:: Richard Barrett's blog ::

:: Saturday, August 23, 2003 ::

No internet access since Monday evening, so I wrote everything in Notepad for the trip. Here we go:

19 August 2003
10pm

Writing this in Notepad from the Warbonnet Best Western Inn in Miles City, Montana. There's no available internet connection so I'll just paste this into Blogger when I can hook up. What, a Best Western in eastern Montana doesn't equip the rooms with Wi-Fi hotspots? Wow, big surprise.

Left Spokane at around 6:20am Pacific Time. We stopped in Coeur d'Alene, ID for gas and to have breakfast at the Down the Street Cafe. It was immediately clear that we were no longer in the somewhat aristocratic state of Washington; the front page story of the local paper involved right-wing vigilante hermits threatening to use force against canoeists and whatnot who might raft in front of their property. There was a picture of one of these guys just sitting in front of the river with a shotgun, and the article discussed how this particular gentleman had Confederate flags all over his cabin, as well as "anti-immigration literature". There was also the matter of the cigarette ash on the toilet paper dispenser in the men's room of the restaurant.

Idaho, I have to say, is quite lovely, at least for the hour or so it takes to traverse the state's northern tip on I-90.

Montana is one damned big state. It took us right around eleven hours to get through most of it (I'd say we still have another hour and a half to go). The first half I suspect is much prettier when smoke isn't covering everything; I don't know if there's a forest fire going on or what that's causing that. We stopped in Missoula, Butte, and Billings (as well as some place between Missoula and Butte, can't remember exactly where) for gas, and we pulled into Miles City right around 9:30 Mountain Time, meaning we had about a fourteen hour travel day, with a grand total of about 700 miles driven. Taking out the time for meals, stops, etc., I'd say we're averaging about 60mph, and somewhere between 15-20mpg. Not bad for pulling a trailer, I suppose.

We called my Grandmother shortly after leaving Missoula. "Oh, did you make it to Missoula last night?" she asked. "No," I replied. "We just stopped there for gas just now. We stayed in Spokane last night."

"Oh," she said. "That's too bad. That really puts you behind, doesn't it?" (In case I didn't mention it before, my mother was campaigning hard to get us to skip the Spokane stop yesterday. Given the matter with the keys, we wouldn't have been able to get much farther than Spokane yesterday anyway, and my mother wound up being really thrilled we made the stop.)

"No. We're actually making quite good time."

"But it puts you a day behind, doesn't it? You're not going to make it by Friday this way."

"Yes, Grandmother, we will. We're making terrific time."

"Well, I'm just concerned whether or not you'll make it. You're about a day behind this way." I sighed and changed the subject.

The drive has been remarkably easy; we got up to around 70mph for much of the trip, and there were no problems with the stability of the trailer. Our average was pulled down by some of the hills, one in particular where we had to keep it down at about 20mph. It's an Outback, but it's still a 4-cylinder car pulling a trailer.

We got through roughly half of the audio book for Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone, my mother's first exposure to Harry Potter. She's enjoying it immensely, and I have to say I'm finding Jim Dale's reading of it to be most entertaining.

One more day like today, and I think Thursday should be relatively laid-back. We'll see. Signing off from Miles City, Montana.


20 August 2003
10:29pm

Woke up around 7:30 or so this morning, and after filling up with gas and somewhat lousy coffee we headed out of Miles City. As I told somebody else, if you ever come to Miles City, keep driving.

North Dakota is a lot of next-to-nothing for the first half or so of the state; when one finally hits civilization in Bismarck, it comes as kind of a shock. It's pretty, but one gets a bit tired of all the "No Services" signs at exits after awhile, particularly when one is hungry and desiring a better cup of coffee than one could find in Miles City.

We made it into Moorhead, MN at about 5pm Central Time, after roughly seven and a half hours of driving. The audiobook of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was concluding as we were pulling into a restaurant's parking lot for dinner. Bennigan's, an Irish-style Red Robin kind of place, was where we ate; pretty good. We almost ate at Perkins' for the second day in a row before we decided to branch out, and I'm glad we did. Mom's salmon Caesar was quite good; she was trying the seafood in a Midwestern town almost as a dare, and it was surprisingly tasty. My cheesesteak (called an O'Philly on the menu) was also very decent.

