The Day One Dispatch.

Here We Go

OK, so here we go…Berty’s snoring may have made me partly sleepless in Seattle last night, but we were pumped and ready to go this morning. After a quick stop at the local Starbucks (No Pike’s Place blend thank goodness), we shuffled off onto I-5 to begin our 633 mile journey. My original woes about traveling through the newly snowed-on Snoqualmie pass were quickly quelled as we scooted through the pass. Salty wet roadways and cinders were all we had to deal with, and before we knew it, we were on the arid side of the Cascades. Berty never knew Central and Eastern WA were a desert and was pleasantly surprised.

Oregon…long story short, they’re dumb. Like NJ, they won’t let you pump your own gasoline. Also, their highway speed limit is 65, the lowest of any Western state. (70 in WA and 75 in ID). Jerks. We swapped out drivers in Pendleton after a scrumptious lunch at a local Wendy’s. After crossing over into the Mountain Time zone, we went across the Snake River into Idaho. Boise was OK, but boy oh boy…just East of there, the landscape turned into a barren wasteland. It was windy as heck, and the wind farms’ propellers weren’t even turning. Weird. Berty even hit a real live tumbleweed. But then, as we neared our destination for the day, Twin Falls, things got really cool really fast. The Snake River actually carved out a ridiculous gorge – something neither of us expected when all we were driving on was flat land with only the Sawtooth Mountains in the far distance. It turns out the US 93 bridge over the gorge is the only bridge in the country you can jump off of without a permit. Apparently, lots of inexperienced folks have fallen to their doom here…creepy! Tomorrow we’re going to check out some waterfalls on the river, and some ‘lava domes’ on our way across the Tetons into Wyoming. It’s supposed to be unseasonably cold and snowy, but I think it’s going to be a great day.

The Beginning

Mattski said I snored, but I swear to God I don’t. Unless of course I was dead tired because I had been up for almost 20 hours straight. But I digress…I slept like a baby and don’t give a damn if I kept him up all night!

We started out fairly early for Mattski, but kind of late for me. My kids at home routinely wake me up around 5:30 to 6:00 in the morning, so I actually got to sleep in until 6:30. Joy!

After raiding the hotel breakfast bar we stopped and got some more coffee (I haven’t changed my mind – Pikes Place blend at Starbucks still sucks) and were on our way. Mattski has this infatuation with road signs and he started yelling at me right away to start taking pictures of Interstate signs. Like I brought 3 cameras to take pictures of ONLY road signs. In fact, when I go out to take pictures for pleasure, I’m usually pissed that the signs get in the way.

The first part of the day was pretty awesome. Though my traveling partner fretted like a weenie, we made it through the Snoqualmie Pass with no problems.

And it was freaking beautiful. Though we encountered a little weather, it was nothing compared to the 22 inches of snow that the Stevens Pass got. Our original route had to be modified and, though the new route we took was nice, we were still a little bummed.

Check out the photos in the Photo section of this site and you’ll see some pretty cool images. It really is amazing what you see when you drive through there, but it’s even more shocking what happens after. As soon as you crest the pass, you start heading into slightly warmer weather, and much different conditions. Hardly any snow was on the ground and the land slowly transformed into a desert.

That’s right…a freaking desert. In Washington. Who knew? Apparently everyone but me.

As we continued on through Washington, stopping briefly at Yakima (the self-proclaimed “Palm Springs of Washington”) to get some supplies from Best Buy and wash the car, we watched the land change even more. Continuing through Oregon and then Idaho, the land went from mountainous beauty to featureless desert, to hilly beauty to treeless land, to an area that looked like they dropped the atomic bomb on it to an amazing river gorge. All that in around 630 miles.

Snake River Gorge

We stopped at Twin Falls, Idaho. Looking on a map you don’t really get to see what’s there until you’re there. I know, that doesn’t make sense, but when we arrived there we were pleasantly surprised to a see the unbelievably gorgeous Snake River valley gorge about a half a mile from our hotel (click on the picture above for a nice panorama of the gorge).

And then we had a fantastic meal at a restaurant called Jakers. We met Jake. Nice guy!

Take a Look at the Photos!

Head on over to the Photos section to see 30 Day One photos.

Seattle, WA, to Twin Falls, ID

This Is An Eye Test

Did you pass the test? Were you able to actually read that map above there? You're a freaking liar.

We know you can't read the map. Just relax. Take a deep breath, will ya? It was either post a crappy map like that above, or use an “iframe” to insert a Google map — which, by the way, is pretty cool — that would crash your browser and have you swearing because it took so long to load this page.

But that doesn't solve our problem now does it? So this is what you can do. Head on down to Walgreens or CVS or Eckerd — actually, skip Eckerd…I don't like them — and grab yourself a pair of those magnifying eyeglasses. You know the ones that you buy because you're avoiding the eye doctor and are too cheap to pay for real glasses?

What? That's not a good solution? You're in your underwear right now and surfing the web and don't want to get dressed?

Is that the only solution? Hells no. Geeks have friends that are geeks, or know of geeks that make geeky things to solve geek problems. Though the guy who will solve our problem doesn't know us, he's okay in our book because he wrote a wicked cool JavaScript function that solves our problem. Just click on the image of the map and see what I mean.

Javascript not working on your browser? Well, in that case, head on over to the Route page of this site and have fun with the Google map that is there. You can move it around, zoom in and out, click on “Ter” in the upper right corner and see the topography. Go ahead. Knock yourself out.

When you're done, just come on back to the Day by Day pages to read the stories and test your vision.

And put on some freaking pants, for crying out loud! What kind of sicko are you anyway, surfing the Internets in your underwear?