The Oregon Trail -- a Serial

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Okay, just in case anyone needs proof of what an idiot I am, I’ll tell y’all the story of my vacation, which is all absolutely true and took place earlier this month.

First, a little background: Christy, a friend of mine who used to work at The Anonymous Texas Newspaper here with me came down to visit from Washington state last month. While here, she invited me to come up to visit for her son’s first birthday.

I managed to get five days off – practically a miracle – giving me a total of nine days of freedom at the appropriate time. I figured that since I had so many days off, I would see about at last meeting Internet Friend Rob face-to-face. Upon e-mailing him, I learned he was just finishing up his year in Americorps in Washington and was going to be in Northern Oregon during the first part of my trip and Southern Oregon during the last. So we made rudimentary plans for me to come visit during the first part of my trip.

I told Christy I would be in Spokane Aug. 7 or 8, and I would e-mail her later with more details.

That’s when things started to go wrong.

I planned to purchase my tickets online. One problem – I do not have the necessary card. Not a big obstacle. I arranged for a friend with a debit card to make the purchase. I went to her apartment to drop off the cash. Her roommate told me she was at the college. So I got in the car…and it would not start. Yes. Exactly what I needed. My car dies right when I’m about to spend all this money on my vacation. But it was hard enough to get these days off, so I wasn’t backing out.

I walked home. It’s not more than a mile between her apartment and mine. But it was early afternoon on a 105-degree day (that’s 41 for you Celcius users). I had to knock on a complete stranger’s door and ask the little kid who answered for a drink of water. Otherwise I am sure I would have collapsed.

Skipping ahead, I did eventually get in contact with Friend With A Debit Card, gave her the cash, and got my tickets. When I found out my arrival time, I left Christy not one, but two e-mails to let her know. I didn’t hear back, but then that’s not unusual for her.

Aug. 7 came. I took a taxi that morning to the shuttle bus service downtown. The shuttle bus cost double what I had been led to believe it would cost, but I dealt with it. The shuttle arrived in Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport with plenty of time to spare. It was a good thing I’d taken the shuttle – I doubt I could have ever found my own way around that place, which is like a small city unto itself.

About lunchtime, I left. And this, my friends, was my First Plane Ride. I was okay – there was no food in my stomach, so I couldn’t have puked even if I had felt queasy. I did have a headache. I’ve always been sensitive about pressure in my ears.

I arrived in Denver for my connection right on time. Left right on time. Reached Spokane right on time – 4 p.m.

Christy wasn’t there. I waited. I searched. She was nowhere to be found…

2

I called my Mom. I didn’t want to worry her, so I just said, “I got to Spokane safely. Christy’s not here yet, but I’m sure she’ll turn up any time.”

I didn’t have an address or phone number. I’d asked for those in my last e-mail to Christy, but of course, she hadn’t responded. After awhile I looked in the phonebook and found an M. Hurt listed for the little outlying town where Christy lives. I knew “M. Hurt” could be her sister. Hoping it was someone who could get me in touch with Christy, I called.

Machine. Damn. I left a message. “Um, I don’t know if this is the right number, but if this is where I can get ahold of Christy, this is her friend Ferggie. I’m at the Spokane airport and I need her to come get me.”

I waited some more. It got dark outside. Spokane airport gets really boring after the first few hours. And cold.

3

Fifteen hours after I arrived in Spokane, I called public transit. Much to my surprise, they did indeed have a bus to Little Outlying Town Where Christy Lives. (Public transit where I live is a joke, so I’m always impressed when a place has buses that actually go anywhere.) From the airport I made a quick stop in downtown Spokane, then had a nice little morning ride through the wonderful trees and hills of Washington. (Trees and hills are a novelty to me. I live on a tabletop.)

After a little while, I reached Little Outlying Town. Armed only with the knowledge that Christy works in a convenience store and the fact that the town really is very small, I started walking. I chanced upon a couple women and asked them how to reach the nearest convenience store. She told me there was only one (thank the gods!) and that it wasn’t far (thank the gods again!).

