All the World's a Blur

Mar 21, 2007

I'm doing tons of business travel in Washington and Oregon these days. The miles - you have no idea. But, I've learned a few important things:

#1: Highway rest stops in Washington have toilet seat covers and auto-flushers. They also have Wi-Fi and recycle bins and free coffee.

#2: In Eastern Washington, they have a phenomenon called frozen rain, not to be confused with freezing rain. Frozen rain occurs in 50 degree weather and the drops are bigger than sleet, smaller than hail, and light as snow. It looks like millions of tiny styrofoam balls blowing around everywhere. And they make big splats on the windshield. Weird.

#3: If you drive enough miles on enough country roads, you will dream about driving many more miles on strange country roads. There is no rest for the weary traveler.

#4: Audiobooks make the miles disappear. And, as a bonus, they keep those miles from feeling lonely.

#5: A T-mobile day-pass (from Starbucks) can be used at ANY Starbucks during those 24 hours. This means, you can get online in Spokane in the morning, log off for travel & customer visits, and then get back online in Seattle in the evening - without having to pay for access again.

3 Response to "All the World's a Blur"

Anonymous Says:

i've only made it to 1 -- wifi? free coffee??? are there like squatter's camps full of 90's startup dropouts there???

i so live in the wrong state.

knighton Says:

I haven't noticed any tent colonies - probably because it's so darn windy and rainy. It's so windy that the picnic tables have windshields!

And no, you don't live in the wrong state. West of the Cascade mountains it rains ALL THE TIME. And when it's not raining, it's thinking about raining. There is a reason that Seattle has the highest suicide rate in the nation.

Give me Texas any day.

Anonymous Says:

Cool insights! Those rest stops do sound amazing. As opposed to some rest stops in France which have holes in the floor for toilets, with places marked to put your feet...