Drive from Hell

I've now had a couple days to recover from my journey north, so I figured it was about time to describe it.

For those that aren't already aware or haven't been within earshot to hear my whines, I've had a pinched nerve behind my left shoulder blade for two weeks now. The pain has been pretty awful, and I mention it here as it's the main reason my trip was so terrible.

The night before my departure I stayed in my friends Jeff & Kristil's cottage. Oh, and I had Zachary's. If there's a better last meal in the East Bay, at least in the pizza category, I dare you to find it. So I hit the sack around 9ish, exhausted from a week of packing, loading, cleaning, moving, etc. I awoke around 3:30 am, shoulder screaming, and as usual threw back a vicodin. And I laid there. I pondered the journey and tossed and turned for a good 45 minutes before I decided, what the fuck, I might as well hit the road.

So off I went, back to our empty house in Berkeley to pick up the cats. I caught the two little tired kitties off-guard and managed to get a sedative into each of them without much effort, which is saying something for those of you that have met Eli. The journey was off to a good start.

I officially hit the road at 5 am and quickly realized a bit more separation between vicodin and the road might have been a good idea, as pain and nausea crept in. A banana and Clif Bar helped mildly, and about an hour into the trip I figured a cup of coffee might turn things for the better. Course, at 6 am in BFE, the options are limited. Peets' was far behind and I was desperate. Regardless, I got a cup of what easily could compete for the world's worst cup of joe and put a ThermaCare heat pack on my back. The coffee may have been a bust, but the ThermaCare was a godsend, and likely the only way I completed the trip in one day.

But with it came a complication I hadn't considered. The heat from it made me really drowsy. And the terrible coffee was doing nothing to combat it. So right about the time I was about to call 2 hours of driving a good day's work, I spotted a Starbuck's sign and pulled off the highway. It's not Peets', but it'd do in a pinch. And the timing was extra fortuitous as a strange odor overtook me almost simultaneously as I realized Eli had shat in the cat cage.

So with caffeine in the system and a freshly cleaned cat cage, we were back on the road. The ThermaCare continued to work wonders and I breezed thru the next 5-6 hours pretty easily. But then I hit a wall. The pain was creeping back in and I was getting really tired of staring at the road and gritting thru the pain, so I spent the remained of the 11-hour trip stopping almost every 45 minutes, sometimes to stretch my legs, sometimes to grab a drink, and a couple times to lay down on the lawn at rest stops for 10-minute cat naps. That's me napping, not the cats.

And that was about it. When I write it all down, it really doesn't seem that bad, but it was a serious battle. And I guess that's all I can say about it for now.

Nicole and I are now staying at her parents' place in Lake Oswego as we work on doing a few things to the new house. In theory, we can get our stuff into our new place as early as the 14th, but we'll likely wait awhile until we've at least finished some interior painting and re-tiling the bathroom floor.

And then I'll start exploring Portland for real.