanksgiving 1985 we left western Washington in the middle of a snow storm and it followed us all the way to Denver, CO. We made it as far as Sunnyside, WA before we lost control of the car, did a circle in the middle of a 3 lane freeway and decided it was time to get off the road.

The next day we conquered the Blue Mtns. The Storm had caught up to us and now we were travelling in the middle of it. That day we made all the way from Sunnyside to Le Grand, OR. No, that's not very far, but when you are only gong 35 mph it seems like forever. In fact it did take us all day. Once we got there I promptly got myself locked in the bathroom butt nekkid. The door knob came off in my hand and try as we might (in between fits of laughter) there just wasn't any way we could get the door to open. Hubby called the front desk and they sent someone to fix the door. Meanwhile, I hid behind the shower curtain. The door was opened and nothing was hurt but, my delicate sensibilities. The maintenance man was very polite but, I was mortified anyway.

On we went thru Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, all beautiful country. When we got to Evanston, WY we pulled off I-84 and got a room at the flea baggiest motel we'd ever seen. Orange bedspread, olive green shag carpet and a two inch space under the door. It was long past due for redecorating. This was also the first place we saw drive up liquor. Coming from a state that only allows packaged beverages to be sold at state controlled liquor store's this was quite something to see.

The worst travel day was to come. When we pulled out of the motel the radio said that I-84 was closed. We were on a schedule, what were we going to do? We heard the Truckers at the restaurant were going to use "old hwy 30". We decided to follow them. In retrospect we should have stayed where we were. Almost as soon as we turned onto that old hwy we drove into a complete white out and the only thing we could see was a hint of red tail light in front of us.

We finally lost the light we were following and then were forced to pull over. That wasn't great idea. I mean we had no idea what was over there on the side of the road. We could have driven off a cliff for all we knew. This is where I cursed the idea of taking this stupid route. I wanted to go to San Diego and turn left. Then we couldn't sit there forever so we slowly pulled back on the road. When out of the mist I see I Cadillac with bull horns on the front headed right for us. We managed to escape injury and the weather cleared up when we got to Rock River, WY.

We stopped at the first post office/bar/drive up liquor and I ordered a double rum and coke. Blehh, it did nothing to settle my nerves.

Thankfully, the rest of the trip was uneventful. We arrived in Colorado Springs and commenced apartment hunting.