Clueless in Seattle

  

      A genius like Albert Einstein can distill the fundamentals of the universe into one poetic, mathematical statement.  Lesser mortals have to be content with a glimpse of a great natural law now and then, most the time when we have violated one.

     I violated one, the one that says, “Thou shalt not take a vacation from the farm in June.” 

     Ultimately, the date was dictated by graduation ceremonies at “You-Dub”, colloquial for “University of W[ashington]”.  Of course, there were other considerations, like a small load of furniture to be hauled or shipped, which came from Honolulu and now rested in Seattle.

     So we saddled up Rocinante II, a 1998 Ford Ranger with 48,000 miles on it, that was pretty much purchased to make this trip.  Rocinante II replaced Rocinante I, the 1992 Dodge Dakota with 200,000+ miles and rather shabby appearance that forbade us to trust it, or be seen in it, maybe.

       We had a hired guide, a Magellan GPS.  It proved to be one of those untrustworthy characters that takes your money, leads you away from civilization and abandons you in the wilderness.  It worked great until we reached Washington.  It showed signs of fatigue in the fruit country where we stopped to visit the nephew. 

    It tried, after several urgings, prompts, and restarts, to lead us to the bedroom the Goodwife found on Airbnb, in Shoreline north of Seattle proper, but I had transposed numbers.  Our reliance on that machine ended right there.  I had Mapquested our Airbnb address.  It was easily found.  The GPS never worked after that.   It couldn’t find itself, let alone direct us.

       There we were, alone in the wilderness of tree-lined streets that twist and curve and dead end, that go up and down hills that put San Francisco to shame, with narrowness that rivals European Medieval towns.  Normally, I would have pulled over at the first wide spot in the road when traffic got heavy, placed the Goodwife in the driver’s seat, grabbed a map and began to navigate.

     I feared for Rocinante’s clutch. I dreaded the killed engine, the rolling backward down the hill during restart, the collision with the car following too close behind at the stop light.  So I drove.  I am a terrible city driver.  I cannot drive and navigate at the same time, too much going on all around me.

     The Goodwife is no navigator.  So there we were, no driver, no navigator, no guide.  We had to call the sister-in-law every morning.  “We are lost.  We are at blank blank and blank blank.  How do we get out of here?”  Finally, Sunday morning, our last try, we found our way to the in-law’s house without an SOS.

     Getting back to our lodging was quite another problem.  Finding our way on to a main artery north was trouble.  There’s nowhere to make a left turn.  The inhabitants know to wind up this hill, take this street, dodge over to that street, come down the hill on the other side of the main drag and merge onto the arterial from the right.  There are no road signs to help you do this maneuver. 

     Three bridges cross the water to take us “home” for the night.  I never figured out how to get onto two of them.  I always got going the wrong way down the street to the third one, but I would drive the half-mile or so to an intersection where I could make a U-turn, and we would find our way to our bedroom.    

      At the first sign of trouble, I should have bought a detailed street map of Seattle and found my way, but honestly, Rocinante had all four wheels back in the great state of Wyoming on our return trip before that thought ever entered my head.  I think the great thinkers, the ones capable of such feats, the Plato’s and Aristotle’s and Einstein’s, must have a way of quelling anxiety, panic, frustration, whatever things get in the way of logical thought.  Logical though was beyond me on this trip.

     We made it there and back.  We accomplished some of the purposes of our journey, bringing back a couple of chairs and “end tables” that were shipped from Honolulu to Seattle where the mother-in-law now resides in an assisted living facility. 

     Plans to go through jewelry, figurines, and pictures had to be abandoned in favor of graduation exercises and celebrations.  We missed the Thursday afternoon ceremony honoring the journalists, one of the niece’s majors, as we were crawling along I-5 towards our lodging.  We made the astronomy program, the second major, on Friday afternoon.  We rode with the in-laws, so I didn’t have to drive!

      On Saturday the boys and the graduate rode the bus to the You-Dub campus for the main ceremony.  The girls took the car to get the graduate’s grandmother, so I avoided driving again.      

     The graduation was held at the football stadium.  The football field was filled with empty chairs when we arrived.  Three hours later, every chair had been filled and emptied, every graduate (6000?)had walked across the stage, we had been addressed by several dignitaries, including Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, a You-Dub graduate.

     Sunday was the day for the family party.  Much of Sunday was taken up getting ready for the party, though the Goodwife, her sister, and mother did have a meeting with a lawyer Sunday morning.  The brother-in-law and I transferred the furniture from the bedroom to Rocinante.  We took our leave from the in-laws Sunday evening as the graduation party wound down.

     Our final attempt to get on the right road in the right direction failed.  I found my U-turn intersection and we found our way to our Airbnb host.

     Monday morning found us creeping south on I-5 to the intersection with I-90.  Safely out of Seattle, we stopped for breakfast.  Our three-day journey homeward had begun. 

     We arrived safe and sound.  Front range traffic congestion seemed mild in comparison with Seattle.  When you get where you are going, you can find a place to park, another real problem in Seattle.

      Meanwhile, back at the farm. . . .