Day 3 - Seattle to West Bend

Our completely out in the open stealth camping at a campsite worked out problem-free. Brendan even got to take a shower because the men's restroom was unlocked. I used the restroom, but couldn't bring myself to strip and shower in case someone walked in. I settled for washing the top of my head in the sink.

We got up the next morning at 5:32am, much to my dismay and protests. Once I stood up, though, I felt a little more awake and ready to deal with the early-morning world. Plus, we wanted to get out of there before anyone woke up. We succeeded. We used the restrooms in the truck stop, then asked around to see if we could get a nice long ride with a trucker again. No go, so we made our way out to the I-90 east entrance and were standing there by 6:35am.

At 6:41am we got a ride with a nice guy named Dusty. He wasn't going far, but he could take us to the truck stop on the other side of Billings. Dusty was our age and was very interested in traveling. He got the bug when he was 18 years old and won a trip to Australia from a Powerade bottle. Now he is married and has a 17 month old son, so he thinks it will be more difficult. We told him about couchsurfing and about our friends who braved the seas to live in Germany with their two-year old daughter (okay, so they flew across the ocean). He seemed pretty interested, so I hope he follows through on traveling more.

It was about 7am when he dropped us off at the truck stop. We went into a McDonald's there so I could get a cup of coffee and while I was paying for it, Brendan was being offered a pair of nice hiking boots from a trucker. The tape on Brendan's shoes attracts a lot of attention. Brendan assured the trucker that he was happy with the shoes he had, and that he had more shoes at home.

There's a shoe under all that tape

We asked several truckers for a ride, but they were either going the wrong direction, or said they couldn't take us because of company policy. So, again, we made our way out to the I-90 east entrance and were standing there by 7:27am. The spot we were at seemed to be well-frequented by hitchhikers, and here's how we know:

It says "Husband + pregnant wife" in the corner

We borrowed this sign for a short while, then decided it was repetitious since we were standing at an I-90 east entrance

Can you spot "www.andjuggling.com"?

At 8am, a big rig stopped for us. Success! Our ride was with Roy and Jeff and Asia. Roy and Jeff were the truckers, Asia was the adorable rottweiler puppy. Roy and Jeff were hauling vehicles and were going all the way to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, before heading south. That's 717 miles! And they were willing to share their already crowded cab for that entire distance. This made an amazing third day for us. We enjoyed our ride with them. They were both nice guys and the only trouble was my voice got tired from talking over the noise of the truck. Jeff and his family are interested in moving to Seattle one day, so we told him to keep in touch so we can introduce him and his family to all our friends there.

Our long-distance Thursday ride

They dropped us off at a Love's truck stop around 10pm that night. Jeff told us there was a big field just on the other side of where a bunch of trucks were parked, so we headed over there after a halfhearted effort to get a nighttime ride. The field was great. There was lots of tall grass at the edge of it, plus all the big rigs parked up next to the edge of it, so we felt well-secluded. It was even pretty peaceful sounding with cicadas all around us, once we got used to the squealing and screeching pig noises coming from a nearby trailer. That is, it was great until the surprise thunderstorm the next morning, but that's another day and another blog post, my friends. Do come back.

P.S. I almost forgot to show you these pictures from the Love's. We considered asking for rides here because someone probably would have offered us one...but we didn't want to disturb.

He's got all the big rigs, in his hands

Wedding Note, and Our Latest Hitchhiking Trip, Part I

See the kittens, hiding on my lap?

We are in Wisconsin now, at Brendan's parents' farm (there are kittens here!), and the day is drawing near. Soon this place will be decked out in who-knows-what (ribbon? pumpkins? fall leaves? your smiling faces?) and we will be gettin' hitched. And as we are preparing for the day, we've been talking more about what we want it to be like. So there's this thing we just decided, that you should know. Instead of simply having toasts at our reception and putting just a few people on-the-spot, we'd like to turn the traditional toasting time into an open mic session. If you want to toast, great, but you could also sing a song, play an instrument, read a poem, read something else, perform a comedy routine, whatever you like! It will be your chance to offer us a little gift of yourself, expressed however you like. It won't be mandatory, but please consider sharing something.

Now, to tell the story, or rather, many stories, of our latest hitchhiking journey. As many of you know, we were most recently in Everett and Seattle, catching up with family and friends there. But we needed to get back to Wisconsin to prepare for the wedding. In the past, we've taken the bus or the train to get to Wisconsin (we've never flown there, though, which I find kind of funny), but this time we wanted to save money, and we wanted to flex our hitchhiking muscles. So we thumbed it.

