on the road again and again and again
2004-01-31

day 2 of the roadtrip is over. i am in salt lake city staying with sam and sterling and sam's birds. they live in a cute little house and have an air mattress. it's nice here. i am tempted to stay another day and watch the superbowl with them but think it best that i get back on the road. i still have another 3 days of driving, at least. gah. yesterday was painful...

alex helped me so much with loading the van and cleaning the apartment (a certain someone did no cleaning before taking off) and it was really difficult to say goodbye. i was crying and he stopped his truck and jumped out and adjusted my side mirror for me and it just made me cry more. stupid stupid stupid. i never said anything to him but maybe i should have but i like him a lot but there is a great deal of complications and whatever. someday i will tell all. bah.

as i am trying to leave portland i nail some dude's rearview mirror with mine, and he chases me down and i give him cash for it, apologizing and acting like a fucking stupid woman driver, crying and saying what a shitty day i've had, how i need to leave portland etc maybe for sympathy? i don't know. i felt really weak. i gave him cash and he left me alone and i freaked out a little more and finally got on the road and made it to boise with little incident. monkey went nuts in the truck, but i gave her herbal relaxers and calming balms and she managed to sleep. she also went crazy in the hotel room, meowing almost all night, despite a double dose of relaxers and my intense anger, scolding, pleading for quiet. i snuck her in there and was worried about getting caught, and also about not getting enough sleep.

driving from boise to salt lake was easy, which made me hopeful for the rest of the driving i have to do. i think i can do more than i expected. eight hour days are a more and more likely possibility. the roads seem to be kind to me. the speed limit outside of the cities is 75. that's more my style anyway.

soon i will be in chicago. it is cold there and there is snow on the ground and moving in will be a huge pain. hopefully i can do a lot of beer-based bribing and get it done relatively quickly.

we'll see.