Well it feels like it has been 8 thousand years since I have written a blog post or even anything at all. Much has transpired, world! I need to catch you up.

I breezed through California in a day. Went right up I-5 from LA to Yreka in one shot. I camped in Cannon Beach, OR and had a very lovely time shell collecting (found two whole sand dollars - score!) I had a crude awakening to the coldness of this part of the country - got about 3 hrs of sleep because I froze my feet in the ocean that night and couldn't keep my lonely little body warm in my tent. I had to stay up and keep the fire going and thaw them out.

When I got on the road for Ellensburg the next day, I was exhausted. Knowing that I was not really driving too safe by being that tired, I pulled over in some little town called Salkum in their library parking lot. I was headed to the library to use their bathroom and decide if I would try to nap in my cab, or just try to walk around and refresh myself. As soon as I shut my door behind me I had the horrible realization that my keys were not in my hand and they were not in my bag. I wanted to scream and rip my eyeballs out when I saw them hanging from the ignition with both the doors locked.

Thank the good Lord, I remembered that I did have a spare. The crappy part was that it was packed away somewhere in all of my stuff. Everything I own is packed in big tupperware bins and random containers which were all tied down very meticulously and bagged in plastic and then covered by a tarp. The tarp was carefully tied by a nice old man who helped me in the Walmart parking lot in Dallas when I first set out to leave Texas. He was a great southern gentleman who saw me struggling to tie it down with my limited amount of places to tie bungie cords. He did these fancy slip knots and got down on the ground under my truck to tie them in ways and places I knew I could never reproduce if I tried.

So, I wasn't too happy about having to tear everything apart to find my keys. I had 3 hrs of sleep, was totally pissed at myself for not being careful, and I was setting myself back an entire afternoon with this new crappy project I did not want to take on. And on top of that, it was pouring down rain.

I dug through every bin. I started with the ones closest to the edge hoping I could find it with minimal damage to my perfect cargo unit structure. I kept having to dig deeper and deeper into the unit and tear more connections apart. When I finally found where it was packed, it was all a mess. I kept getting so frustrated and adding layers to my self-pity - I would start to cry, but then laugh at myself, which then made me mad for losing the opportunity to cry out my frustration...then repeat the cycle.

Then I had a brilliant idea: I was only a couple hours south of Seattle, which is where I had planned on storing everything in a storage unit while I'm in Australia. Why not just store it in good old Salkum?

Thank God again, I found this really nice lady in the phone book (at the library) who owns a storage complex on her property and charges $40 a month. That's a good price and her directions to her place were clear and she was easy to talk to - I was sold.

So I lightened my load and got to Yakima to crash for the night.

I've spent the last few days in Ellensburg with my Aunt Becky. We went through old letters and papers my grandfather wrote for his graduate degrees in English at Reed. I read a paper of his on folk ballads (something I took a course on and loved) - it was 30 pages hand written on legal paper in pencil. It basically surveyed everything I learned in the course, and included no citations and maybe one reference. So all that stuff just came out of his head from what he knew - jeesh!

Then we had dinner with my cousin and his wife and kid, whom I have not seen in like...15 years? It was great to sit around and eat and drink and observe my own idiosyncrasies in family members I haven't had the chance to interact with for such a long time.

Right now I am in Bothell with my aunt and uncle and cousins. More catching up and interacting and walking dogs and eating good food.

Life is good.

I feel like my writing really sucks right now. I'm kind of tired and my brain has already rotted from leaving college.

My next destination is British Columbia, to visit my next cousin before heading to AUSTRALIA on Saturday. Holy cow! I am also going on a blind date. I have never been on a blind date before. I have compiled a list of things I will not do on my blind date in order to ensure its success:
1. I will not wear socks with my sandals, like I did yesterday. And today.
2. I will not go on a long philosophical rant.
3. Hopefully those are the worst 2 things I could do because that's all I've got.