Road Trip as seen through eyes of a perpetual list maker

OK, so writing the trip in chapters is not going to work for me. Too many thoughts that don't matter run into each other and I simply cannot find joy in writing like that. Let's try something new. Something near and dear to my heart. Lists. Here are things we've done, seen, said and laughed at. I hoping that by expelling these bits, I may see the trip for what it surely must be... AMAZING.

1. Jasper (the park, not the city) is freaking huge... especially when it's pitch black out and you're tired and just want to get to Valemount and go to bed.

2. Following a truck through most of the windy turns in Jasper will do much to alleviate the feeling of impending doom that waits for you in the darkness.

3. Sometimes the Universe does all it can to correct the small mistakes that happen in life. When a travel booking site switched reservations for they wrong type of room, the wonderful woman at the hotel asked 20 or so rooms if they wanted to switch rooms and no one did. When we arrived, we let her know that the "mistake" was in fact what we wanted. We averted a small crisis and tension filled night. Yay Team Universe!



4. Driving along the highway... sorry, Freeway in American speak, in Washington, I noticed to the side of the road, in the distance, a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT. My mom and I spent a good half hour or so trekking back to find it so we could snap a picture of it... we even did a little off roading to find it.

5. I forgot to take out a toy out of the car I bought for my dog, Chyna (nicknamed Chin-nee) before we left. He is a stuffed guinea pig from Ikea and can now be found in random shots of the trip. He's been christened Guinea Chin-nee and has thus enjoyed the trip so far.

6. I had Guinea Chin-nee on my lap along the way, for no apparent reason other to keep it from falling out of the car while my mother was getting in and out. We had stopped for gas somewhere in Oregon and I was enjoy the Full Service station we had pulled in at. I gave the lad my credit card and was enjoying a moment of solitude. He came over to the window to check my ID (stupid boys name!) and walked away a moment later, with a look that was somewhere between fear and confusion. I didn't understand until I looked down. Not only was Guinea Chin-nee on my lap in plain sight, but I had be PETTING him! Rubbing his back and scratching behind his ears...

7. I spent the most delightful quarter of an hour on a deserted beach at 6 am in Lincoln City. Alone with nothing but my imagination and the ocean, looking through the haze at what was before and behind me, I caught the echo of something... the stirring of someone long passed. I saw this through the haze that had fallen and heard it through the pounding of the surf. A story lay within and I need only to coax it out.

It's late and after driving the insane I-80, I am off to bed... the list will continue a different day.

Road Trip... A story of the open road, told in chapters

Prologue

I decided to take my parents on a trip for their 40th wedding anniversary. A road trip to San Francisco, via the Oregon coast was soon decided upon. I would foot the bill for it all... food, gas, accommodations and attractions. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself until a few days later my father bailed out. When I re-iterated that this was an anniversary present for he and mom, he still didn't want to go, citing his health and inability to keep up with us. I tried to convince him otherwise, but could not change his mind. Now the poor man is stuck in Edmonton babysitting my two cats along with my mom's two dogs.... all of whom could win the douche-bag of the year contest-pet division.

And so the trip has been planned (my darling mother was given the task of booking motels and hotels along the way which necessitated researching mileage between stops and figuring it out what attractions we wanted to see and how long it would take us to do everything we wanted). We were to leave as soon as I was off work on Thursday... throw her bags in the trunk and hit the open road. What actually happened is that my cat, who had been at my parent's house for 4 days heard me come home and thought she was going to be thrown in her carrier and hid. Hid so well we couldn't find her when I wanted to say goodbye. Hid so well, we spent 30 minutes looking for her and believing she got out. My mother was muttering hateful things about my cat and I, in turn, was muttering hateful words about her attitude. We finally found her under a bed we had each looked under twice before. Tensions were still running high when we piled in the car. We made it as far as Stony Plain when I realized I couldn't see out of my streaky, dirty windshield. We stopped and bought Windex, since I had forgotten to pack some. After much spraying and wiping and veiled comments by us both about how late it was, we were finally on our way.