Mom insisted on starting the next Harry Potter audiobook when we got back in the car, and so we did. An hour and a half later or so we found ourselves (intentionally) in Barrett, Minnesota, population 355, my great-great-grandfather's namesake. It's a very nice small town in rural Minnesota; I'd love to go back when I've got a couple of days to do nothing but hang out there and talk to locals, see if anybody's been around long enough to remember any of Theodore's children. Not tremendously likely, but you never know. One of them, Richardson Damon, did stay in Minnesota after all (I've got his obituary from a Minneapolis paper). Looking in a local White Pages, I found it fascinating that there are no actual Barretts living in Barrett. A lot of businesses carry the name (including a meat packing facility that I suspect has its origins in Theodore's ranch), and there's a Barrett Lake, a Barrett Avenue, a Barrett Inn, and a Barrett Fire Department, but nobody *named* Barrett. I'm really curious to go back with time to kill and just see what the locals have to say.

We headed back to the highway and pulled into Albany around 10:15pm Central (and there's *still* no Wi-Fi in the hotel rooms. I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked). Pretty close to a thirteen hour travel day, and I'd say we averaged close to 70mph for the day. It's been a lot more consistently flat today than yesterday was, so that helps.

And I do have to say, rural Minnesota is absolutely beautiful. It's just big and open and green. There may be nothing but farmhouses around, but it's still some of the most gorgeous country I've ever seen.

Tomorrow we should easily make it to Hammond, Indiana, which will leave us about a three hour trip to Bloomington Friday morning. No sweat whatsoever.

21 August 2003
10:05pm

Left Albany at around 9:30am Central Time or thereabouts. Minneapolis and St. Paul are quite lovely driving through; it would be fun to go there and check them out further sometime. There are some beautiful churches scattered throughout that area, and some cathedrals that looked breathtaking. In general I just adored Minnesota. I'd love to go back.

Wisconsin, at least the section of it that's visible from I-94, didn't make much of an impression on me one way or the other, at least in terms of what we saw. We stopped at the Double K Korral, which is somewhere about an hour and a half outside of Madison, and sampled some of the cheese and the sausage--now, *that* left an impression on me. That was quite good. I would have liked to have time to stop at the House on the Rock and have an American Gods moment, but alas, maybe next trip.

Illinois we breezed through in about an hour and a half--well, actually, no. We *would* have breezed through Illinois in about an hour and a half if it had not been for all of the damned congestion around O'Hare International Airport. Chicago itself wasn't so bad, but the tollways around O'Hare were just insane. I was so happy to see the Chicago skyline again, and here's hoping I'm able to go back in a couple of weeks for Ben Heppner's free recital. Anyway, it took us about three hours or so to get through Illinois. We pulled into Hammond, Indiana (just across the state line from Chicago) at about 8:30 or so, and are at another Best Western. I've just had the most wonderfully spicy jerk chicken at the restaurant here; the gentleman who prepared it is himself of Carribean descent, and I asked him if it was his specialty. He grinned and said, "Oh, yes." The bar had to make my Manhattan with Jim Beam, though, since they didn't have Maker's Mark. I suspect I may have to lower my expectations with regard to liquor in some of the areas of Indiana that are a bit farther away from Indianapolis. Must remember to stop at a liquor store in Indianapolis tomorrow to try to procure some of the basics.

I must also make sure I get some tank tops--it's definitely hotter and muggier out here than what I'm used to. Not intolerable, but certainly more intense than the Seattle area. I must simply look forward to autumn cooling things off.

So, we had an eleven hour travel day, and drove roughly 520 miles. About 200 miles to go--we're almost there, and we should be there before noon tomorrow. Why in the world were people thinking that we wouldn't make it if we stopped in Spokane on Monday? We've made fantastic time, and we've done so without killing ourselves. Except for parts of Montana, it's been a really easy drive, and the trailer's been an easy pull. I was being warned that it would get really unstable if I went faster than 50 or so, and that just hasn't been the case. We've been going 70-75 or so for most of the trip, and it's been fine.

Anyway--embarking on the last lap tomorrow morning, and then this part of the Indiana adventure is over.

