Prince

Travel Diary: Portland to Denver, Day 1

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Itinerary

Left: From Catherine’s mother’s in West Linn, OR at 5:15 am (Pacific Time)
Stopped: At our vacated apartment in Portland to pick up two suitcases, at about 5:30 am.
Stopped: At a coworker’s house to drop off the PO box key at about 5:40 am.
Stopped: At Burgerville in The Dalles, OR for breakfast at about 8:00 am.
Arrived: At the Royal Garden Inn in Salt Lake City, UT at about 8:00 pm (Mountain Time)
The Next Day: Denver to Portland, Day 2

 

Expenses

$361 on car maintenance (yesterday)
$103 on fuel (two stops)
$35 on food (two meals)
$70 on lodging (includes $20 pet fee)
$3 on incidentals (super glue, a Diet Dr. Pepper)

$572 total ($211 excluding maintenance)

Listened To

Catherine: A great many hours of Game of Thrones (audiobook)

Me: A great many podcasts

Together: Prince’s 1999 and Purple Rain, Simon & Garfunkle’s “America”.

Notes

We also made a handful of stops at rest areas and gas stations.
In lieu of stopping for lunch, we snacked on trail mix and dried fruit in the car. Dinner was takeout at a Thai place a block from our hotel.

It was my first time through Idaho on I-84 (previously been through the panhandle, on Hwy 12 and I-90).

It was also my first time in Utah (outside the boundaries of its airport, a Delta hub where I must’ve laidover at least a dozen times). I am dumbstruck at the beauty of Utah’s landscape. Since we crossed state lines, it’s been nothing but soaring, dramatic hills and mountains as far as the eye can see.

The cats did surprisingly well! They seemed to resign themselves to the journey sometime before 7:00 am. That is to say, Jaxon stopped walking everywhere and Miria stopped howling her pretty little head off. We put one of the back seats down and packed such that they could get to their litter, food, and water in the trunk. They mostly just slept back there all day. After seven months living together and not exactly getting along, they’ve seemed to bond as actual friends in just the last month. So seeing them snuggle, in this anxious adventure together, had us cooing over how adorable they were, all day, like typical cat owners.

Tweets and Things

Off topic, but neat: WordPress 4.0 was released today. I read the release announcement from the passenger seat in Idaho. We celebrated me being one of the 275 contributors with a high-five. 🙂