Are We There Yet?

Yesterday, I think my traveling companion was wishing he'd gone home with someone else that fateful day at the L.A. pound... by the time we'd reached Wasco, Oregon he was no longer speaking to me and had commenced sitting with his back to me in what I can only interpret as an expression of disdain for having been forced into accompanying me on the trip or great love for the passenger door.

I can't say I blamed him at that point, we'd been logging 14-15 hour days and our shortest day was 647 miles. The day before we'd come out of the southern Oregon coast region where it was cool and humid into the dry high desert heat of Grants Pass, and it was in Grants Pass where the temperature reached 102 and our air conditioning promptly expired. Of course the top had been down all morning, and it was only because of Dante's overheating that I even pulled over to put it up in order to turn on the AC and thus discovered the, well, lack of AC. Another interesting thing about central Oregon, there are very few trees, very little shade, they seem to have made peace with the fact that it's hotter than hell, after driving around town for way too long looking for a cooler spot to shade up until later afternoon and finding none I improvised some doggie-AC. Spray bottle + ice water + wind equals a much happier, cooler little doggie. I'm sure there were a lot of truckers who got great amusement watching the crazy chick in the red convertible misting her dog going down the highway.

So needless to say, Dante was nearly levitating when we arrived in Roslyn last night, I have to say he's pretty smart (and not just because he's my dog...), he didn't start to hop around until I started taking things out of the trunk. Because the entire trip we'd been living out of my backpack and cooler in the back seat, so he knew that wherever we were, we were staying. Very happy dog. Who is sleeping on the front porch of the cabin right now while I made the trip into "town" to get some wi-fi.

Don't tell the dog, but pulling in last night, I was a little disappointed that the drive had come to an end. Call me crazy (or crazier...), but I absolutely love to drive. I think in my former life I may have been a truck driver, which would also explain my love of junk food, but in all seriousness I haven't been that enthusiastic for an entire 72 hour period since...well since I can remember. Even yesterday when I would have expected to wake up and require someone to physically shove me back into the car I was anxious to get back on the road and explore. So what I'm trying to say is, I'm never coming back. Ok maybe someday, I'll eventually loop back into OC on my way somewhere. Just kidding. Kind of.

Ok, I'm going to back track a little, hit some of the highlights of the trip. Oh and, here's the FlickR link to all of the photographic evidence thus far that I have in fact left town: http://www.flickr.com/photos/whereintheworldisjessica/