Road Trip: Day 7

It wasn’t until just now, when I wrote the title above, that it occurred to me I’d been on the road nearly a week. Like most things, it feels longer than that, yet somehow shorter… eh, we’ll analyze that later.

Day 7 – aka, Tuesday – was already anticipated to be a rough day, hence the ‘day off’on Monday.  Day 6 was scheduled to be ‘Spokane, WA’ day, but if any part of this trip illustrates the make-it-up-as-we-go planning, it was Day 6. We found ourselves very much at home at our hotel in Coeur d’Alene, ID and extended our stay another night. We still traveled into Spokane the next morning for some good tourist fun…

Their public park has a giant Radio Flyer wagon. 

Yes, I absolutely went down the slide.

By early afternoon, however, we grew tired and had reached our fill of Spokane, so we headed back to the hotel for some napping and TV watching. That sounds horrible, I know. We’re in this beautiful resort town on a lake surrounded by mountains, and we spent the afternoon watching a Castle marathon.  But you know what? It’s our vacation, damn it. And we were tired. We also had this elephant in the room that was growing more difficult to ignore – my friend would be leaving tomorrow (Tuesday) and neither of us wanted to say goodbye. The shiny television helped distract us. 

We spent the evening in downtown Coeur d’Alene, walking along the boardwalk, drinking in a townie bar, cheering on the Monsters of the Midway, and digging into some Mexican food. (Side note: there are two ‘Mexican’ restaurants here. One had ‘spicy meatloaf’ as a main dish. That is NOT the restaurant we ate at.) After our fun in town we retired to the couch in our hotel room to watch some Fall Premiere TV. It was a fun evening, much like one we would’ve had at home in Chicago. (Sans boardwalk, of course) It was a fitting way to end our trip together.

Day 7 – It was a son of a bitch. Pardon the language, but it’s the best way to describe it. Due to the stress of moving & driving these past few weeks, my autoimmune disorder chose this morning to wreak havoc. (The stress of saying goodbye to my traveling buddy was most certainly the catalyst.) So we spent the morning running a few errands, filling up the gas tank, and finally washing the bugs off the car’s grill. (We had bees scavenging the dead bugs off the hood like some disturbing insect version of cannibalism. It was simultaneously disturbing & entertaining.) Those elephants in the room can’t be ignored, however, and at lunchtime I drove my friend to the airport and said goodbye. And then I cried.

Now it’s just me. I knew it eventually would be, but her flight home from Spokane had always seemed so far away. The city of Spokane and the state of Washington had always seemed so far away too, but here they are. And so she had to leave.

I spent the afternoon plotting my next few days of travel, downloading audiobooks, and again staring at the distraction known as television. More than anything, though, I spent the time adjusting to the fact that I’m now on my own for this journey. Yes, I have support in family and friends, but it’s just me in the car and it’ll just be making a home in the cities I end-up in. 

In an effort to end this on a happy note, however, I leave you with this clip from the ever brilliant sitcom, “Roseanne.” Clip selection made on my impending time in the state of Washington and my love of Laurie Metcalf.  

“It’s just me. It’s just me and my ganja.”