You're ever welcome with me any time you like.

There times in which even I am surprised at what I am capable of doing when I really want to.

Yesterday I drove approximately 13 hours straight, from Calgary to Seattle, Washington.

I started the day off late as I was dreading having to deal with my incredibly upset mother, I slept until about noon then decided I ought to get myself together and leave. Before departure I had a new muffler and break pads installed, as well as a new panel for my drivers side door that goes over the weather stripping. Without it I would have heard nothing but wind the whole way here.

As far as technology goes, I scored a Garmin GPS system for my car that I have ever so lovingly named "Gizmo", my father also set up some kind of freaky adapter for my car that has like 3 cigarette jacks, this way I can charge my phone, use gps, etc. I had a bit of trouble with the music, originally purchasing one of those FM Transmitters, only to discover that it sucks donkey balls. Then by chance, I stopped at Cash Converters while waiting for my new glasses to be made and found a super cheap audio system with an auxiliary input. Score! I had it installed about 20 minutes later and I am pretty sure that is the only reason I made it to my destination without dying. All the static from that damn FM thing would have driven me batty.

Anyhow, Thursday (late) afternoon I loaded up my car, set my GPS destination and set my iPod to Hunky Dory by David Bowie and headed south. Gizmo tried to lead me to hwy 22 but I chose to take hwy 1 to Fort Macleod instead, in hindsight it probably knew better and would have gotten me there faster. In any case I made one stop at Ford Mac for a Honey Bun and some Pirate cookies and an energy drink and headed straight to the Crows Nest Pass.

Crows Nest is actually a pretty easy drive, albeit a bit windy here and there but not bad for the most part. When I finally reached the border crossing I got hastled by the patrol officer a little, he searched my bags and for a moment I was pretty sure he was going to tear my car apart. He closed up my bags and sent me off with a little greasy eyeball. I was worried they were going to pull me over after exiting so I tried to do the speed limit. Cars came flying up behind me and honked and passed and I was thinking "wtf I am just doing the speed limit". Then shortly after nearly hitting a moose, I realized that the speed indicated was now 60MPH not 60KPH. Oops.

I stopped in some no where Idaho town to get gas at one point, immediately got creeped on by red necks. Once on the interstate it was smooth sailing for the most part, even though I had promised myself not to drive at night. The speed limit is about 112KPH and normally at home I would do about 140 but in fear of Idaho highway patrol, I did the limit nearly the entire way to Seattle. Got lost in Couer d'alene for a bit, went in circles with my GPS trying to figure out what the fuck I was doing.

By this time I was starting to become incredibly fatigued and was seriously contemplating pulling over and sleeping, but my tenacity kept me going. At one point I realized I had not taken my medication in 24 hours and decided to pull into the shoulder to get my pills out of the trunk. There was not a car or truck for miles, I stopped on a stretch of road in the middle of a desert of sorts. When I stepped out of the car I could feel the humidity and the air smelled like wet earth, the road was only illuminated by my hazard lights and the stars were brighter and clearer that I have ever seen. For once I could make out the little clusters of stars that look like little wisps of cloud. I wish I could have stayed there for awhile.

The drive between Spokane and Seattle is twisty and a little scary in the dark, at one point I could tell I was coming straight down the side of the mountain into the Seattle area, only able to see as far as my highbeams would allow and using my GPS map as a guide for the really sharp turns. I wish I could have done this part of the drive in daylight, I can imagine it is beautiful and probably much more fun. On the flip side there was hardly any traffic the entire way.

I put my iPod on Elliott Smith's XO for the last little stretch, did a little victory shuffle in my drivers seat as I entered Seattle. Gizmo decided to send me on a little tour of the sketchy parts of the city, which was the only time it seemed as if it didn't know where it was going. I figured the rest out and found the hotel. After all of that intense driving, I accidentally rolled into a parked car behind me on a hill... It was about 3:30 Seattle time by then, I was dead tired and remember looking in the mirror and one of my eyes was squintier than the other. :P

I crashed, hard. Yet I still had to take an Imovane because my brain was so over stimulated from the drive.

One day down, three weeks to go.