cymbidia
unrepentant pervert
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2001
- Posts
- 8,786
Well! What a trip it was getting from Up There to Down Here. I'm safe in northern CA again but it was an interesting adventure in traveling getting here.
I left Spokane early, early a couple Tuesday's ago, a few hours before dawn. A HUGE storm was coming and i had to get out of Dodge, you know? Have i mentioned that i have really bad night blindness? Anyway, it was snowing when i left - snowing hard. It was a blizzard but it was only going to get worse as the day and week wore on, so i had to go.
Ironically, in my haste to escape the torment of Spokane in the winter, i ended up following snowplows out of town. Snowplows travel about 30-35 miles/hour - but you know you can drive safely behind them. Since i couldn't see (dark + heavy snowfall), I thought it best to just tag along behind them.
Unfortunately, they turned off the highway after about an hour. Then it was me and the snow and the dark. I don't know if you've seen a map of the area of the country housing Spokane but, well, there's miles and miles and miles and miles of NOTHING outside the city in a south or western direction. (That is, of course, the direction i was traveling - south and west - back where the weather makes sense.)
So, i couldn't see.
Every so often, something bigger than me would come roaring up out of the dark snowstorm behind me, splash snow all over my windshield as it zoomed past, and leave me frantically steering my car, covered with snow, not even able to see the little i could see before the vehicle passed. I was sobbing and swearing. I was STILL going about 35 miles per hour; i couldn't see and, so, couldn't go any faster.
(In addition, i had Angel the cat with me. Angel the cat didn't like being in the car. At all. So she was sitting on the back of my seat and meowing. It was a very cat-complaining tone she was using, too. Nonstop [honest] cat meowing during all this. Nonstop for about the first two dark scary hours. Intermittently for hours and hours after that.)
I was terrified.
Out there, in the middle of nowhere, there are no street lights. No reflectors on the side of the road. No reflectors down the middle of the lanes. NOTHING at all to indicate you might be driving off the road and into the huge ditches that line the highway. There are almost no exits off the highway - and the ones i saw were not plowed so i didn't dare get off the road. And it was still pouring snow. During the next hour of driving in the darkness, i passed at least 5 or 6 vehicles - cars, 4 wheel drives, BIG trucks - that had slid or driven off the road. I came to a rest stop but the exit was blocked by a semi that had slid off the ramp and lay asprawl across it. I had to back down the exit ramp, my car sliding and slipping toward those treacherous sides of the road as i did, the darkness weighing heavily on me. I couldn't go forward, i couldn't go around the truck, and i couldn't stop. I had to keep driving.
It eventually got light.
I was ragged and sweating and still sobbing and scared - but the sun was coming and i could ****SEE**** again. Light is a wonderful thing. I stopped for coffee (which i didn't dare drink as i drove; the road was way too bad for one-handed driving) and then got back on the highway. I wanted to get OUT of Washington.
I turned onto Highway 395 and, like magic, the snow began the thin.
Highway 395 is a special road to me. When i was growing up in San Diego, it was our primary means of navigating the county, and the road we took to go anyplace - and then home again.
Want to go to the beach? Get on 395...
To the zoo? 395...
To the mall? 395...
Into San Diego? 395...
One needed 395 for everything.
So i got onto 395, heading southwest. As the snow began to thin, my spirits began to rise. The temp started to rise, too. After a few miles, i had to put sunglasses on and i almost cried from the joy of needing them, from heading southwest (= HOME!), and from surviving exile.
I got to Oregon before i stopped, wildly exhilarated at getting that far. I was sure that everything would be okay from now on.
It almost didn't matter that i woke with a migraine the next morning and could get only 150 miles in the torrential driving unbelievable rain storm Oregon was victim to. (It was doing the same, but with snow, in Washington. I'd chosen wisely in leaving the day before.) I ended up stopping early (that migraine... oh gods...) and spent the night in Ashland (the town of Shakespeare Festival fame). I need to go back there, it looked like a wonderful, beautiful, very special little place.
