Day 1 down

Day 1 of the road trip went as well as could be expected. Norbert and I had last-minute jitters and second-guesses right up until driving away from the house. Dad is definitely not well, and Sue and Paul are shouldering all the work making sure that he gets better after his midnight ramble, and safe in the house with Mom. These last-minute worries always kind of overshadowed the adventure that we started today, but we are going to press on, knowing that we may have to abort the trip at some point if something serious happens in Kamloops. It is a real tear...the timing in some ways couldn't be worse, but we will try and salvage what we can, and savour the sights and sounds of the west coast of America as much as we can.

We finally made it across the border by 2:30 p.m. and headed due south to Seattle. We crawled straight into rush hour traffic, despite having the platinum 'HOV' lane status. It didn't seem to make a damn bit of difference! So much for organization on those roads - it was a spaghetti web of lane changes and fly overs...but eventually we crawled through it...right into the same mess at Tacoma.

Stopped for a bite at Tacoma and a quick coffee - Norbert, not me (regrettably). I took over the wheel there and made it to our Portland destination, but I was definitely fading. A/C on and Norbert's iPod playing (if I hear Neil Young's 'Helpless' one more time I'm going to push him out the passenger door!) got me through, and we only made 1 wrong freeway exit (NAVIGATOR error!) before we made it to the hotel.

I slept like a log, and from the looks of these two boys still snoozing beside me on the beds, so did they. We'll have a quick breakfast and head as far as Redding, CA today. They say it's hot down there - I say BRING IT ON! The rain & gray of Vancouver is behind us, for the time being. With any luck and our good family willing, we may get to experience a bit of it.