I was maybe three blocks away from the store when I saw a yucky old brown car drive by with someone who looked remarkably like Christy in it. It passed me. Then I heard it turn around and come back again. It was, in fact, Christy, and at first she wasn’t sure it was me, particularly since she never expected me to just turn up in her town on my own. The backseat being full of baby carseats (she and her sister have three young children between them), I squeezed in next to her sister, went to the house where Christy lives with her mom, and FINALLY got to lie down on a comfortable piece of furniture!

Then I got to see the baby, who is practically my nephew. He’s SO much bigger than he was when they left Texas.

So now it was looking like my vacation was salvagable after all. Or so I thought…

4

So the next day was Baby’s birthday. But they’d already done the party thing when Cretin – oops, I mean Daddy – had come up the week before. (He still lives in Texas)

Christy was feeling kinda down. Partly because even though she doesn’t want anything to do with Cretin, for some reason she still wants him to be in Baby’s life. I’m sure she realizes that No Daddy is better than Lazy Loser Druggie Daddy, but this isn’t something she can be rational about, I guess. Also, she said she felt old. I told her that since she is half a year younger than me, she’s not allowed to feel old, but what do I know. I don’t have kids.

So we left Baby with Sister and went to dinner with a couple of cut-ups Christy knew from high school. They were pretty funny.

After dinner, I finally got ahold of Internet Friend Rob at the place he was staying in Portland. Between a few more phone calls, we arranged a meeting. My bus (yes, Greyhound bus) would get there before his, so I said I’d wait for him. He told me to meet him in Ashland. I thought this was odd, since the address he gave me was in Medford, but I figured he knew what he was telling me.

SO that evening I got on a green Greyhound with Disney decor all over it. And I sat with some pretty unusual folks. The most normal person on the bus was the woman I sat next to. The large, mustached, lesbian ex-con. Now large doesn’t bother me – I’m no fence rail myself. Mustached, well, far be it for me to judge people based on hormonal differences. No one can accuse me of being a homophobe. (Well you can, I suppose, but it would be a lie.) The ex-con part was the bit that made me wonder, since she never said what exactly it was she was in jail for. The other details, put together, simply added a surreal element. I mean, c’mon, you can just picture a movie where you encounter a character like this and you say “stereotyping.”

She was rather agitated, as she’d been on the bus all week crossing the country, and she was going home to her wife, whom she hadn’t seen in a year. (Apparently they had gotten married during one of those rare times it’s been legal.) I tried to stay quiet and still as I could so she could try to sleep.

We reached Seattle about midnight. I had to hang out there for about an hour before my connection to Portland left. I reached Portland, if I recall correctly, about 4 a.m. And from there it was the long, excruciatingly boring ride down to Southern Oregon.

Yes, I was impressed by the trees and the hills. But they can only facinate me for so long. Here’s the thing: When you live in Texas, other states look kinda small. I didn’t realize just how big Washington and Oregon really are. I wasn’t prepared for the fact that it takes Greyhound 18 hours to get from Spokane to Southern Oregon. It drove me nuts. It doesn’t take that long for my family to drive from North Texas to North Missouri!

Anyway, I arrived about 2 p.m. in Ashland shortly after leaving Medford. The “station” there is a picnic table under an awning, connected to a convenience store. I waited. Eventually I went inside the store and did something I’d sworn I’d never do – I paid money for water. I did this soley so I could sit at a table inside and be able to say I made a purchase if they said anything to me.

I picked up a copy of The San Francisco Chronicle that was lying around. It about made me want to cry. Their headlines use that horrible typeface – News Gothic, a sans-serif font – that makes it look like it’s 100 years old. And inside, good heavens! All that open space! In my newspaper, I’m lucky to get a half of the page open. These pages, with few exceptions, had a generous 3/4 of the page ad-free. And yet, AND YET, their pages were ugly. If I had open space like that, I’d be so grateful I’d go out of my way to design interesting pages. THAT was what really made me want to cry.

A mundane and pointless lament, I’m sure, unless you, Dear Reader, are a fellow page designer.