The next morning i got up (no migraine!), and navigated a very steep, snow-covered, trechorous pass - then burst down the mountain like an arrow toward a target - passing, finally, into California. I screamed as i passed the sign, screamed and whooped and yelled - and scared the bejeezus out of poor Angel. (She went into hiding and didn't come out for awhile.)
Drove like a bat out of hell at an average of 85mph all the way down on I5 to Vallejo. Spent the night. Came home to Sonoma county on Friday.
Got electricity and gas (heat and light) in the house on Saturday - and moved in with a sleeping bag and the cat.
A small shipment of furniture came on Monday.
I had a bed! (No sheets, though there are enough pillows here for everyone i know to have one of their own.) I had a chair to sit in! I had a desk onto which i could put my computer! I had some pots and pans!
On Tuesday, i was supposed to get phones.
Then the house troubles began.
Suffice it to say that since Tuesday, i've been doing little else but trying to get phones into this house. We had two tenants in here while we were away - and at least one of them did a bunch of do-it-yourself phone lines into the house.
I was using my cell phone for everything. All my calls. It was dying. The roaming charges were mounting even though i was using calling cards for most of the calls i made.
There are 10 phone jacks in this house; 4 of them worked - and those seemed to work only intermittantly.
I stayed home all day on Tuesday, waiting for the Pacific Bell (our local phone complany) repair person who was supposed to show up. Never came. I was screaming into phones on Tuesday night. They assured me that someone whould be here between 10am and 2 pm on Wedensday.
At someplace near 3pm, after i'd been on the phone again with Pac Bell, over and over, trying to find out WHERE THE HELL IS THE REPAIR PERSON?????, a really nice, really skilled, very professional Pac Bell fix-it guy came out here to fix the lines. He left here (this sounds unbelievable but i swear it's true) just before 9pm. He was up and down telephone polls at least twice that i know of. He spent a long long long long time under the house, rewiring, coming out only to mutter about people who do it themselves. All the phone outlets in the house were hanging off the wall, looking dangerous. When the computer guy came to fix my computer (i hadn't been able to get online with the phones not working - right? - and had no tv, no stereo, no net - nothing. I was reading alot, though, and saw a bunch of movies - go see Ocean's Eleven and My Life As A House) he talked to the phone guy, then plugged my computer, did some tests, and replaced my modem.
At the end of the night, i had working phone numbers in my house and, so, a computer. Ahhhhhhhh. Civilization, at last.
So, i'm home and, in words made famous by the Grateful Dead, what a long strange trip it's been.
For me, living in Spokane for two years was... difficult. Deliberately, i made no friends (except for my neighbor Cheryl - the world's *best* neighbor). I didn't want to miss anyone when i left to come back home. Unfortunately, that meant i was incredibly lonely and isolated and increasingly withdrawn during the two-and-a-piece years i was there. When i got there, i i was plunged immediately into the life-or-death mess of my daughter's immediate hospitalization for anorexia. For me, i know that my thoughts of Spokane will be forever bound up with feelings of utter despair and anguish and devastation for that. Additionally, snow is pretty on holiday cards but it SUCKS when you have to live in it. To this born-and-raised San Diego girl, the day-to-day reality of living in the snow produced an incredibly high level of anxiety. By the second summer, the end of my first year there, i knew what was coming and couldn't really enjoy the (very brief) spell of good weather for fear of the long long long frozen slippery cold to come.
Understatement: i am glad to be home. I am glad to be home, to a place where the hills are green in winter the way they're supposed to be, to a place where the weather makes sense. I'm glad to be home to a place i've lived for almost my entire adult life, a place where i know the streets, the stores, the temperature of the people, to a place where i have a history and friends. I belong here. I'm never moving out of California, probably never moving away from Sonoma county, ever ever again. (And it's gonna be YEARS before i'll be willing to go to Tahoe in the winter, too. Screw that snow action. I am fucking scarred.)
