How's life on the shores of the Mississippi? Friday night, I thought of you and your genteel townsfolk as crossed the Mississippi west to east at La Crosse, Wisconsin. I had left LA two Friday's prior, when I wrapped up the job in Los Angeles. The new director of IT, who started the week before I did, might be the most unusual boss I have ever encountered; half the staff had resigned or was terminated within the first month of her arrival. I expressed my choice not to go full time with the agricultural cooperative, and I completed the assignment two weeks after that decision. The beauty of a good bill rate is the freedom one has to live on the money afterwards, and I explored the great northwest on my way home because of this freedom. I am carefully reviewing opportunities, but the two active leads are south of the Mason-Dixon line, in Virginia and South Carolina. Frankly, I would prefer Chicago.
On the way home, I had traveled up the California and Oregon coasts to Portland, stopping in Napa, Sonoma, the Mayacamas, Humboldt County and an amazing Oregon Coast town called Yachats. Somehow, that is pronounced something like Yow hots.
Departing Portland, I drove the Columbia River Gorge on Washington side, and cut through Idaho up the Lochsa River Valley, a path followed by Lewis and Clark, enjoying the solitude of the Bitterroot Mountains wilderness. At the Lolo pass (who swapped the u's for o's?), I entered Montana, overnighting in the mining town of Butte. Butte is adjacent to a range of mountains part of the Continental Divide. A strip mining operation has removed two roots of these mountains, leaving a terraced pair of walls half the height of the range.
Tuesday night, I overnighted in Sheriden, Wyo, after staying up with the locals at the Mint Bar, serving yahoos since 1907. I drove out of Wyo and through South Dakota in a single twenty-four hour drive, a pity, stopping for refreshment and local color in Wall, for the drug store, and Mitchell, for the Corn Palace.
I holed up for a day in Worthington, Minnesota, a border town next to Luverne, Minnesota, a town Ken Burns has made famous by making it one of his four towns in his upcoming documentary on World War II. The winds blow strongly and continuously in 24 miles per hour gusts in Worthington, and wind turbines are popping up on this blustery land along the Buffalo Ridge. I ordered a steak, a mixed green salad with hot bacon dressing and a margarita at one of downtown Worthington's only restaurants of quality. The steak was slightly overdone and the margarita a little too strong, and I got a bill for 5.80. The owner had knocked stuff of the bill without any request from me.
I caught some comedy at a favorite improv house in Chicago, at Halsted and Belmont, near the Blue Man Group's Briar Street Theatre, caught a few tastings in the wine country around St. Joseph, Michigan, and now I find myself adjusting to being home. When in doubt, go to Trader Joe's and stock up, and that's the first step I made this morning. I'm officing at the Kinkos on Woodward in Birmingham, planning my next adventure and reviewing my documentation from the one just closed. I reset the trip odometer last night, clearing the number 8842.
So for now, I am residing at my home address. If you have a moment to mail my passport and the Jack in the Box card, this is the address I'll be checking in the mornings....
Best,
Wandering Wilbo
The Lochsa is Truly A Blue Highway
No comments:
Post a Comment