7 p.m. came. No bus. I asked around. It was in Medford, but it was running late. At 8 p.m. the bus shows up.

No Rob…

5

No comments? Not even a “Gee, how stupid you are”?

Ah, well. Gotta go to work. More later.

6

By this time, I was tired, frustrated, and not a little worried. I was also running low on money.

As it happened, there was a bike rental place (of all things) just across the street from the “station.” It could have saved the day – if only it wasn’t closed already.

I started walking.

I could have called a taxi, I suppose, but I hated to spend any of what little cash I had left if I didn’t have to.

I hadn’t gotten more than a mile when a woman with kids offered me a ride. I figured a woman with kids would be the least likely person to leave me dead on the side of the road. And since it was getting dark, my chances of winding up dead on the side of the road were increasing. So I accepted.

She took me right where I needed to go. (Thank goodness this time I had an address.) May the gods bless her.

So there I was. At the apartment. I knocked. No answer…

7

and…

8

There were lights on inside. I knocked again. Finally I sat down on the concrete next to the door. Time passed. My butt fell asleep.

I got up and walked around the corner. There was a pair of glass sliding doors that opened onto a fenced porch. The gate to the porch was open. I walked in.

There on the porch was the backseat of a car. I curled up on the car seat and fell asleep.

I awoke some time later to the sound of sprinklers spraying. Luckily, I was no in the line of fire, but I was quite cold. And getting bit by bugs.

I sat up. Now I could hear voices inside. I knocked on the glass door. A young guy answered it. I told him and the guy he’d been playing video games with that I was looking for Rob. They said he’d gone out to visit some of his other friends, but they’d tell him I came by. I explained to them that I had nowhere to go. They looked at me like I was crazy, but they let me in so I could sit on the sofa and wait for Rob. They said they’d let me go lay down in the back room, but there was someone already sleeping back there.

It was then that I learned the story of the apartment. It in fact was rented only by one guy, named Roy, but it was also the gathering place for many local gamers. Which made sense, because it was because of my interest in Warhammer that I met Rob (online) in the first place. And he is the biggest gaming freak I’ve ever met. You name it, he’s probably played it.

Anyway, I’m sitting on the sofa, watching Jesse and Phil play Smash Brothers. Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone aproach the entryway of the hall to my right. I don’t turn to look, because I’m sure it’s just whoever it was they said was sleeping in the back room. Whoever it is, they just stand there.

Eventually, feeling eyes on him, Jesse turns around. “Oh,” he says. “Rob is here.”

9

Yes, it was Rob, who had been there all along – who had been there, sleeping, whilst I froze my butt off outside. But I was too happy to see him to be irritated. I got a nice big long hug.

“I waited for you in Ashland! You told me to meet you in Ashland, and I waited there!”

“Oh, no! I’m so sorry. I meant Medford.”

He felt suitably bad about my having to hitchhike and sleep on a chilly car seat.

We caught up. He also caught up with the guys, because of course he hadn’t seen them in a year, anyway.

Another guy showed up, a guy everyone called “Pod,” who joined the conversation. Don’t know what it is about people with nicknames, but he took to calling me Ferg, whereas everyone else continued to call me by my first name.

Sometime after dawn, I finally met Roy, the guy whose apartment it was. This was good, because it kind of weirds me out to hang out in someone’s home when I don’t even know the person whose home it is.

Rob and I walked to Starbucks. Had coffee and cakes and talked of all sorts of trivial things. Went back to the apartment and saw a bunch of hot air balloons on the way. Rob told me it was a yearly thing and that when he was younger, he used to crew for them. Later, we went back out again, this time to a bookstore. Ah, books. They have a gravitational effect on me.

Then we decided we’d go see a movie, but it was going to be awhile before there was a showing. We went to an antique store. Then we went to a convenience store and got something to drink. Something with a lizard on the bottle. I don’t think they have them in Texas. I noted that the sign advertising them used the word “healthy,” and suspected that was why I’d never seen them in Texas. I got a cranberry mix one and Rob got a tea one. It was good.

