Friday, May 23, 2008

Is anyone missing a...

..little plastic baby-doll arm? It's out on highway 2, just before milepost 303.

I'm a bit wiggy today from lack of sleep. I haven't slept this poorly since that night I thought my tent might collapse from the wind. If you ever stay at the Rodeway Inn in Spokane, bring three things: earplugs, noseplugs, and a sleeping bag. The walls are so thin that not only was I subjected to the raucous afterparty at 2AM in the room next door, I pretty much heard everything that was happening within a five block radius. I'm not sure why so many women scream in that area. They didn't sound like they were under attack. Perhaps I was just too close to the bar scene. And if that wasn't enough, when I snuggled down under the covers to go to sleep, I was hit with an awful smell. The bedding smelled like urine. I think the sheets were actually clean, but the bedspread was not, and the smell permeated everything else. I pushed it all aside and used my sleeping bag. And to top it all off, the room was not as cheap as kayak.com said it would be. I ate the crap out of their lame free breakfast and hit the road.

The helpful signs directed me out of the city on a quiet suburban route, to meet up with 2 at the northern edge of the city. Well, almost. The signs disappeared toward the end, but Garmin and I found the highway and I was on my way.

The weather was cool, cloudy, a smidgen sprinkly and super windy. There also seemed to be a lot of traffic in the afternoon. I'm assuming people were heading out for the long weekend. The wind coupled with my lack of sleep sucked out my will to ride, so I didn't quite make my intended destination, but I did some respectable miles and found a nice place to camp. I had to pay to camp here (boo!), but I am camped under a shelter, which feels a bit like cheating but is really nice since it's supposed to be kinda rainy tonight and tomorrow. This way I can pack up a dry tent tomorrow and have no excuse to lay around. Barring some sort of intestinal parasite, I should cross over into Idaho tomorrow, because I am not too far from the border now.

5 comments:

MOM said...

All right Cheri. Sorry you had a crummy night. But, Idaho! Just wait until you get into Montana, you will really start feeling like you have made some time maybe huh?
Hafe a great day!

jickehnrackee said...

I hear that some dude named Idaho and said it was a Native American word, but really he just made it up.

NewsCat said...

I just thought of something you should maybe think about adding to your posts. Your mapquest shows where you are currently but not in correlation to where you've been. So if I'm reading a post of your from say, two weeks ago, unless you make a mention of your location I don't know where you were.

Just saying that someday you might want to know that information. So maybe at the end of your posts you can put a general location? Just a thought.

ali elizabeth said...

Cheri Lynn,
Your posts are GREAT and I can "hear" your voice as you write. Both you and Kim have a gift for writing and I hope you pursue it.

Keep it up, Chica! Love you lotz, and can't wait til you get here-

Uthuh Muthuh

PS. There is going to be an MP3 version of "Ballad" that will be available from the website. I'll let you know when it is ready.

jickehnrackee said...

in response to newscat, just wanted to mention that if you click on a cheri position in the map - a popup should say the date of the night she stayed there which can help when looking at older posts and posted dates.
also i just pulled a yucky tick off bear.