Without paying much attention, we were suddenly off for the longer trip home. I wanted to get out of Seattle. While I loved seeing my friends, this didn’t feel like home anymore.

I decided to show Chelsea downtown Seattle and what it has become before we took the Bremerton Ferry from downtown Seattle. I wanted her to have that long ferry ride experience and see what it was like for some commuters.

You get the sense that life isn’t easy for some in Puget Sound because of the high cost, population explosion, crime, and drugs. It’s just not the place I once loved.

As we drove downtown on James Street, we had a front row seat as a strung out heroin addict staggered across the street in front of us. It was another reminder why I don’t live in Seattle anymore. The encampments are everywhere and this was now a new normal moment in Seattle. Yet, people still vote these same people in again and again. It’s like hitting yourself.

This was Chelsea’s first ferry ride in Washington and the short trip was very typical. We didn’t see any great sea life, but it was still a nice ride on a very empty boat. A $54.00 ferry ride could be the reason.

From Bremerton, we followed HY 16 back across the Narrows bridge, and up through Tacoma. We saw our highest diesel prices on the entire trip in Bremerton at $5.99 a gallon. Our lowest on the trip was in Missouri at around $4.35 a gallon. Most of the trip was above $5.00. It definitely had an impact on freeway traffic and there were not a lot of cars overall no matter where we were.

We pulled into the last rest stop on I5 north before you get to Seattle, just highway 18 for one last pump-out and to take on water for the trip home. The rest stop is now overrun with homeless tents, campers, and RVs, and a few dilapidated RVs were in line for water. It took us a while before we were on our way up highway 18 to I-90, then south on 82 towards I84 Boise. I was happy to be out of Seattle.

We were heading to a midpoint destination of Cortez, Colorado to meet old friends, and Chelsea did much of the driving as I worked on that Sunday in prep for meetings on Monday morning. This wasn’t vacation for me. It was a work trip from end to end.

I had work and E@RTC calls to get out of the way and 82/84 was kind of a less interesting route. The drive between Seattle and Boise is mostly dry desert. It’s not the fun drive of I90. For some reason, the drive seems to lack character and it’s never been a favorite route. I90 has a lot more personality and interesting stops along the way.

We made it as far as Twin Falls, Idaho for the night for better sleep. Again, Chelsea got the hotel room and I remained in the Sprinter where I slept like a dead guy for the few hours. It was another night with ultimately too little sleep, so Chelsea and I took turns napping after my morning Zoom calls. I also had more phone calls in route but it would be a much easier day overall.

We got into Cortez a little after 5 PM after driving through some amazing desert scenery. Once we were off 84, everything was different. We found an In-N-Out Burger in Salt Lake City before heading towards Moab and that kind of made my day. I’m not a rabid fan, but it is still better than McDonald’s.

Once off the freeway, neither of us have ever seen so many off-road Sprinters and other stand-up vans. We saw two things in large quantities around Moab. One was hundreds of Jeeps, most heavily modified. The other was hundreds of 19’ Sprinters and other tall cargo vans with exterior ladders and lateral beds with bump-outs in the rear to make room. Most had black anodized side ladders and cargo racks rather than solar panels, roof air conditioners, and communications. Many were just empty vans. Most looked like home-made expedition conversions, but there was one brand that we saw rather often and now I can’t find it. When I do, I’ll modify this blog.

We did see a handful of Airstream Interstates, but not a lot of 24’ vans. I see why van life is so popular. We only saw one or two of the recent Airstream Interstates and I suspect it’s because of the high cost when compared to alternatives.

After dinner with friends, we decided to keep driving and head further south rather than straight east. The concern was driving through narrow canyons at night with wildlife everywhere. We wanted to go the safest route possible and it was just turning dark as we left. This added a more than 100 miles to our trip, but would take the same amount of time to drive.

We were in the high desert elevation of New Mexico in the dark of night with no lights anywhere. We drove Highway 491 south, to 64 East then south on Highway 550 to Albuquerque, almost all of it in complete darkness.

Driving a highway with so little traffic at night with such clear skies was a unique experience on its own. The stars were so bright at 7,300’ that we could see the night sky in front of the headlights and the dark side of the moon. It was an experience I’ll never forget. We couldn’t hide behind a semi because there were no trucks in front of us, however it wasn’t a place we were likely to see deer.

There were not that many cars driving in the opposite direction. Even the fuel stations were unmanned so it would have been a terrible place to break down. However the Poynting Antenna was still able to pick up cellular signal when our phones were showing no signal at all. It’s an amazing antenna.

When you’re driving in dark like that over long distances with headlight shadows on both sides of the road, your mind plays tricks on you. It’s impossible to know if there are real objects on each side, such as a cliff or if you’re driving across some open vista. It’s all just black in all directions. You don’t see a shadow anywhere. It’s the stars that give you the horizon line, as long as there are no clouds.

We remained on 550 for most of the night and it was still dark when we drove through Albuquerque on I25 before turning east on I40 for home. We joked about the song Amarillo By Morning and arrived there just in time for a nice sunrise and a chance to switch drivers. I drove most of the night and let Chelsea sleep until I had my first Tuesday morning meetings via Zoom. This worked out well, but we were both feeling very tired.

We were hitting our wall of marathon driving with so little sleep. We stopped at a rest stop where we both slept for about an hour before getting back on the road. I still had work to do and Chelsea was wide awake so she drove a long stretch before I took over. The fatigue of a very long drive, even if you switch out every two hours eventually catches up with you.

It still took us all day to get from Amarillo to the Springfield area and the time flew by for some reason. The weather was decent and traffic was especially light. We arrived back at the house at 5:30 PM, had the Sprinter offloaded an hour later, and Chelsea had it back in storage the following day.

The drive home was 35 hours of driving in total, completed in a total of 54 hours from start to stop. That left just 19 hours for our dinner, one night in a hotel, and gas, food, dog and other stops. The route out of Cortez was 16 hours of driving alone, covering 1,100 miles. It’s about the exact same difference as driving from Seattle to LA.

I’m going to write one more chapter about road trips and Sprinters and why it’s the perfect road trip vehicle.