On Dec 1, my dad and I set out from Austin to drive to Seattle. It was a pretty uneventful drive out toward El Paso except for the wondrous lunch stop along the way: the KFC Buffet/Taco Bell in Fort Stockton. The $6 KFC buffet was so good that I didn’t even get any Taco Bell stuff. “So this is why people bother to live in Fort Stockton,” I said to myself. (There’s not a whole lot in Ft. Stockton…) I have a feeling Chuck and I would have eaten there almost everyday if it was in Austin.

After Fort Stockton, we drove on to Las Cruces, NM, where we spent the night. I remembered staying there on the drive back from my Microsoft internship in 1998, and it was definitely the right place to stop this time. It’s small and cozy compared to El Paso, but has everything you might need, such as a Best Buy to pick up an iPod car charger from. (The $10 charger I got from Fry’s almost fried my iPod. The $25 DLO charger from Best Buy works great.) We stayed at the Best Western Mission Inn for $56 (w/ tax), which included wireless internet, a mini-fridge, a hot breakfast, and a free drink at the bar. They even gave us a downstairs room so we could back the car up to the door of the room to unload our stuff. I highly recommend it.

The next day we drove on through Arizona. It was pretty, but except for Tucson and Phoenix (which we took an alternative route around to avoid traffic), there’s not much going on in AZ.

Upon entering California, I became very excited. In-n-Out Burger is everywhere! (“Mark it 8, Dude!”) I didn’t bother to try to find the “In-n-Out Burger on Radford”, but we ate at the one off I-10 in Burbank. It was a pretty damn good burger, which is good, since there’s nothing else on the menu.

Though I had hoped to make it all the way to Sacramento that day, California is a damn long state, and it wasn’t going to happen. It was dark, rainy, and congested, so we stopped in Bakersfield, CA. We stayed at a place called the Vagabond Inn, also next to an In-n-Out Burger. It was a decent place, but nothing fancy. It had great DIY waffles for breakfast, but the “Imitation Maple-Flavored Syrup” scared me a little.

We started the next day with around 500 miles of CA left to go. In fact, it was dark outside by the time we got to Oregon. I was fairly amazed by the height of the mountain passes, the low temperatures, and the snow in northern CA and southern OR. We’d go from around sea level to over 4000 feet and back within 30 minutes. There was a sign on one summit: Highest Point on I-10 – Elev. 4130. I watched the temperature go from the mid-40s down to 28°F as we reached it.

Though we theoretically could have reached Seattle that day, it would have been around 1am, so we decided to stop around 9pm. We originally planned to stay in Roseburg, OR, but couldn’t easily find the motel we were looking for, so we headed on to the next “town”, which happened to be Rice Hill, OR. It was so small, I can’t even find it now on Google Maps. It consisted of two truck stops, a mechanic shop, an adult shop, and a really nice Best Western.

The next day we arrived in Seattle after about 6 hours of driving. In total, the drive was 2590 miles. We picked up the key for the apartment, unloaded the car, and ate dinner. I wouldn’t normally eat at Pizza Hut, but it’s across the street from my apartment, and we’d had enough driving. Then I took my dad to the airport and came home to get some sleep before my first day at work…