From MT to ID to WA

I got a late start again, since I stayed up late last night (being very thankful to be in the world of the online-living again).

Even though I covered about the same distance, somehow, today seemed shorter. Maybe because it's the last leg of the trip. Maybe I'm just anxious to get here. In fact, I skipped lunch and I only took one nap!

BTW, I nearly choked on my food over breakfast (around 11:00 am MST), and I was paying attention to my food. So which of you, people, were talking about me?

Highs in the 80's today. Hardly any breeze. I figured I'd get darker this summer, more than usual, even if I stayed in the shade. And that's fine. Darker skin is more protected from the harmful effects of the sun, so it's a natural self-preservation mechanism.

Someday, I'm going to write a book on road psychology. How people behave when driving long distances. The concept of entrainment (where people tend to fall in step with the group) definitely comes into play. At one point, there were way too many cars on the road -- on both lanes. The speed limit had gone down to 65. People were all going 70. I released my cruise control and followed the 15-or-so-car caravan on the right lane to let people coming up fast behind me to overtake me. More cars followed behind me on my lane. Then it was as though everybody got hypnotized. We were all driving at the same speed. Even the cars who were about to overtake me slowed down a few carlengths behind me and stayed there. It was that way for several minutes; everybody keeping their position. Then I got bored, moved to the left lane, sped up, and pulled out of the pack. Then, as though the spell was broken, other cars started shifting around, speeding up a bit. The cars that were on the left lane came up close behind me. So, after giving myself some distance ahead of the lead car on the right lane, I moved back to the right lane and slowed down again. But when I looked back, the cars held back. In fact, the lead car on the left was nose-to-nose with the lead car on the right. And they all matched my speed. That's when I realized, people were afraid of getting caught speeding. That's why nobody wanted to go first. Well, I left the freeway soon after to get gas. And when I got back on, there was only the occasional truck on the road.

And then, near Snoqualmie, there was this silver car that came into the freeway. I moved to the left lane to let him in, but he sped up quickly, so I went back to the right lane behind him. Then he slowed down and I didn't want to reset my cruise control speed, so I overtook him. When I did, he matched my speed again, so he was right at my tail when I went back to the right lane. Then he went to the left lane to overtake me. I figured I didn't want to play games with this guy, so I slowed down from 75 to 73, he stayed at 8 o'clock. I slowed down to 70 to give him the hint. He did the same. I got frustrated and released my cruise control and went down to 60. He followed suit again. Then I looked at him to see what this guy was up to, and I saw him straining and looking nervously in his rear view mirror. When I threw up my hands, he realized there was no cop behind us and he cautiously moved ahead. He sped up again when we nearly caught up with another group of cars. He had no license plates; no wonder he was scared. It was probably a stolen car.

Two very cool moments on the road -- crossing the Columbia River and seeing Coeur d'Alene Lake.

I knew I had crossed into Idaho when I saw the sign in the mountains after cresting a steep climb. But I missed the sign coming into Washington. I guess I switched over to the Pacific Time Zone when I crossed into Idaho.

Snoqualmie didn't quite trigger any emotions, but seeing signs for North Bend did. I guess North Bend was the edge of the greater Seattle region that I emotionally consider home. When Jon and I were house-hunting in 1997, North Bend was the farthest east that we looked at.

The first two things I did when I got into town: 1) pick up the key to Katia's house, and 2) go to Cafe Ori for dinner and a mango pearl drink. :-)

A butterfly and a cloud of unnameable bugs caught in the filter right underneath the grill.