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.
Happy holidays, indeed.
I left Spokane early, early a couple Tuesday's ago, a few hours before dawn. A HUGE storm was coming and i had to get out of Dodge, you know? Have i mentioned that i have really bad night blindness? Anyway, it was snowing when i left - snowing hard. It was a blizzard but it was only going to get worse as the day and week wore on, so i had to go.
Ironically, in my haste to escape the torment of Spokane in the winter, i ended up following snowplows out of town. Snowplows travel about 30-35 miles/hour - but you know you can drive safely behind them. Since i couldn't see (dark + heavy snowfall), I thought it best to just tag along behind them.
Unfortunately, they turned off the highway after about an hour. Then it was me and the snow and the dark. I don't know if you've seen a map of the area of the country housing Spokane but, well, there's miles and miles and miles and miles of NOTHING outside the city in a south or western direction. (That is, of course, the direction i was traveling - south and west - back where the weather makes sense.)
So, i couldn't see.
Every so often, something bigger than me would come roaring up out of the dark snowstorm behind me, splash snow all over my windshield as it zoomed past, and leave me frantically steering my car, covered with snow, not even able to see the little i could see before the vehicle passed. I was sobbing and swearing. I was STILL going about 35 miles per hour; i couldn't see and, so, couldn't go any faster.
(In addition, i had Angel the cat with me. Angel the cat didn't like being in the car. At all. So she was sitting on the back of my seat and meowing. It was a very cat-complaining tone she was using, too. Nonstop [honest] cat meowing during all this. Nonstop for about the first two dark scary hours. Intermittently for hours and hours after that.)
I was terrified.
Out there, in the middle of nowhere, there are no street lights. No reflectors on the side of the road. No reflectors down the middle of the lanes. NOTHING at all to indicate you might be driving off the road and into the huge ditches that line the highway. There are almost no exits off the highway - and the ones i saw were not plowed so i didn't dare get off the road. And it was still pouring snow. During the next hour of driving in the darkness, i passed at least 5 or 6 vehicles - cars, 4 wheel drives, BIG trucks - that had slid or driven off the road. I came to a rest stop but the exit was blocked by a semi that had slid off the ramp and lay asprawl across it. I had to back down the exit ramp, my car sliding and slipping toward those treacherous sides of the road as i did, the darkness weighing heavily on me. I couldn't go forward, i couldn't go around the truck, and i couldn't stop. I had to keep driving.
It eventually got light.
I was ragged and sweating and still sobbing and scared - but the sun was coming and i could ****SEE**** again. Light is a wonderful thing. I stopped for coffee (which i didn't dare drink as i drove; the road was way too bad for one-handed driving) and then got back on the highway. I wanted to get OUT of Washington.
I turned onto Highway 395 and, like magic, the snow began the thin.
Highway 395 is a special road to me. When i was growing up in San Diego, it was our primary means of navigating the county, and the road we took to go anyplace - and then home again.
Want to go to the beach? Get on 395...
To the zoo? 395...
To the mall? 395...
Into San Diego? 395...
One needed 395 for everything.
So i got onto 395, heading southwest. As the snow began to thin, my spirits began to rise. The temp started to rise, too. After a few miles, i had to put sunglasses on and i almost cried from the joy of needing them, from heading southwest (= HOME!), and from surviving exile.
I got to Oregon before i stopped, wildly exhilarated at getting that far. I was sure that everything would be okay from now on.
It almost didn't matter that i woke with a migraine the next morning and could get only 150 miles in the torrential driving unbelievable rain storm Oregon was victim to. (It was doing the same, but with snow, in Washington. I'd chosen wisely in leaving the day before.) I ended up stopping early (that migraine... oh gods...) and spent the night in Ashland (the town of Shakespeare Festival fame). I need to go back there, it looked like a wonderful, beautiful, very special little place.
