nonionay | Road Trip, 2.0

So this weekend was the second road trip of my current mid-life crisis. This time,

kehrli accompanied me.

I saw a lot of things: pretty and fascinating, weird and horrific. I got to see a lot of friends, both expected and unexpected. I got my first speeding ticket! When I rented the car, I paid extra to authorize Keffy to drive it, and though I'm glad I did for the security it provided, I didn't need his help, which was just as well, because he had no desire to drive the tiny-windowed box we had been given.

The first obstacle we faced was getting out of the rental lot! We appeared to be completely hemmed in by other rental cars, but one of the staff said, "nah, you've got plenty of space!" indicating this tiny gap that opened onto the sidewalk. He guided my through, helped me avoid the streetlamp that was right in front of me (though I had to avoid the mother and baby walking down the sidewalk on my own.) and then make a hairpin turn onto a busy street. It did give me faith in the HHR's ability to maneuver in tight spaces. (And thank god I was sensible enough to get back to Seattle earlier rather than later. There was plenty of space to park the car in their weird triangular lot.)

Pictures and more behind the cut.

This is The Box, a Chevy HHR. Aside from the teeny windows, boxy appearance and relatively cramped seating area, I liked it. It was a lot like driving my dad's car.

The picture itself was taken in the Hanford Reach, right across the Columbia River from the old B Reactor, which has the dubious honor of being where they made the plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb.

The Drumheller Channels, which was my most distant goal for the trip. I'd heard it was a great example of the Channeled Scablands, where catastrophic floods carved up the basalt. I admit, I was hoping it would be less marshy, since I wanted to pretend I was on Mars, but I got to do that over on the Columbia River. However, there were mosquitos. Lots and lots of them. And, it was hazy, so we didn't spend much time there, instead driving through the small farming town of Othello which demonstrated neatly what is wrong with America by having huge McMansions right across from impoverished trailer parks, and featured a Hummer Limo with a battered spare tire driving down the main drag.

I survived the hypnotic monotony that is the straight stretch of highway through the Hanford Reach, and made it to

oddmanrush and

tideling's place in Yakima. They ended up driving us up to Ellensburg to have dinner with

nuin, which was an unexpected surprise. I'm so lousy at keeping up with my friends. Turns out

nuin has been in Ellensburg for a year now, living one of my dreams by working with the chimps at CWU.

Sunday I didn't have anything planned, in case our friends wanted to hang out. We got a bonus visit with another, newer friend, and wandered a farmers market that was being serenaded by an enthusiastic Elvis impersonator. It was a gorgeous day, I came out with some handmade soap, and Keffy got some super cheap produce, probably buying it from the very people who picked it.

Dead wasp

Live wasp

The dead one was at Hanford, the live one was guarding a decrepit bridge at a wildlife refuge in Lower Crab Creek Coulee, a lovely, isolated place. If I'd been willing to tromp through mud and leave my rental car parked in a not-really-a-parking-place, I could have explored the cool rock formations there, but instead, I just gazed longingly from a distance.

More Lower Crab Creek. Saddle Mountains in the background.

Bullethole-riddled sign post on the Columbia River.

If not for the speeding ticket (it was totally my fault. I was getting tired, and had been hypnotized by the road through the Reach) and waking up on Sunday morning to the news of a close friend unexpectedly losing her father (right after losing her grandmother), it would have been a most magnificent weekend.