Road Duel

Tuesday, August 12, 1997

I had a followup appointment with the oral surgeon who did my wisdom teeth. There had been something bothering me between the two teeth back there, which I had thought was a piece of food. It seemed very reluctant to come out, so I thought I'd let him deal with it. He informed me that it was a dissolvable suture that hadn't dissolved! I was glad I hadn't yanked too hard! One snip and it was gone.

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My car was diagnosed by my friendly neighborhood Texaco gas station as having a leaky water pump. The odd smell I noticed was coolant. So I gave them the go-ahead to have it replaced, and two serpentine belts replaced at the same time (to save on labor). Radiator flush and fill was also recommended. I want to get a frequent customer award from these guys! This conversation took place Monday at noontime, and they estimated that the car would be done today at midafternoon.

That worked out fine, because Kate and Glenn were going to pick me up after work and we were driving to the mountains to see the meteors. It turned out that Vonda was with us too. We wound our way up to Snoqualmie Pass with no problems.

After we took a bio-break at the summit, we continued past Lake Kacheeless. There was a sign: Right Lane Closed 4 Mi Ahead Expect Congestion. We could see that there was indeed quite a backup for most of the lenght of the lake. (The lake is an artificial one, long and narrow with a dam at the eastern end.) We were still in two lanes at this point, and traffic was crawling along. After a while we noticed that two semi-tractor trailers were driving along exactly side by side, even though there was some open space in front of them before the back-up started again. We weren't sure exactly why they were doing this, but we thought it might be to prevent speeding up and then having to slam on the brakes.

This turned into the strangest thing I have ever seen on the highway. The cars that were immediately behind the semis were terribly frustrated, and kept trying to swerve over to the shoulder to pass there. The semis were having none of that, and would swerve over themselves to block the impudent automobiles. Lots of honking, and when we came to a complete stop, one of the car drivers actually unbuckled himself, got up, and was shouting at the driver.

Glenn, due to a defensive driving course he took last year, was able to remain calm about all this, and hung back to allow room for whatever it was that was going to happen. Finally we got to the exit we needed, so we didn't see the climax of the story, or if the drivers all shot each other, or what. We were so grateful that this little drama was enacted at about 3 miles per hour, and not highway speeds!

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The campground we were planning on was a few miles down a gravel road. It isn't a place I'd choose for a vacation, but it was very good for the meteor-viewing that we had in mind. We picked a spot and and parked, and had a leisurely evening strolling, feeding the fish in the U-fish pond, and chatting. As it got dark we laid out the tarps, pads, sleeping bags and pillows. The large open area in the middle of the campground was perfect, and the trucks only drove to the gravel pit a few times during the night. We speculated about what kind of business they were really running, since one doesn't dig gravel in the middle of the night. The rural quiet was also punctuated by a pump in an accessory pond that ran several times, sounding very much like a chain saw. (The campground owner had warned us about these noises, and that we would be hearing them more by virtue of the location we had picked.)

It was a very cozy evening, lying all warm in my sleeping bag and chatting. The stars appeared one by one, then Jupiter, then the Milky Way. The satellites raced across the sky, and our geekiness expressed itself by us wishing for smart glasses that would interface with a database that would identify the satellites when we looked at them.

There weren't as many meteors as the first time I made this trip with these friends, but there were enough for a satisfying show. They zipped across the sky in a satisfying way. Just as washing the car is a sure-fire way to bring on the rain, looking away from the sky is guaranteed to bring on the most spectacular fireballs of the evening.

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The original plan was to go back to Seattle in the middle of the night, but we were drowsy enough that we decided to just sleep there. We woke up around six, dew-soaked but well rested. We made our way back down the mountain and joined in the morning commute. We took the carpool lane and ended up in the International District, then they dropped me off at home and I spent the day at home, online and napping. Listening to Talk of the Nation while half asleep really makes for some weird dreams!

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So I picked up the car and went to work. I ended up working almost as many hours as a normal day, just starting at the end of the afternoon.