Spokane

Brief recap of past few days.

Had a very pleasant evening with chefxh, in which he introduced me to rojak, a delightfully stinky Malaysian salad I'd never had before. Rare to taste something genuinely new these days. I continued to my fathers place in BC. Fine dining, his exquisite Martinis, luxury ski condo. He insisted on paying for everything. I don't give a damn about the money but for maybe the first time I really feel the love. Any lack of that feeling in the past was more a failure of receiving than a failure of giving.

Got bad vertigo in the fog, was sick for several hours while snowboarding. Really awful trying to get off the mountain while trying not to puke. Next day had lots of powder and sunshine - glorious. Red Mtn. has some really fucking scary terrain. Love it of course. At one point, got my board so wedged under a fallen tree I had to completely unbuckle in order to free it.

Went back through Medical Lake to pick up the contraband left en route to Canada. Took the backroad route in heavy blizzard. The Element was quite capable but wipers kept icing up, making the trip very stressful. Spokane was a fucking mess, auto carnage everywhere.

Still made it to fleabag motel in time for hot date with local crusty redneck. Damn, this state has a lot of hot guys. Mr. Beer Guy pictured earlier is a characteristic example. Basically a whole lot of Vikings on the dole.

How fleabag? Three out of four light fixtures nonoperational. Fortunately, together with the clerk we got me that one essential reading lamp going. Also, the small room is easily humidified by running hot water in the shower. Humidity has turned out to be a big travel health issue, so im grateful for this.

Tomato Street, right near the motel, is a fantastic cheap Italian place. Everything Olive Garden isnt. Highly recommended.

Dining alone is a great pleasure of being on the road, 3G wireless eliminates any risk of boredom. IMHO, cheap rural fun enabled by the Internet is the future of tourism.

Getting up early tomorrow to try to cross snoqualamie in a blizzard. Hopefully will not ice up as much. Visiting danthered and bitterlawngnome should this prove successful.

Trip has been stressful due to my sister being affected by the Christchurch quake. Her house is structurally sound but their belongings were trashed. No water, and city in ruins. Much worse than Sept quake. After being run out of Fiji in the 2001 coup and losing their NZ possessions in a storage unit fire, I think she's pretty fed up with disaster.

Not prone to conspiracy theories but her location almost exactly on the opposite side of the earth from the LHC has reminded me of the thoroughly discredited theory that the experiments there could create singularities with near zero momentum. Wouldn't it suck if that were true.

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