My peaceful day of rest ended on a huge emotional roller coaster as I worked out the potential ways the rest of my journey might play out. When I thought up this whole enterprise, knowing I didn't have unlimited time to complete it, but also not wanting it to be a death race, I was figuring my bail-out plan would be to pick up a rental car and fast forward a portion of it, hopefully a dry hot hellish portion, having just done one of those from Yakima to Palouse Falls.
First I figured out my legs across Idaho to Lolo, now with the help of my Lewis & Clark and Transamerica bicycle maps, and was getting excited about the sights and terrain coming up.
Once I started looking at which car rental agencies have locations in or near my route, things started looking bleak. It looked like I would need to decide whether to pick up at Missoula or West Yellowstone. I figured a drop off at Casper would leave me a nice two to three day stretch into Scottsbluff. Budget: "We cannot allow you to pick up and drop off between those cities, and we cannot say why." Enterprise: Very helpful sounding guy, who looked at it a number of ways but also came up empty handed, while calling me "Lance" on the phone, but said my only chance would be to call National. National has only one drop off site in all of Wyoming, Jackson, a beautiful place for sure, but a ways off route and leaving me a death race across Wyoming still. Then I tried Hertz. And they came through. I was at the point of thinking I'd have to do a 180 or a loop and just come back. Not a total loss, but I already named the blog! Anyway, now I know I can make it, have fun along the way, and for now concentrate of some cool little campgrounds and maybe even some cabins on my way out to Lolo.
It's still hot out, but some clouds have moved in to block the direct sunlight, and it makes a huge difference. Tomorrow and the next day, highs are to be about twenty degrees cooler, so it's looking like a "go" again, where a few minutes ago I was thinking of that scene in Apollo 13 when Jim Lovell says "We just lost the moon."
The photo I'm posting with this was somewhere between Othello and Palouse Falls. I immediately thought of another abandoned bus up in Alaska... Theo knows which one I mean. Side note on Theo and Apollo 13, I have a photo of Theo and Fred Haise shaking hands from a few years ago when he stopped in at Boeing Field. Some day maybe he will think it's cool.
I'm about to go into another region of "buried in the mountains" highways, so no telling when my next chance to upload blatherings and photos. At the least, I send text message updates to Linda and/or Theo periodically so they have some idea how far I am along each day.
Good thing you don't have to rename the blog SEA2LWS. (I had to look up the airport code.) I'm digging these photos, btw. Totally speaks to my youth and Amber, Washington.
ReplyDeleteDid Alex Supertramp live in the bus up in AK?
ReplyDeleteI saw this movie once. It is called "Into the Wild". The guy lived in a bus kind of like the one in your photo. He died there. It's good you didn't think about staying in that bus.
ReplyDeleteI read the book Into The Wild while freezing to death in my tent each night as my friend Tom Noble and I flew across the US to see the festivities at Kitty Hawk in 2003. Made the book seem all the more real to see my breath as I read by flashlight.
ReplyDelete