September 10-11. We got a rough start from Sonoma. After saying all our goodbyes to the Coopers, we got about a mile down the Coopers’ hilly road when we got a call saying that Grace had left all the stuff that Aunt Kelly had given her (wine glasses, quilts, shoes). We turned around and headed back.
After more goodbyes we started out again. This time we got about two miles before I got an urgent call from Kelly, but the signal was bad and I couldn’t make out what she was saying. She sent a text: You must return! We stopped and called again and figured out that Grace’s purse was there. Grace was upset and baffled. How could she have lost her purse? Kelly drove down the hill to where we were. It turned out that the purse had been in Kelly’s car. I had moved it from the rental car, thinking I was putting it in Grace’s car. Dave pointed out that I had spent a week in Grace’s car but apparently didn’t know what it looked like. Grace and Kelly’s cars are both black SUV’s; what can I say?
We were off again. Dave and I were in the rental car, and I wondered how long it would take Grace to figure out that we were not taking the scenic coastal route to Corvallis. It took her about an hour before she called us to ask what had happened. What happened is that we decided not to add another six hours to the trip.
I was a bit discouraged to find us on Route 80 again, but this time driving east. Basically we were going backwards. Why had we done the big detour to San Francisco? In fact, why hadn’t we driven directly to Oregon once we were in Wyoming? I could be home in my own bed, instead of a couple more days away from that. Apparently I was getting weary of road-tripping.
Although not the scenic route, Route 5 wasn’t bad. After miles of almond groves we headed into the mountains, past Mt. Shasta (below, from a distance) and on into Oregon. Southern Oregon had some interesting hilly areas before we got to the broad Willamette Valley, where Grace will be spending the next few years.
After dropping our stuff at the charming Days Inn, we picked up Grace at her new house and met one of her roommates before heading into Corvallis for a nice dinner.
The next day we walked around campus a bit. The undergraduates were not arriving for another week, so it was pretty deserted and most of the buildings were locked. This is the Memorial Union, an enormous building in the center of campus.
We had a successful furniture outing, purchasing a bed, a mattress, a bureau and a desk all at the same place and having it delivered just a few hours later. The owner, who also delivered the furniture, was a former Geology major at OSU and gave Grace helpful earthquake tips. I’ve been worried about earthquakes ever since reading a terrifying piece in The New Yorker about the big one that’s going to hit Oregon. I was happy to see a small mountain range just west of Corvallis, which makes the likelihood of a tsunami reaching Corvallis pretty slim. Still, I’m haunted by the prediction in the article that everything west of Route 5 will be history, and she is definitely west of Route 5.
As an aside, it turns out that Grace’s new home is across the street from a Korean church and there are three Asian markets within a mile, so there was no need for her to have driven across the country with dumplings, Asian sauces and Kimchi.
Dave got weary of helping Grace set up her room, and by around 5 he was hankering to leave for Portland, even though our red-eye flight didn’t leave until 11:30 pm. I was sad to leave, and Grace was sad to see us leave (although she was over it by the next day, when she started making friends). Driving to Portland, I frantically tried to get through my giant bag of professional reading because I definitely was not bringing it back with me, and I had to justify having taken up precious cargo space with it all the way across the country.
Dave and I had dinner at a nice restaurant in Portland and had an uneventful trip back. I listened to the end of the third Harry Potter book before falling asleep on the plane.
It’s a whole lot easier to fly across the country than to drive it for 8+ days. Even so, I do like seeing our vast country with all its variety, drama and quirkiness. I’m glad we did it, and I certainly was glad to have the time with Grace, but once every few decades is enough for me!