22 August 2003
10:38pm

Well, we made it.

We got to Bloomington at around 12:45pm or so; we had gotten a somewhat late start out of Hammond simply because we could afford to do so, and somewhere past Indianapolis stopped immediately when we saw a Starbucks, the first we had seen since leaving Seattle. The first real coffee we've really had since somewhere in Montana.

Dropped by the rental office to pick up the key to find that nobody was there; I went back to the car, called them, and found that in the two or three minutes it had taken for me to walk back to the car, the office person had returned from lunch. I turned around, picked up the key, and then we drove the two or three blocks from the office to the house.

All I can say is, the apartment is a major score. It's big, it's spacious, it's well-lit, everything in it is new, and it's just perfect in every way. Pictures (taken before we started bringing stuff up from the car) will be posted.

We unloaded the car and trailer, dropped off the trailer (man, oh man did it feel good to drive without that thing), and then headed out to do shop for groceries and some minor housewares. Along the way I got pulled over for the first time; I had turned the wrong way down a one-way street, being somewhat lost and looking in the wrong direction at the wrong time to see the sign. The cop was merciful and let me go.

The only thing that managed to not quite work out 100% perfectly is that there is, at present, no hot water; the gas company doesn't come until Monday. Oh well. It's hot enough that cool showers will probably feel quite good. I should have internet access as of tomorrow.

Signing off from Bloomington, Indiana, my new home.
:: Richard richardtenor@gmail.com 8:36 AM [+] ::
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Heading off to the Opera Factory, Day One.

The last couple of days have been fascinating. If it's been vital to the trip and could be lost, it's been lost. Thankfully, it's also been found, but not without some headaches.

So, yesterday morning we get up for church, and I couldn't easily find my car keys. No big deal; Megan drove in her car. When we got home, however, we still couldn't find my keys. After a couple of hours, with four pairs of eyes looking high and low for them with absolutely zero luck, zero luck finding the spare set (they're packed away someplace) and running up against a 5pm deadline to pick up the U-Haul trailer, we drove up to the only Subaru dealership in the area with a service department open on Sundays to have a new key made from the VIN number. Luckily it meant we got to see our friends Mark and Kathleen Powell once more before I took off (they lived right by the dealership), but we pulled into the U-Haul office at 4:45pm. No time to spare.

So then we loaded up the trailer and the car. While doing so, we found my keys, and they were in a very conspicuous spot over which all four pairs of eyes passed over in the search. Sigh. Well, I'll have a spare in Indiana, and apparently God thought it was important for us to see the Powells.

But it doesn't end there. Mom showed up at my in-laws' house this morning, and we headed out at about 8:30am. We stopped at Starbucks in Factoria to meet my friend Gavin for a last send-off (and so I could return his DVD of Fight Club, remind me to speak my piece on that flick sometime), then headed up the hill at about 10 to fill up on gas before getting out on the highway--and Mom says, "I can't find my wallet." Keep in mind that she's flying back to Anchorage from Indianapolis. Without ID, she won't be able to get on the plane. We can't leave without the wallet.

We drove back to my in-laws'. Not there. She called the 7-11 where she got coffee this morning. Not there. She called her cousin Davey, who was driving her around this morning, to see if it was perhaps in his car. He had dropped his car off in the shop, so he had to go out to West Seattle to check. He called back--it was there.

So, at long last, Mom's wallet in hand, we hit I-90 about noon, at least two and as many as four hours later than we had intended to leave at first. Ah well. We were only going as far as Spokane anyway.

I knew that my friends Larry Richardson and Rachel Endicott (husband-and-wife pair who are, respectively, a fellow tenor and former priest at the Episcopal parish I'm leaving) would be heading east today as well, going to Idaho for a few days. Sure enough, about 2 or so, I see their green Passat passing me on the left. A good unexpected wave was exchanged--probably the last time I'll see them for quite awhile.

So here we are in Spokane. It's been a fairly short first travel day, and as it works out that's a good thing. With low expectations for the day, it wasn't a big deal how late we were running. Tomorrow will be a bit of a different story. Watch this space for details.
:: Richard richardtenor@gmail.com 5:58 PM [+] ::
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