Day Two of The Journey

I am now sitting in a bar in Twin Falls, Idaho. I may have broken my “no restaurant chain” rule, but I think I can justify it on two accounts. First, I needed to watch the second half of the Spain – Portugal match since I couldn’t find it anywhere on the radio. Second, I am only sitting in the bar drinking a Deschutes Black Butte Porter which is practically a local beer.

The drive yesterday was a bit of a haul. I left Crescent City very early with every intent of making up the lost time from Sunday. I had already decided to abandon my plan to go to Klamath Falls. That made me sad, but I really wanted to get to Crater Lake and to Bend to see Chris, so Klamath Falls fell on the priority list. It’s also closest to SF, so I can always go some other time.

There was so much to see on the road. I took 199 from Crescent City through Arcata to Grants Pass. Then took I-5 for about 15 miles until the turnoff for Crater Lake. I guess I had some romantic impression of Oregon. I expected the entire state to be devoid of warehouse stores, but that wasn’t the case. Oh well.

I had some great music to accompany me. Listen to The Whitest Boy Alive here's a link to one of the songs called 1517. It’s a fantastic album and is great driving music. Funky. I was also listening to two Leonard Cohen songs on repeat: First We Take Manhattan and Everybody Knows. How do you not get psyched by a song that has the lyric: First we take Manhattan/Then we take Berlin? Everybody Knows is such a dark song. It might be the headliner on my Songs Never To Play At A Wedding playlist. If not, it’s definitely behind No Children by the Mountain Goats.

Well, Portugal weren’t able to put anything together on offense against Spain’s defense in the last 20 minutes of the game. They needed to push much harder, but just couldn’t get it going. Spain’s goal was pretty lucky (I missed it in real time), but it just looked like Spain was in control and had lots of different opportunities.

I can’t wait for the quarterfinals – we’ll see how many I’m able to watch. I guess I can watch whichever ones I want. I just need to make time for them. Netherland vs. Brazil and Argentina vs. Germany are pretty much "must sees".

I already mentioned part of the road from Bend to Boise - specifically the part from Bend to Burns. At that point, it got really dark and the road started going up into the mountains. I was following a thunderstorm, so there was a lot of water on the ground getting kicked up by semis coming the other way. Although I could see flashes of lightning light up the sky. At certain points, the road just dropped off on one side or the other. I wanted to see where it went, but I had to concentrate more on where the road actually went and not where it wasn’t going. If only the full moon wasn't hidden by clouds.

I must admit that I got a little bit scared on the drive especially as it became midnight and I still hadn't slept in a bed in almost 2 days. To be perfectly honest, I started getting REALLY tired about 10 miles outside of Boise. Rather than toughing it out, I pulled over, slept for about an hour and a half and then pulled into a motel after driving ten measly miles.