Saturday

We left our house at 6:56am, endlessly pleased with ourselves for making it out the door before 7am. Our drive to the border crossing took 44 minutes, and our high spirits quickly turned to irritation as we realized that every other person in BC had ALSO left their house before 7am, and were now in line to cross into the US ahead of us. We figured we were in for at least a two hour wait, but after 20 minutes or so the line started moving and we were able to get into the Duty Free lane for some much needed urination and goji-berry cheek tint (hey, I had to buy SOMETHING).

I was feeling pretty smug about the whole thing, actually – all the people who had arrived at the border insanely early only to cause a massive jam hadn’t realized that only 1 lane would be open until 8am; long weekend be damned. Soon after we arrived, they opened up EVERY lane and we were able to sail through the bus crossing, of all places. Naturally, I totally planned it like this and it was absolutely not a massive stroke of luck that had us in the States and on our way by 8:45 or so.

We only stopped once in Washington, in Federal Way. We both needed to pee and I decided I needed to go to Jack in the Box, where I had a breakfast bowl (without cheese sauce or e-coli). From there it was through the rest of Washington and to our first planned destination – Portland Oregon. I had grand aspirations to take advantage of the lack of sales tax, so we stopped at the sock store and Washington Square so I could go to Sephora (expensive makeup is even more awesome when there’s no state tax). We had lunch, molested Hello Kitty, then went to Target to stock up on beverages and salty chocolate before hitting the road again.

The original plan was to take the I5 straight through to California, but we decided to head west at Salem and take the coast down. The scenery was epic, and our first glimpse of the open Pacific Ocean was incredible. We stopped at a lookout, where Ed forced me to scale an insane cliff face so we could play on the beach at sunset. All phobias aside, it was totally worth it.

We were told at a gas station to head south until we got to Florence, where we could spend the night. The sun had set by the time we made it there, and we were looking forward to finding a hotel and getting some sleep, as we had been on the road for 13 hours at this point.

Yeah, that didn’t happen. Not one of the MANY motels in Florence had a single vacancy, so we were forced to travel further south on a windy road in pitch darkness. Finally, we came upon Reedsport and a blessed Vacancy sign at the Best Western. Sweet Jesus, BEDS!

And so it came to pass that we are currently holed up in what is probably the most expensive hotel in the middle of frickin’ nowhere. The room is costing us $129USD for the 10 hours we’ll be here, which is a little hard to swallow – but at the same time, we’re on vacation, we’re exhausted, we don’t know if we’ll have any luck down the road, and fuck it let’s just stay here.

Turns out that Florence is in the middle of a huge Harley Davidson Jamboree or something, and every room has been sold out for days. There’s a rodeo, a carnival, a car show AND a motorcycle show/meet all going on at the same time. We have excellent timing.

This update cost me $12.90 USD to write, and I can’t even upload it.

Pretend you’re reading this real time, ok?

good night!