Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Friday part 1


Friday, April 9
We wake up and it's cold. This is a picture of our campsite at Potholes. Groceries in Moses Lake and off to towards Odessa and the site of the Desert 100. We arrive a little after lunch time. Admission for the weekend: $5 per person. Not bad. Scott, Jennifer, and Wendy are just a few hours behind. The first spot we try to claim is “reserved,” but we did not see the invisible markers where BillyBob was going to move his truck and have all of his friends park. We move to a different spot next to some reasonable people. We arrange the trucks and EZ-Up so that there will be room for two more trucks when they arrive. There are already hundreds of RVs, toy haulers, and big 'ol pickup trucks everywhere. The CR-V and Jesse's truck both look like tiny dots in comparison.
The weather is perfect. Tents are going up. The rest of the Dirty Crew arrives, and there is much rejoicing. Motorcycles will be ridden soon.

Thursday

This is how I remember it, a few days after the fact. Thursday, April 8. A full work day for me. Jesse, Wilder, and Ryan leave sometime this morning with Jesse's truck pulling the trailer with three bikes. Somehow they are only in Ellensburg at 5 p.m. as I am getting ready to leave work. I've been checking the weather at Snoqualmie Pass all day. Spring blizzard. But the pass is open. I have to decide whether to sleep in my warm bed and take off at 6 a.m. Friday, or leave around 7 or 8 tonight, drive through a mountain pass in a snowstorm, and sleep in the car in freezing temperatures at Potholes State Park. I say goodbye to Hanna and Ryan and I'm off...
It was snowing hard from about mile marker 38 to 80, so I lost about an hour because everyone had to drive around 20mph. I get through and call the boys, who had purchased some bad “firewood” from Fred Meyer. “Firewood” is in quotes because it failed to burn and produce fire. I pick up some groceries and firewood at Albertson's in Ellensburg.
At 11:30 p.m. I arrive at site 122 at Potholes. The boys greet me with some fine tequila. Mostly they were happy to have a real fire. Ryan didn't pack his tent, so he picked up a very special Fred Meyer Glacier's Edge (glah-see-ay's edge) tent for $25. It is a midget tent.

Monday, April 12, 2010

back

not much internet action in the Desert. We're home. We're sore. Stories and photos coming soon...