High Mountains and Low Points

As Matt and I climbed up the steep inclines of the Wyoming Rockies, our spirits were high. We were bolstered by the idea that by the same time the next morning, we would be in Portland. We were all set to go for our all-nighter of driving; we stocked up on water, snacks, fruits, trail mix, hummus, OJ, everything we could think of to keep up going through the night. I took the first shift. The Rockies were very slow going. The combination of gravity and a nasty head wind proved to be hell on our gas mileage. The scenery was gorgeous though, if not quite a bit alienating. We would go miles with out seeing another car, or even a road sign. We passed a few towns that actually boasted a population of "1." We could feel how high up and how far from everything we were. It was isolating to say the least.






When the ground leveled out before our big descent, we passed this oil refinery that claimed to be the most "modern" refinery in the west. We had a feeling they were lying.

The wind up there was tremendous, and consequently we saw even more expansive wind farms than we had up to that point. We also saw whole sections of the farm in the process of being assembled. They are even bigger on the ground. Look at how those propellers dwarf that 18 wheeler:

As we approached Utah it grew dark, and consequently there are no pictures for Utah or Idaho. I have no idea what they look like.

I was sleeping when we entered Oregon for the first time, but I awoke a little before 4 AM when we needed to gas up. What happened when we stopped almost broke my heart. I should preface this story with a little information. Ripley was mad at me. She had been in the car for about 18 hours and was not happy about it, in fact she was flipping out. She was stir crazy and wouldn't stop roaming the car for an exit. She found it when Sophie caused one of us to leave a door open a second to long. Once she was out of the car she started cautiously running, trying to find a safe place. There were a few guys our age in the gas station and all 4 of us started to surround her. Thats when she bolted. She ran around the building into an alley-like corner. I dove for her and tried to pin her down, but all I got was her hind legs, and that wasn't enough to hold her down. She ran back towards the pumps and then around to the other side of the building. Matt was in full chase of her at this point. We couldn't loose sight of her for a second otherwise we'd never find Ripley, my very black cat, in the just barely braking dusk light. She found a fenced in yard and ran through the bars. The fence was metal. It was comprised of vertical bars about 5 inches apart and 6 feet tall. It had two vertical bars, one 6 inches from the top, and one 6 inches from the bottom. There we were, Ripley at the other side of the yard, pressed up against the building, us on the other side of the fence, and my panic growing bigger by the second. Matt and I tried to figure out what to do. We decided that he would help me over the fence and I would get Ripley. I got to the top but I froze with fear. What if I couldn't get her? What if she ran away so fast I never saw her again? Why did she want to get away from me so bad? If she took off and we couldn't get her back would it be my fault? I started chocking on my panic and it tok all of Matt's encouragement to get me to drop down to the other side. Before I could get close enough to grab her she bolted towards the fence. She dodged past Matt and took off again towards the gas pumps, with Matt in close pursuit. They ran away from me and I was left panicking behind a locked fence. I was of no use trapped and I was scared to death of loosing Ripley. I don't know how, but I hopped that fence and ran with all I had in the direction Ripley took off in. Before I rounded the corner Matt yelled the most amazing and beautiful sentence he had ever said to me; "I got her!" I came around the corner to see Matt clutching Ripley in his arms and walking towards the car. I have never felt a wave of relief as thorough and debilitating as this one. We got into the car and I cried and sobbed as though I had actually lost her. My panic came rushing out of me in a torrent of tears. We sat in the car for a while, Matt trying to calm me down, and me sobbing so hard I could barely breathe. Its truly a miracle that Matt caught her. I know two people who have lost cats on road trips before and this was way closer than I ever wanted to get to loosing my cat.

The drive in to Portland is hazy. We were running on very little sleep combined with the emotional exhaustion we had just been through. We had been traveling with the bunnies Sadie and Ursa so we could drop them off at a boarding place and Matt and I decided to leave Ripley there as well. It was obvious that she couldn't travel any more and I never wanted to go through that again.

After dropping Ripley off and unloading the U-Haul, we made our way with Fern and Charlotte (our rats) to KC Englander and Karen Dapice's house. The two of them graciously agreed to let us crash for the night and to take the rats for us while we were in California. Fortunately for us their other roommates Nate Cann and Mary Yajko fell in love with the rats, and it seemed as though Karen fell pretty hard for Sophie:

We couldn't stay and sleep though because we had appointments to look at houses. The first one we looked at was perfect, but we decided to look at the others anyway. That was a waste of time and we decided on the first house. We put in our application that day and we got accepted yesterday! I don't have pictures, but when we get to Portland for good, I'll post some.

Karen and KC took us out for dinner and that was great. It was a bit of a walk to the restaurant, but on the way they told us as many things about Portland as they could think of. Thanks for the crash course guys!

The next day we headed out for California. We saw this cool mountain, I'm not sure what it is called, but it reminded me of Mt. Fuji -which I have never seen in person. It looks like its blowing a smoke ring!

We saw these weird little hills that looked like sand dunes. They also had these weird little trees that only grew on one side of them:

Then there were oil derricks as far as we could see. After seeing miles and miles of clean energy wind farms, seeing the huge expanse of oil fields made me feel a little queasy, especially since I was in the middle of driving all over the country.

At 11:00 PM we made it to Uncle Bob's house. We chatted with U Bob for awhile and he gave us a tour. We loved his "compound" as his Matt's sister Maria described it. We even got to sleep in a camper! It was definitely way bigger and nicer than Rocinante and it gave us some ideas for when we fix our camper up.

So to now catch everyone up on our extreme ups and downs of this last leg of our journey, here I am, in North Hollywood, LA, exhausted after a long day of defleaing my friend Lauren Kurnit's apartment. This morning I found a few fleas on Sophie. I have no idea how she got them, but she got them alright! Those of you who know me, dear readers, know that I have an extreme fear of parasites -I'd even go as far to say a phobia. It was awful. Matt was late for camping in Joshua Tree with Jared, Molly, and Zach Sheehan, and I had to miss watching a taping of "Weeds," but together I think we killed all the fleas on Sophie and in Lauren's apartment. It took a day of cleaning and trying to not cry every 5 minutes thinking about it but we got through it. Tomorrow will be a better day. Have sweet dreams everyone!

XOXO,
Christie