Our first ride of the day on Tuesday, September 7, was from my sister Amelie. She had the day off and offered to get us started, and we accepted. She took us to Vantage, WA, we ate lunch together, then she dropped us off at the I-90 east on ramp. It was pretty dead, so were worried we would get stuck there, but within just a few minutes a woman who was just coming off the freeway asked where we were headed. We said east and she said she could take us as far as Moses Lake. We said that would be great, then she asked if we could chip in some gas money. That kind of put us off. We hesitated, but then said yeah, we had just a couple bucks. We were worried about the spot, remember. She said okay, she was going to fill up and then be back to pick us up. As soon as she left we talked about how it made us uncomfortable that she'd asked us for money and that we'd agreed to pay her. It's not hitchhiking if money is involved, it's ridesharing. But still, it was only two bucks, and it would get us out of the bad spot. But it must not have been such a bad spot, because before she even came back, we had another ride, and this one was going all the way to Spokane.

Russ was a nice guy who told us all about his travels in Europe and in the US. He went on a trip east once and started out by bus in Montana. When he left it was 30 degrees, and when he arrived somewhere in North Dakota, it was 30 below, and this was where he started hitchhiking. He said he could see ice in the air, and at one point he slipped and fell back into a covey of quails. He thought he just kept on falling, then realized it was just that all the birds were flying up around him. He didn't say how long it took him to get a ride, but it must have been pretty quick because, well, he obviously didn't freeze to death. He dropped us off at a Flying J, where we were greeted by this:

Aww, thanks for the welcome!

We decided to ask the employees, anyway. Just because they have a sign like that doesn't mean the people on duty care much about it, right? So we approached the two guys behind the counter and said, "Excuse me, but we saw the sign about hitchhiking outside, and were wondering, is that very strictly enforced?" We try to be polite. And they politely said yes, we would have to step foot off the gas station grounds before we stuck out our thumbs. Well, it was dark by this time anyway, so we asked them if they knew of any place around where we might be able to set up our tent for the night. One of them said he thought there was kind of a field near some warehouses further up the road, so we headed that way.

We didn't find anything much, though, at least nothing that was free of big chain-link fences, so we kept walking. We came to a little residential area, and turned down a street with some homes. At one house that had a nice big front yard with plenty of room for our little bitty tent, we saw the home-dweller walking from his backyard to his driveway. We said to each other, "It doesn't hurt to ask" and approached him. We greeted him and he responded "Hello, WHAT?" as in, what do you want? So we asked if we could set up our tent in his yard. He responded "No frickin' way," but upon noting that we did not seem drug-crazed, he recommended we set up tent in the nearby schoolyard. If the police came, he reasoned, we had nothing to hide.

We followed his advice, even though this was a much more open spot than we normally feel comfortable with when we're trying to stealth-camp. It seemed to be the best we could find, though, so we just tried to find the most hidden spot possible, and we set our alarm for 5:30am so we could get out of there before anyone showed up for school the next day. But who needs an alarm when there's a built-in wake-up call right there in the field? Around 2:45am I woke up and thought I heard falling water, but then convinced myself it was wind. Wind that seemed to come and go in a regular pattern, but hey, how awake are you at 2:45am? I went back to sleep. About 3:15am, the "wind" had started up right by our tent, and was actually sprinklers. They rotated, at least, so we had some dry moments to get out of the tent and pull it to a dry spot. But that was it for sleep for the night, so we packed everything up and headed back to the freeway. That is the end of Installment I, folks. Installment II comes tomorrow.

Spending time in Seattle

This blog post is dedicated to my sister-in-law Naomi, who faithfully reads our blog (she is our only actual blogspot follower), and who reminded me that we haven't blogged in a long time. Today is her birthday. Happy birthday, Naomi!

We decided at the end of April to stay in Seattle through the month of May. This decision had many factors. One was that we have the opportunity to apartment-sit for our friends through May 24. We have a home of our own and a car at our disposal and it has been wonderful to have this extra time and this space to visit with people.

Another factor was that we realized while traveling around the US how much we love Seattle. We would love to buy a house here and have Seattle continue to be our home base, and now is a great time for first-time home buyers to get in on the market. However, we don't have jobs and getting them is the first step toward settling in Seattle. So we decided to use this month to look for work. I've been applying to organizations I want to support, such as the University of Washington, the Pacific Science Center, and other non-profits in Seattle. If I were to get a job offer, we would either significantly revise the rest of our trip or postpone it. And if not, we will continue with our trip as planned, except we will take the bus to Wisconsin in order to get there more speedily, and probably spend a little less time at our destinations between Wisconsin and New York.

Yet another factor is that there is a Magic: the Gathering competition at the end of the month. Brendan wants to get into the competitive Magic playing scene and this is a good opportunity for him to try it out, and possibly win a small chunk of money. We are also making a little money doing odd jobs this month. Tomorrow I'll be babysitting for a friend, Brendan has been substitute-teaching at YTN, and in a couple weeks we'll be doing a one-day computer job for Washington Mutual's transition to Chase.

With the rest of our time, we are enjoying spending time with friends and family. A little over a week ago my sister Amelie, Brendan and I had lunch with Amelie's and my second cousins. I connected with them via Facebook while we were in New Orleans and am so glad we got to meet in person. This trip has shown us how much family we have all around the country. There is something extra special about staying with people you don't know, but with whom you do have a shared history.

