So much for updating daily

August 7-12, 2008

Well, anyone who knows me at all knows that my greatest sin is sloth, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that it's taken me 5 days to get to my next entry. There is startling little between Seattle and Chicago, so it won't be hard to sum up the things we've seen so far.

On the 7th we easily moved from eastern Washington well into Montana without even pulling off the road anywhere in Idaho. We stayed the night in Missoula.

I'm going to stop at this point, and ask you, the reader, a serious question. Have you ever eaten anything with the name "Buffalo" attached to it? (Things like Buffalo chicken wings) Did you enjoy it? If you did, are you mentally unstable? Because deciding to try the "Buffalo Snacker" at KFC cost me a perfectly good sandwich, which was NOT EVEN SALVAGABLE BY KETCHUP. This "Buffalo" sauce that is sometimes applied to chicken products is a sin against the delicious meat it covers. I once tried the "Buffalo Nuggets" at the WWU meal hall, and figured they were the product of a terrible mistake in the kitchen. Never again will I order anything with the word "Buffalo" attached to it, even if I suspect it might be in reference to something else. Buffalo sauce tastes like they dipped the meat in vinegar, and let it soak for at least a day. The flavor is impossible to ignore, and can't be covered up (trust me, I tried). I can only hope that my experience will serve to warn some unsuspecting person away from ever wasting their money on this vile version of fried chicken. My Public Service Announcement is done, now back to the road trip.

From Missoula we traveled north, to go see Glacier National Park, which is right next to the Canadian border. Gpa and I were a little saddened to see an unbelievable amount of gift shops all crammed into the southern end of the park. Once we got out and away on the road through the mountains, everything was scenic again. I only wish I had known it would take us 3-4 hours to drive through what was such a small section of highway on the map. Silly me, forgetting those winding mountain roads thousands of feet up.

We stopped that night where highway 2 (the one that went through the national park) intersects with I-15. The next morning Gpa suggested that in light of the 95 degree temperature, we wimp out and spend the day at one of the motels that would undoubtedly be at the Air Base in Great Falls. We did just that. It was the best motel we've been in so far, and had the lowest price (about 30$).

From there, we shot across the rest of Montana to Glendive, and from there to Jamestown the next day. Today we went from Jamestown to just east of Minneapolis, moving all the way through Minnesota, but not before running into trouble.

We had just finished spending an hour touring the "Mall of America", the biggest mall in the nation (which is sadly little more than an over sized version of any mediocre shopping center). I felt the engine kick, and realised too late that we had forgotten to stop for gas in Minneapolis, which was now at least 30 miles behind us. We were far enough away that there weren't any gas stations or even freeway exits in sight, so I just let the car coast to a stop on the side of the road. The only thing we could see was an overpass just in front of us, so I got out and starting climbing up the slope. By now it was 7:30pm, and starting to get dark. I got to the top, and much to my dismay there was a barbed wire fence blocking me from the road. It took me a few minutes to very carefully climb over this feeble 3-4 foot fence, realising that I hadn't really climbed anything in a while, and it gets tougher when you're 6 feet tall and 275 pounds.

I finally got to the road to look both ways and...nothing. For miles. To my right was literally miles of country road with nothing in sight, and to my left, barely discernible, were a couple farm houses probably a quarter mile down the road, covered in trees. The first house had an old lady in it whose expression gave me the impression she didn't really understand my situation, or was paranoid of overweight young men in shorts and sandals. She told me to try the house across the street, which turned out to be empty. Luckily from this point in the road I could make out a third house another quarter mile away, again hard to spot through trees and rolling hills. There I found a man kind enough to give me a ride to the nearest gas station and on to my car. As irony would have it, he had just gotten back 5 minutes ago from a 400 mile trip to Michigan. I spent a good deal of time repeating apologies and thanking him until my conscious was clear.

All told, when I got back to the car and put 3 gallons in the tank from the gas can the very nice man had let me borrow, only an hour had passed. We tried to give him some money for his time, but he wouldn't take any (I had payed for the gas at the station with the money I had on me), and told us to instead help the next person who needed it. I guess "Pay It Forward" is more than just a good movie with Kevin Spacey (if you haven't seen it, I'd recommend finding/renting it).

So now we're sitting in a Super Motel 8 in Wisconsin about an hour outside of Minneapolis. It's almost midnight, and I better get to sleep right away if I want to get 8 hours, because Gpa keeps waking me up at 8am. This wouldn't be so bad if we didn't keep changing time zones and losing an hour. I eagerly await gaining them back on the return trip, and sleeping in like the lazy slothful person we all know I am.

-Kings of the Road