A Landing in the Emerald City

After a windy drive across western Montana, the Idaho Panhandle, and eastern Washington, Francine landed in the Emerald City with all her Munchkins safely aboard. We have done this drive before, a couple of times in fact, but the dramatic change in the landscape never fails to amaze me. You drives for miles across high desert, arid Mountain regions, and a few steep, green river valleys in the Idaho only to find more desert plains, more parched grass, and always more wind.

Just when you think this will go on forever, you start climbing, and in what seems like a blink of an eye, the color green begins to saturate your view. As we entered the Cascade range, Washington put on its most dramatic show, with clouds sprinting in and out of steep misty mountain valleys, rays of sunshine peeking through pine forests, and as you start to descend, Seattle unfolds before you, surrounded by the water. It truly is a wonderful juxtaposition.

Seattle is aptly nicknamed. It has been nearly 10 years since we have spent any time in this city and I had forgotten how wonderful it is. Wonderfully hilly neighborhoods of old houses, funky local shops and restaurants, vibrant gardens, and active, engaged, and intelligent people. While I tend to be personally skeptical of cities as possible long term living environs, if I were forced to choose a bigger city, Seattle would be at the top of the list.

The difference between this visit and our previous one was the weather, which has been amazing. Sunny, warm, and almost no rain. We have spent our time outside walking, sitting on our friends' porch, playing at the park, and touring the city. Yesterday was a quintessential day for us, we took a great walk around Green Lake, a city lake with a fabulous walking path around it. Given the weather, it was packed with a great cast of characters, both young and old. There were musicians, dancers, dancing rollerbladers, an old man on a recumbant bike "walking" a 4 pound dog, bearded guys in camo fishing for carp, voter registration tables, and a little kid going sailing with his dad while wearing his Darth Vader costume. Fabulous. And everyone was talking politics after the previous night's debate.

After our stroll we headed straight to the Pike Place Market, the epicenter of Seattle. If you like food, and who doesn't, Pike Place Market is heaven. We started out at Beechers for some of the finest macaroni and cheese on earth, moved on to have asian barbecued beef baked into bread, then on to some ice cream. In between, we saw flying sea food, acquired halibut, bread, vegetables, and flowers for dinner, checked out the original Starbucks complete with a significantly more racy logo than the current one, and listened to buskers playing everything from the Violent Femmes to Johnny Cash on a guitar and an accordion.

Today, after recovering from last night's festivities, which included a Maggie led dance party, we did absolutely nothing. We sat outside, enjoyed the phenomenal day, and spent time with good friends, both old and new. It has been a brilliant few days in the Emerald City, almost magic in fact.

Tomorrow we are off to explore more of Washington and looking forward to getting back into our road routine. As Dorothy said: "there is no place like home." Even if that home is an RV roaming across the country.

A Post for Team Panic

We purchased fuel here and thought of you.  Hope you are well and the future Team Panic member is coming along nicely . . . 

It Begins Again . . . Finally

Well folks, after fits, starts, stops, backtracking, foretracking, backpaining, wedding attending, and many other diversions, the Slow Lane is rolling again!  We are headed to Seattle tomorrow and will be spending the next couple month or two traveling the west coast.  We will be back to regular posting, with pictures and stories of the journey.  We appreciate all who read and are looking forward to sharing the next part of the journey with you.

Speaking of Following . . .

We have added a new feature on the right side of the blog for followers.  We always enjoy hearing from and knowing who is reading.  If you feel so inclined, please add yourself as a follower.

Follow Your Folly

There is a micro-brewery in Fort Collins, CO called the New Belgium Brewery.  They make excellent beer in a wind-powered, green, employee owned brewery, located just north of my parents house in Boulder, CO.  Over the last couple of years, they have had a really entertaining advertising campaign featuring the slogan "Follow Your Folly."  You can check out their website here:  www.followyourfolly.com

Don't worry, this post isn't an advertisement for 

New Belgium, nor did The Slow Lane sell out the blog to a massive corporate sponsorship deal to fund our journey (although a little extra coin would be nice).  No, this post is about the fact that for my 21st birthday (ahem), I decided to take New Belgium's advice.  I am following my folly.  Back in the day when I was still in grade school, and Ronald Reagan was president (see I really am 21), I was an avid skateboarder.  With a friendly group of miscreants, I would ride streets, curbs, and ramps all over the Greater Orono and Maple Plain area (we were big time).  They were fun times.  It was a good crew.  There were exhilarating runs down big "bomber"hills, which sometimes resulted in road rash, and there was the occasional broken bone when someone crashed down the roll in deck of a big half pipe.  But mostly, there were just long summer days spent riding your board all over the place.  Days when you arrived home tired, dirty, and happy.

In a fit of insanity (maybe inspired by New Belgium's products), I decided that I needed to relive those days a bit.  Who knew you could have a midlife crisis at 21?  Sure I have snowboarded for years, and even surfed the occasional break on a warm winter vacation, but I hadn't been on a skateboard in . . . well . . . at least 5 or 10 years (okay, maybe 15 or 20).  So what did I do? Well, I jumped on the trusty 'ole world wide web and ordered myself a 46 inch Arbor pin tail longboard, with Randall II trucks,  and Abec 11 wheels.  What does that mean exactly?  Even I don't fully know, but suffice it to say, the longboarding grandmother (true) who helped me pick it out says it is a great long cruising skateboard for an "older" skateboarder like me.  No more ramps, curbs, or pools for this camper, just some mellow sidewalk surfing is in order.