The next morning i got up (no migraine!), and navigated a very steep, snow-covered, trechorous pass - then burst down the mountain like an arrow toward a target - passing, finally, into California. I screamed as i passed the sign, screamed and whooped and yelled - and scared the bejeezus out of poor Angel. (She went into hiding and didn't come out for awhile.)
Drove like a bat out of hell at an average of 85mph all the way down on I5 to Vallejo. Spent the night. Came home to Sonoma county on Friday.
Got electricity and gas (heat and light) in the house on Saturday - and moved in with a sleeping bag and the cat.
A small shipment of furniture came on Monday.
I had a bed! (No sheets, though there are enough pillows here for everyone i know to have one of their own.) I had a chair to sit in! I had a desk onto which i could put my computer! I had some pots and pans!
On Tuesday, i was supposed to get phones.
Then the house troubles began.
Suffice it to say that since Tuesday, i've been doing little else but trying to get phones into this house. We had two tenants in here while we were away - and at least one of them did a bunch of do-it-yourself phone lines into the house.
I was using my cell phone for everything. All my calls. It was dying. The roaming charges were mounting even though i was using calling cards for most of the calls i made.
There are 10 phone jacks in this house; 4 of them worked - and those seemed to work only intermittantly.
I stayed home all day on Tuesday, waiting for the Pacific Bell (our local phone complany) repair person who was supposed to show up. Never came. I was screaming into phones on Tuesday night. They assured me that someone whould be here between 10am and 2 pm on Wedensday.
At someplace near 3pm, after i'd been on the phone again with Pac Bell, over and over, trying to find out WHERE THE HELL IS THE REPAIR PERSON?????, a really nice, really skilled, very professional Pac Bell fix-it guy came out here to fix the lines. He left here (this sounds unbelievable but i swear it's true) just before 9pm. He was up and down telephone polls at least twice that i know of. He spent a long long long long time under the house, rewiring, coming out only to mutter about people who do it themselves. All the phone outlets in the house were hanging off the wall, looking dangerous. When the computer guy came to fix my computer (i hadn't been able to get online with the phones not working - right? - and had no tv, no stereo, no net - nothing. I was reading alot, though, and saw a bunch of movies - go see Ocean's Eleven and My Life As A House) he talked to the phone guy, then plugged my computer, did some tests, and replaced my modem.
At the end of the night, i had working phone numbers in my house and, so, a computer. Ahhhhhhhh. Civilization, at last.
So, i'm home and, in words made famous by the Grateful Dead, what a long strange trip it's been.
For me, living in Spokane for two years was... difficult. Deliberately, i made no friends (except for my neighbor Cheryl - the world's *best* neighbor). I didn't want to miss anyone when i left to come back home. Unfortunately, that meant i was incredibly lonely and isolated and increasingly withdrawn during the two-and-a-piece years i was there. When i got there, i i was plunged immediately into the life-or-death mess of my daughter's immediate hospitalization for anorexia. For me, i know that my thoughts of Spokane will be forever bound up with feelings of utter despair and anguish and devastation for that. Additionally, snow is pretty on holiday cards but it SUCKS when you have to live in it. To this born-and-raised San Diego girl, the day-to-day reality of living in the snow produced an incredibly high level of anxiety. By the second summer, the end of my first year there, i knew what was coming and couldn't really enjoy the (very brief) spell of good weather for fear of the long long long frozen slippery cold to come.
Understatement: i am glad to be home. I am glad to be home, to a place where the hills are green in winter the way they're supposed to be, to a place where the weather makes sense. I'm glad to be home to a place i've lived for almost my entire adult life, a place where i know the streets, the stores, the temperature of the people, to a place where i have a history and friends. I belong here. I'm never moving out of California, probably never moving away from Sonoma county, ever ever again. (And it's gonna be YEARS before i'll be willing to go to Tahoe in the winter, too. Screw that snow action. I am fucking scarred.)
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.
Happy holidays, indeed.
