The Travel Diary

I could have avoided arrest altogether at the Chicago O'Hare airport if I had remembered my Nalgene was still half full of water before I made it to Security. But that's just one on a long list of things you learn about yourself and about the world on a trip across the country.

Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 5:45am
Location: Big Rapids, MI

After five days with relatives and too much food in Michigan I need to get on a train bound for Chicago's Union Station. I'm packed and loaded into the car, but Grandma wants me to fit more of "my" food in my backpack, and echoes of my own protestations ("Look, I'll eat the shrimp cocktail and corn on the cob for breakfast, I swear!") are dying in my ear.

The train is full from Grand Rapids to Chicago -- and rumor has it, oversold. This does not stop the family of four seated in front of me from abandoning their entire row of seats to visit the dining car about three minutes before our first stop in Holland, MI. The train stopped and flooded with people, and I defended the family's claim as best I could from ones and twos and threes of people with heavy bags, until finally I abandoned my own seat and proceeded to occupy the family's entire row -- myself on one side of the aisle, John Steinbeck's East of Eden occupying the other side. Stay out, we said, without having to say anything. As the train lurched forward again, I was thinking bitterly that the family wasn't even coming back to their seats at all, but then they arrived, laden with boxed breakfasts and wondering why I was spread across their daughters' chairs.

My own seat had been lost in the deluge, and for my reward I sat near a man who spent the whole journey talking loudly on his cell phone, talking loudly to the book he had brought along for reading, and executing the unsettling practice of cracking his elbow, wherein he threw his arm forward like a whip to hyperextend the joint. I tensed every time.

Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 3:00pm
Location: Chicago O'Hare Airport

Maneuvering through security, I'd extracted my laptop from my bag and laid it in its own tray, remembered to take off my coat and shoes and belt, and was showing an officer the inside of my hat when another showed me my orange nalgene bottle, half full of water, and my spirits fell. I'd spent most of the last two days writing, which brings every possible emotion right up to your skin, and that's the only way I can account for my overly dramatic disappointment in myself -- How could I forget the nalgene! -- which the officials sensed and, not knowing what else to do, sent me to a nearby trashcan to empty the thing and promised I wouldn't have to get back in line.

Well, the bartender in me didn't want to dump 16oz of liquid into a trashcan because I know what it's like to throw it out after too many people have done that. So without processing the implications I actually exited Security and threw the water down a drain.

I dodged back into line, under a barrier, nalgene empty, and was showing my new friend the inside of my hat again, when a police officer skidded to a halt beside me. I looked up at him, affronted. "Did you just almost tackle me?"

He seemed impressed with the quickness of his own reaction, which threw him off. "Yeah," he said simply, at the same time negotiating signal input from the other security employees who were kindly trying to assure him I wasn't a threat.

And then he wandered away.

Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 9:48pm
Location: McCarran Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada

I'm exhausted and starving, and pay as much for my Amber Bock draft as I do for my sandwich.

On the plane, no one else in my row shows up. I can hardly believe my luck and sit patiently through take off before adjusting my seatbelt and wiping out on three US Airways seats.

Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 12:48am
Location: Seattle, WA

United stole my guitar from US Airways, but happily I got it back. I proceeded to sleep fitfully across another conveniently empty row of armrest-free seats in baggage claim. This was not the best idea I've ever had.

Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 5:13am
Location: Seattle, WA

The heck with this. I wander outside into the public transit bay and hop a city bus across town to the Amtrak station and sleep there.

Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 1:20pm
Location: Wenatchee, WA

A four hour bus ride to Wenatchee and I'm nearly there -- an inexpensive intercity bus route will take me the thirty miles further into Chelan, and I go for it. On Highway 97 we pass a small pear orchard and I decide I am in a magical land.

Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 2:45pm
Location: Chelan, WA

I know the ferry won't leave until tomorrow, so I start scouting around for a place to stay. There's nothing here. I find a Forestry Service house, wander in, and absolutely melt down when the girl behind the desk tells me local hotels are easily $150-$250 a night, and no, they don't rent tents there.

I discover I have a singular hatred for Chelan, and get on a bus back to Wenatchee.

Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 6:00pm
Location: Wenatchee, WA

Wandering up Wenatchee Avenue, I try to find a hotel that won't be such a far walk back to Columbia Station in the morning. I find the "Holiday Lodge," check in, and initiate a fantastic bar crawl that includes a British Fish & Chips place where the server gave me a Bass so cold it hurt my hand.

Thursday, August 21
Local Time: 7:45am
Location: Lake Chelan, WA

I brave the busride back over to Chelan and buy a one-way ticket to Lucerne and Holden Village. Shivering on the dock, waiting for the crew to call for boarding, I think uncharitably that this was a really, really stupid idea.