The Road Home

After saying goodbye to The Daughter and The Dogs, we rolled out of Olympia some time after breakfast and hit the road home around 9 am.  The plan for the return trip was to take a more southern route in order to avoid having to drive the rear wheel drive Jeep across the northern Rockies where the roads didn't look to be quite so good.  Besides, I'd never driven that route before, and who really  wants to do a 2,900 mile out-and-back anyway? Of course, that would add a few extra miles to the trip, so I resigned myself to a 4-day drive.  Day 1 was a long trek down I-5 through Washington, Oregon and into California, of which the first 300 miles or so was in a steady rain.  That's when I discovered that there was definitely something amiss with the brakes on the Jeep.  They had just been checked out the week before by the local Jeep dealer who turned the rear drums, installed new pads and "inspected" the front brakes, declaring them to be fine.  Well, I guess one of the rotors must have been warped because you could feel the brake pedal pulsating, and any time hard braking was required meant a shaking steering wheel and questionable stopping power.  For the rest of the trip I tried to avoid having to use the brakes - sort of like riding a criterium.

Unfortunately, as night fell we found ourselves driving over a few mountain passes, including Grants Pass and Mount Shasta, both of which were completely enveloped in dense fog. This made for some slow and cautious driving, and gave me a whole new appreciation for fog lights.  Anyway, we made it down into California safely for the night, logging somewhat fewer miles than I'd hoped, but considering the weather I couldn't really complain. 

The next day's drive had us on state highway for a long time as we dropped down through Modesto and Bakersfield, picking up I-40 for the long drive East.  The rest of the day and most of the next involved long stretches of desert interrupted by relatively short mountain crossings.  By then, though, the weather was clear and the temperatures were mild, so it was pretty easy going even though there was quite a bit of snow on the ground at the higher elevations.  Much this stretch through Arizona and New Mexico was between 3,000 and 5,000 feet which I guess I would have to call "high desert." A fair amount of the way, the interstate ran more or less parallel to, or actually replaced, historic Route 66.  For the last few hours I was battling dangerous crosswinds that were reported to be in the 35-45 mph range.  That required constant attention to the steering wheel but compared to our earlier drive over the continental divide at night in a snowstorm, it was a piece of cake.

Our final stop was in Wichita Falls, TX where we spend New Year's eve in a hotel alongside the interstate.  I was asleep by 10:30 pm.  The last day's drive down through Dallas put me finally on familiar roads and was uneventful as we cruised through Shreveport and down past Alexandria to meet up with I-10 at Lafayette.  We made good time and arrived at home around 7 pm showing 2,957 miles on the trip computer.  It was an interesting trip for sure.

Naturally a cold front came through that night and so Monday morning was cold and windy.  I didn't really give much consideration to riding on Monday.  I had a lot of stuff to take care of and needed a little recovery time anyway.  This morning, despite the cold and wind, I forced myself out the door for my first ride in a week.  I didn't expect to see anybody else up on the levee, and really didn't want to jump in the deep end, training-wise, anyway, so I was glad to come across Donald and Luke near the playground.  We kept a nice easy pace out to the parish line and back, which was just what I needed.  I guess I'll find out how much damage my nearly two weeks of sitting on my butt really did.