On Sunday, May 3rd we followed through on something we'd told one of our hitchhiking rides we would do. Remember our post about an older man who told us all about his nutcracker collection? He mentioned a nutcracker museum in Leavenworth and said the woman who owns it is a collector friend of his and a member of the same nutcracker club. We went to Leavenworth with our friend Nikki, found the museum and met Arlene Wagner the nutcracker collector friend, and saw her amazing collection. There are nutcrackers there from thousands of years ago. And there was Karl.

Meet Karl.

Karl is a trickster.

We spent the rest of that day enjoying Leavenworth, the river that runs through it, and the beautiful day.

Last Friday we went camping on Camano Island with Amelie and several friends. It was the perfect weekend for it. The moon was full on Friday night and so beautiful shining over the Puget Sound, and the weather Saturday was sunny and warm.


On Mother's Day all my siblings and their spouses and offspring and Brendan and I got together and took my parents out for a late lunch at Ivar's in Mukilteo. It overlooks the water and we could watch the ferry to Whidbey coming in and going out.

Mama and Daddy

My sister Jennifer and her son Liam

Jennifer's husband Jeremey, and their kids Erin and David

My brother Aaron and his wife, Naomi

Aaron and Naomi's kids, Juliann and Race

Race and me

Brendan and Amelie, showing off their coloring

It is so wonderful to have more time in Seattle to catch up with people! The first few weeks of April just flew by and were mostly spent hanging out with my parents and family and friends in Everett. It was great to spend time with all of them, but it was hard to get together with friends in Seattle. Staying this extra month has given us the chance to relax into Seattle again and see friends we would otherwise have missed. If you're reading this and you haven't seen us yet, call us! We will definitely be around through May 31st, and possibly longer if something pans out job-wise.

Bullet Points Three and Four Filled Out

• Stay in cheap hotel, discuss lack of dedication to hitchhiking/tent-camping.

The guys in the pickup truck took us as far as Vicksburg, and according to our estimations it was about another 350 miles to Dallas. It wasn’t quite dark yet, so we tried thumbing it some more. Nearby was a place called the Deluxe Inn, and a grocery store. That Deluxe Inn looked so tempting, and so much more comfortable than a tent would be. We called and found out it was $45 a night, and we made up our minds that if we didn’t get a ride we would stay there and stop off at the grocery store for dinner and travel food for the next day.

And then we got a ride. A very nice retired man said he wasn’t going far, but he could at least get us across the Mississippi. We mentioned to him that we’d considered the Greyhound (because at this point we were already a little concerned that we wouldn’t make it to Plano in time), and he was kind enough to drive us by the station to find out how much it would cost. It would be over $80, and that was too much, so he went on and took us across the river.

The place he left us was rather deserted. Down the road a little ways was a gas station and an “Adult Superstore.” By now it was pretty much dark and there were no streetlights at the highway entrance, and hardly any cars entering there anyway. We felt a little discouraged, because we probably wouldn’t get any farther that night, and now we were without the Deluxe Inn we’d already made up our minds about. We walked down to the gas station, though, to see if we could find anyone headed west.

We were hungry so we bought and ate some sandwiches, and then we walked around where truckers were parked to see if any were leaving. No one was, or if they were they weren’t headed west, and we felt shy about asking regular car drivers. We overcame that at one point and asked some people who were pumping gas and the woman we asked got a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face and suddenly seemed to lose the ability to speak, so we decided to try thumbing it at the gas station exit. We decided we would take the next ride either direction and if it happened to be east, we’d try and get back to the motel.

And that’s where we ended up. A couple around our age picked us up and took us directly to the motel parking lot. The couple was nice, though at one point we were afraid they were going to ask us to get out of the car on the side of the highway, but that’s a story to tell in person, so ask us when you see us next.

We got the cheapest room they had, which was tiny but all we needed. We got to watch some House and relax and take showers with good water pressure for the first time in two weeks. It was nice, but with our travel budget, extravagant and unnecessary. We could have just pitched our tent somewhere nearish to that gas station and started out hitching early the next morning. I don’t know that I believe in karma, but the fact that the next day we couldn’t get another ride out of Vicksburg and tried for 4 hours to do so before giving up and taking the bus makes me wonder how different things would have been if we’d been truly dedicated to the hitchhiking and tent camping from the beginning. We would have left on Monday instead of Tuesday and based on the time we made getting back to New Orleans, I’m sure we would have made it to Plano by midday Wednesday or earlier.

• Greyhound journey to Mesquite, TX, where my cousin Michael picked us up.

I’ll just tack this bullet point onto the end here because there isn’t much to say about it. My dad and his internet skills helped us figure out when the next bus was leaving Vicksburg, and we called Michael and Danielle to make sure arriving by bus would work for them. They generously offered to pick us up in Mesquite, so we took 8 hour bus ride and made it there by a little after 10pm Wednesday. Just in time for Thanksgiving.