Heather's alarm went off shortly after 4 am. We got up, but I felt like I hadn't slept at all. It was cold and dark outside, and we put a last few things in the car and were off. When we were leaving, I'm sure Heather and I were having a similar thought: how it felt so strange to be leaving Matt there. It was difficult to see the lake through the darkness as we pulled onto the road and sped away. The better part of the following hour we were driving on desolate country roads, but I was careful not to speed too much on account of wildlife potentially running in the road, and I was already feeling drowsy. We were listening to XM when I realized we were going the wrong way, and I had forgotten to take a turn that I knew I was supposed to. We had to continue to Banff in order to turn around, all in all adding about 20 minutes to the trip and seriously making me doubt whether we were going to make it to a gas station in Radium Hot Springs. This was a bad sign, as I took it to be that I was still overly fatigued, sleeping only 4 hours after being up for over 35, and was probably going to make a lot of mistakes in the day if I didn't rest more.
The next hour was tough, as while Heather slept I was driving us through winding mountains. It was getting increasingly lighter outside but not the light nor the radio was doing a very good job of keeping me awake and alert. It was practically painful, but managed to make it, thank fully. We were approaching Radium Hot Springs when Nubis threw up and we stopped, luckily, at a small stream next to the road where Heather rinsed the jacket in which she caught most of the vomit. After a few minutes, we continued on and stopped at a gas station to refill, where Heather spent almost $80 to fill my tank. From here Heather began driving and I pretty quickly passed out for an hour or more. When I woke up we were already back in Cranbrook. We stopped briefly, and while Heather was inside, a song came on the XM station that played 40's or 50's songs. It was a cute song and I sang a few bars (A bushel and a peck...) to Heather when she got back, as I thought it would have been a song she would enjoy, and she actually recognized the song as something her mother sang to her as a girl but she had never actually heard a real version. We continued on, mentally I was comparing the trip to a reverse of the trip I had taken a day prior.
Another hour and we were at the border crossing. They began asking details of the trip and car, and while I was trying to find the rental agreement they were asking Heather about more details, before I knew it she was in tears. They had also started looking around the car. Finally though, they let us through, and we continued on, and I bit disappointed by how much my superego quakes when confronted with authority figures. The drive through Idaho was very scenic, a far cry from the dark, desolate, lonely landscape I had gone through. Heather drove and made a few phone calls and I just enjoyed the scenery.
We ended up stopping in Sandpoint I think, ate at a Burger King and swapped positions. By now it was about 10:30 am, we had already been up about 6 hours. From here the path back deviated a little, and I opted to take highway 2 rather than 95 towards Spokane. The road, though single-lane, went pretty swiftly and was very scenic as it followed a lake or river for a long time. Heather fell asleep again and we went through Spokane without stopping, the plan to drive southwest through Spokane all the way into Oregon, then west to Portland. Eastern Washington was a very desolate place. It was dry and bare like a desert, with dust-devil tornadoes, reminiscent of New Mexico or Arizona. In fact, it was almost as if someone had juxtaposed this area with central Arizona (Flagstaff), which gave me a Pacific Northwest feel when we drove through it a year earlier.
A few hours later and we were going through Kennewick, but the directions weren't clear causing us to take a wrong turn and lose another 10 minutes or so. It was slightly counter-intuitive since to go south we had to get on I-82 East/Highway 395, and going the opposite direction of your destination usually doesn't get you there very quickly. As we were approaching the Oregon border, things were getting green and scenic again, and the gas tank was getting empty. The merger onto I-84 disappointed me with its lack of gas stations, but eventually we stopped at one in Alderdale or something. Here we refilled, bought snacks, refreshed, and continued on.
The drive was quite pleasant from here on. The road follows the Hood River very closely and the entire area was very scenic. There were occasional dams that we'd pass that I'd try to get a photo of or ask Heather to take a photo of. We made one last stop at a McDonald's for restrooms and phone calls. We were about an hour away by now, probably in Hood River, and we got a final address to plug into the GPS. Continued on a bit further, and it was becoming apparent the landscape was changing again, now with more hills and evergreens, quintessential Pacific Northwest. We approached Portland a little after 6, and met up with some traffic. Luckily, we didn't have to go through too much to get to Jordan's. Heather was noticeably excited, and we'd practically count the miles or minutes left until we arrived. We finally pulled up to a nice little house in a nice little neighborhood, and after 13 hours in the car, I was greeted by a very friendly golden retriever.
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