We returned to the theater and watched “Rush Hour 2,” which I thought was pretty funny, but failed to see why it’s been such a blockbuster. We went back to the house, hung out, I met some more people. There was an article in the local paper about their Vampire: The Masquerade gaming group that they weren’t entirely pleased with. Complaints about facts being mixed up and their quotes being dumbed down. I read it and critiqued it from an editor’s point of view, since I know very little about the game. Another girl who was taking journalism classes understood what I was complaining about. Everyone else just kinda looked at me funny.

The guys started playing a RISK-like board game. I dozed off, as I’d had very little sleep since…oh, the night before I left Texas.

Hung out some more. Played video games. Walked to Subway with Rob and Pod for dinner. Finally went to sleep on a loveseat in the walk-in closet in the back room. I’d been offered the mattress in the back room, but I left it for Rob since he’s taller.

It was about 11 when I woke. Played video games some more. Then we went to Starbucks again. Played a couple rounds of Magic: The Gathering, and was a bit disappointed at just how rusty I’d gotten. Played video games again. But now it was afternoon. So we found someone to drive us to Ashland so I could catch my bus. Got a good-bye hug. And then I was on my way to another 18 hours on Greyhounds.

Yes, I spent more time getting there than I acutally got to spend with Rob. :frowning: But I had a lot of fun while I was there. :wink: Back to Spokane…

10

I arrived back in Spokane about 8 a.m.

No Christy.

I found the nearest wall and banged my head. I called the house. Talked to the machine. Sat and waited.

About 10 a.m. she shows up. She was at a job interview. Her mom was supposed to answer the phone when I called and tell me that so I wouldn’t panic. But mom was asleep.

We went back to the house and just hung out. I was quite tired. Then she had to go to work. I looked after baby while mom slept.

When she came home, I hung out with her and her new boyfriend. I approve of the new boyfriend. He is respectful and nice. And plays board games with us even when he doesn’t win.

After he left, Christy and I were going to watch “Unbreakable,” but we both fell asleep.

The next day, Christy had to drop me off at the airport at 11 a.m. because she needed to get to work.

My flight didn’t leave until 4 p.m. So I spent another five hours in the airport, bringing my grand total of time spent in the Spokane airport to 20. In the space of a week. I bet there are people who work there part time who don’t spend 20 hours a week there.

Got to Denver just fine. Had to wait an extra hour before I left Denver because surprise, surprise! there was a thunderstorm in Dallas.

(I swear, the weather always waits for me to leave before it changes.)

SO I got to Dallas after midnight. And then I had to wait some more.

It was very weird, being in one of the world’s most heavily-trafficked airports when it seems like there’s nobody else in the whole place.

I didn’t want to fall asleep. One, I didn’t want anyone to be able to sneak up on me. Two, I didn’t want to be mistaken for a vagrant and kicked out. I went to the ladies’ room and sat on a toilet. I fell asleep there. I awoke maybe an hour later. My legs had gone numb. I could barely move enough to get them un-numb again.

I walked around. I watched the airport version of CNN Headline News. Over and over again.

Finally, the place began to wake up. I found a bunch of people lining up at a McDonald’s they have in the airport. I joined the line.

The McDonald’s hadn’t opened yet, even though it was supposed to. I struck up conversation with the man in front of me. I told him my whole sad story. He had a voucher for $7 worth of food at the McDonald’s, which he shared with me. Very kind of him. Then he had to catch his plane.

I ate my breakfast and remembered why I stopped eating breakfast biscuits. They always weigh heavy on my stomach. But at least there was something in my stomach, and --bonus-- I didn’t have to pay for it.

Finally 9 a.m. rolled around as I was sitting on a bench outside waiting for my shuttle bus to show up. I was so afraid I was going to fall asleep and miss it. But I didn’t.

I arrived home about lunchtime. I had just enough time to nap for a couple hours. Then I had to go to work.

Thus ended my Oregon Trail adventure. As much as things went wrong, I had fun. And I got the hell away from this town for awhile. And in the end, that’s all that really counts.