The End

This is the end of a beautiful friendship.

I'm sorry I didn't blog much toward the end. I got some serious tunnel vision right around 1/2 way through the trip. I did update the final tally. It came out to:

ZERO cigarettes (congratulations poodle!!!)
897 fast food meals (this number is purely an estimate)
+/- 3 fights (none of which involved physical violence)
+/- 11,000 miles

oh yeah, and we were around 40% over budget (and I learned in my project management class that is just about normal)

About the fast food: It was maybe not a totally realistic idea for me to give up something that is kind of an addiction (fast food) on a road trip where it's usually the cheapest and easiest food option, and I'm forced to pass hundreds of stores (In and Out! Sonic!!!) while looking sideways at a dryersheet flavored egg salad sandwich. Well, I didn't gain too much more weight, I guess I just need to actually do something about it now that I'm making all these other changes in my life.

Anyway, poodle and I were very lucky to have made this trip together. We couldn't have done it with the financial support of someone to whom I am married. I shall not name names. :)

Poodle and I got to learn a lot about each other, face a few challenges, but overall we had a wonderful time, and I think it was a trip we'll both remember for years to come. I will post a link to the photos as soon as I get them uploaded somewhere, but for now, I shall bid you adieu.

Feel free to follow my personal journey on my personal blog if you are so inclined. If you want to follow poodle's journey, you'll have to convince her to start a blog of her own. I haven't been able to convince her yet.

warm regards
-wm

From the redwood forests...

To the gulfstream waters?

This is a photo of the tree we drove through today. Its pretty awesome.

We are camping at the koa in crescent city, ca and our site is the
prettiest single tent site of the whole trip. Our site is in the
forest in a stand of redwoods. It feels really secluded, even though I
can hear people talking about their grandma fifteen feet away from me.

We almost went to a drive-in movie, but the place looked like a horror
movie set, so poodle activated the "abort mission switch" and we
settled for a mediocre seafood dinner with an amazing view. Tomorrow
we are off to portland, where we will visit the smallest state park,
an amazing bookstore, a waterfall, and the house and lagoon from the
goonies before heading up to forks, wa to reenact scenes from our
favorite books.

Viva los angeles

After two lovely days in las vegas where we were spoiled by our Aunt
Marietta with home cooking (including my personal favorite--pecan pie)
separate bedrooms with separate baths, a pool party with most of our
cousins (including our 7 second cousins) and a visit with our other
cousins' newborn, we hit the road again.

We had a great time in vegas, but we are both desperate to make it to
Seattle on schedule, so we left for l.a. this morning.

When we arrived, of course we decided to see a movie, so we went to
the FABULOUS arclight in hollywood, where we saw brideshead revisited.

Laura joked about it being where the famous people go to see movies,
and apparently she was correct. Of only five people in the theater
(including the two of us) one person was famous. That's 20%! According
to our research, a whopping 20% of the people at the arclight are
famous.

So I got to see a famous person. They even held the door open for me,
and then fell asleep about half an hour into the movie and snored like
crazy-- "just like regular people."

At the end of the film, poodle said "what was up with the snoring guy,
I wanted to kill him." To which I replied, "oh, you mean Eric Idle
from monty python?"

"no way."

"yep."

"dang, I didnt even recognize him"

"I noticed"

"still want to kill him though"

"yeah"

I love Hollywood.

-wm

Sent from my iPhone

New state(s) yell(s)

Here is a picture of poodle at the four corners monument. Standing in
four states at once... An existential crisis.