From Canada onwards to...

Sitting back here in sunny Santa Barbara makes Canada seem like another world. Or another country. Hmmm. Anyhow. The second half of winter vac (oh, tell me someone else wants to shorten that word! 'Vacation' is far too long) was as eventful as the first.

I visited these distant relatives on Salt Spring Island, right next to Vancouver Island. I really feel ashamed calling them relatives. It's so manipulative. Anyhow, there was a wooden house and really good mashed potatoes, and I decided to stay for trifle. I played poker with a younger cousin. There was a dog. Times were good. Getting from there to Vancouver is kind of a blur, of early morning and ferry terminal and sleeping on a very uncomfortable seat, and taking a taxi with some people I didn't know. But eventually in this big city I found one Miriam Clark, and we went and ate $3 potatoes in a very awesome diner. Vancouver was full of slush and wet. The Sky Train track overhead turned into a waterfall. It was dark. 

In Vancouver I... spent most of my money on public transport. Caught up on Wellington gossip. Saw a lot of homeless people. Saw some hipsters. Went to an unimpressive gig at a hipster bar. Slept on Miriam's couch, and barely made the bus in the morning.

Bus back to... Olympia, from which I departed on Tuesday morning in a light grey Honda Civic with the aim of making it to Chicago by 4pm Friday so I could fly back to California. It sounds insane in retrospect, and to be honest it sounded insane at the time but I did it because I wanted to. And what a country we saw! Gosh the States is so big. And empty. So far most of my time has been on the populated parts of the west coast, but there's a lot of land out there.

So we drove, and drove, and drove. Along the Columbus River in northern Oregon, tall cliffs and trees and winding.  Down eastern Oregon, starting flat then rising to a high emptiness touched with white snow. The kind of world where wolves and witches live in abandoned wooden houses. Crossing through Idaho at night, and into Utah, where the factories outside Salt Lake looked like miniature cities, all lit up. Falling asleep to find the world outside icy and white, and finally stopping in a motel somewhere in the middle of nowhere at 3am. We drove seventeen hours that first day.

The next day, New Years Eve, we made it to Colorado through the Utah I've always wanted to see. Big red mountains and stunning vistas and no people, not even Mormons. Colorado was also gorgeous, and we drove through the mountains until sundown at a condo at Copper Mountain. Then up the side of a mountain via a dirt road to a windy windy spot, a house in a dark lonely place. We stood on the balcony and drank champagne, and made New Years wishes that were whisked away by the wind. We counted down to the New Year in the hippest bar in Denver, then next morning groaned our way to the suburbs to meet some real Americans. My carmate's family have an open house brunch on New Years Day, and there was food and many friendly people who clucked at the travelers.

So the last leg. Flat flat flatness all the way to Nebraska, which was flat and filled with cattle lots that smelled terrible. Then Omaha further did us wrong, by being seemingly empty of any good places to eat at 10pm. We slept in another motel near Iowa City. The next day I remember being oddly beautiful, with classic Mid-Western barns set back from the road and feathery trees. And the Mississippi River. And Chicago, just long enough to get a stuffed pizza before my plane, like the most beautifully classic city with skyscrapers in a shade of burnt brown.

What a journey, and back to California.