Operation Folly was initiated last week when I placed the order and then the waiting set in.  There truly is something to be said for not getting instant gratification.  I intentionally didn't choose to expedite the delivery, but rather accepted the offered ground shipping and bided my time.  I spent days thinking about my purchase and surprisingly, I felt no buyers remorse or sense of having come back to earth having been temporarily abducted by aliens.  No, I was genuinely excited.  I felt like a kid again and it felt good.

Yesterday was D-Day.  UPS so helpfully informed my that my package would arrive "sometime between 8 AM and 7 PM" and would have to be signed for.  They actually took the time to place an automated call to my cell phone to let me know that valuable information.  Phew, at least I didn't have to wait ALL day for it to arrive. (They make the cable guy look like an attorney billing every 6 minutes.)  So there I was, arms deep in skinning a chicken for an Indian feast when the UPS man arrived.  Then, I really felt like a kid again.  Cutting open the box, pulling out the goods, and trying on my new helmet for fit (I thought the helmet a prudent idea, given the circumstances).

After getting everything set up, it was off to the driveway for a test ride.  Surprisingly, it was a bit like riding a bike.  I actually didn't feel like a total beginner and was soon swerving around the cul-du-sac like a pro.  Well, at least as pro-like as a XX year old with 20 pounds to lose and two bulging disks in his back can look.  Nonetheless, it was a blast.  Even more so because I could put Maggie on the board with me and listen to her yell, cheer, and giggle as we carved some turns down the driveway.  At the end of our little session, we both were a little tired, a little dirty, and very happy.

So, here is to following your folly, which is what I will be doing on the next leg of the journey.  Carving down the sidewalks, bike paths, and RV parks of the Pacific Northwest.

Let the Games Begin!!!!!

Every fall a great event begins.  Across the nation families, friends, and co-workers come together in a spirit of sportsmanship and competition to drink beer, scream at the TV, and lament the fate of their chosen squad of football warriors.  I am no different . . . except . . . I bring my own cheering section.

All I can say is: GO VIKINGS!!!!!!

Piloting the V8 Prairie Schooner

After many fits and starts, the Slow Lane is headed back west.  While we have been west, then east, then west, then east, we are now really headed west for the rest of the journey.  To kick off the final phase (maybe) of the journey, we loaded up Sasquatch, our V8 Prairie Schooner and headed out across the Great Plains.  While we have previously crisscrossed both North Dakota and South Dakota, we had not made the journey across Nebraska, the gateway to the west, the manifest destiny superhighway.

In my past as a student at the University of Colorado, I had crossed Nebraska more times than I care to count.  In the early days, it was at least twice a year, as I stormed across the state in the middle of the night, headed home to Minnesota for Christmas, Spring Break, Summer Vacation, or other school season hiatuses. One year, in a fit of lunacy, I actually drove to Minnesota for the weekend, a feat I do not long to repeat.

 In fact, I can still tell you roughly where I am in Nebraska, just by looking at the scenery along I-80.  This is surprising to me, given the relative lack of scenery by mountain living standards, but goes to show that the subtle geography of place still exists in our ever developing world.  I always remember the feedlot west of North Platte, the hill country between Omaha and Lincoln, and the flat prairies between Grand Island and Kearny that roll past as the lush green of the midwest slowly morphs into the faded brown of the late summer west. This time, I only realized post haste that the Maranantha sign and white cross that used to adorn the roadside in central Nebraska is no longer there.  Or maybe it is and I just didn’t notice as the road blur lulled me into near oblivion.

When I was younger, Nebraska was to be crossed as quickly as possible.  Especially once I started long distance dating my then future wife, who still resided in Minnesota ( a fact I couldn’t fully comprehend at the time).  Today, with a child, a dog, and slower pace, we actually take a bit of time across Nebraska.  And while it isn’t a world tourist destination by most people’s accounts, there are some interesting sights to see, both kitschy and otherwise.  You could opt for the world’s largest ball of stamps, the Kool Aid museum, or Carhenge (yes, a Stonehenge of cars) if you so choose, but you can also get a sense of what it was like for the pioneers who traversed Nebraska on the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the Pony Express route; American pioneers in search of wealth, opportunity, and religious freedom.  For example, in Gothenburg, NE, you can see a sod house preserved from the 1800s and truly appreciate how hard frontier living was.

One way to experience a bit of Nebraska’s travel history is offered up in an unusual package.  As you drive down I-80 near Kearny, you will see a bizarre, giant highway overpass called the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument.  For those if you who have traveled across Illinois (God help you), the Archway Monument looks like one of those crazy highway rest stops built over the interstate, but it’s a museum, not a Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Cinnabun all rolled into one blood pressure and cholesterol increasing gas station.

As we have passed the Archway over the years we have always said: “we should stop at that place someday.”  Well, as one of Maggie’s favorite books so eloquently reminds us, “someday is not a day of the week.”  So, in a nod to the spirit of the Slow Lane, we gave this particular someday a permanent place on our calendar and stopped.  It was well worth it.  Through a series of exhibits, video clips, and an audio tour, this little museum takes you on a guided journey of the history of travel across Nebraska, starting with the pioneers and leading right up to the construction of the Interstate Highway System.  The museum - which sits very near the original site of Ft. Kearny, a way station for weary travelers of days gone by - is incredibly well done.  Maggie particularly enjoyed the authentic replica of a 60s diner, which is perched high above the cars speeding by on the highway below.

Over my many years of taking driving trips around the country, I can’t tell you how many times I have driven by something, only to offer up the almost reflexive: “we should stop and check that place out sometime.”  If you have experienced something similar, the best advice I can give you is this: STOP.  These little diversions are almost always short, interesting, and memorable.  They will stick with you.  You will laugh about them later.  You WILL remember them, no matter how silly.  As we continue to learn time and again on this trip, the journey is the destination.